LOVE at Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center

Mark Diamond is a highly sought after lyric baritone and voice teacher. This season, he performs with Austin Opera, Dallas Winds, and Texas Music Festival, among others. Known for his versatility, he excels in a wide array of operatic roles, concert works, and choral music. Highlights include featured performances with Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, and with orchestras such as Cincinnati Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic. Mark is a competition winner and recipient of several prestigious awards, including first prize at the HGO Concert of Arias in 2011. Earning his degrees from Georgia Southern University, Rice University, and University of Houston, Dr. Diamond currently teaches at Baylor University while maintaining an active performing career.

Donna Bella Litton is a singer and stage and voice actor thrilled to once again work with Mercury Chamber Orchestra. Previous theatre credits include A Christmas Carol (Alley Theatre); Chopin’s Letters (Mercury Chamber Orchestra); Sensitive Guys, NSFW (Stages Repertory Theatre); Pulsate a Vampire Musical (Prohibition Theater); Side Show, Elf the Musical (Queensbury Theater); Talk Radio (Dirt Dogs Theatre Co.); Firerock: Pass the Spark (Littleglobe Theatre); Banned Together annual cabarets 2018 and 2019; student play festivals 2019, 2021, and 2022 (Dirt Dogs Theatre Co.). Donna Bella graduated from Santa Fe University of Art and Design in 2018 with a BFA in musical theatre. She posts updates and videos from performances on Instagram @billy__donna. She sends love to her parents, sisters, partner, and pets for their endless and unconditional support.

In 25/26, American mezzo-soprano Sarah Mesko returns to Houston Grand Opera for Il trittico (La maestra delle novizie) and to The Metropolitan Opera for a new production of I puritani (Enrichetta cover). In 24/25, she made her Lyric Opera of Chicago mainstage debut in Le nozze di Figaro (Marcellina) and debuted with Sag Harbor Song Festival as a guest soloist in its 2024 concerts. Other recent engagements include her Vancouver Opera debut as Carmen (title role) and a return to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for Julius Caesar (title role). On the concert stage, she debuted with the Houston Chamber Choir and Orchestra in the world premiere of Daniel Knaggs’s The Joyful Mysteries. She has also returned to Houston Grand Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for Carmen (title role) and to The Metropolitan Opera for Rodelinda (Eudige). Additional Met appearances include Semiramide (Arsace), Carmen (Mercédès), covering the title role in Agrippina, Die Zauberflöte (Zweite Dame), Il trovatore (Ines), and covering Cendrillon (Le Prince Charmant). Mesko made her Met debut in The Magic Flute (Second Lady) and appeared nationwide with the Met’s Rising Stars concert tour. She made her role debut as Carmen with Washington National Opera in the Cafritz Young Artist performance. Her European debut came in Paris in Lully’s Armide (La Sagesse/Sidonie) with Mercury Baroque and the Théâtre de Gennevilliers. On the concert stage, some of Mesko’s appearances include the National Symphony Orchestra under Tito Muñoz, Handel’s Hercules (Dejanira) with the Oregon Bach Festival, Alexander Nevsky with the Columbus and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras under Marin Alsop, and Mozart’s Requiem with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra.

Len Torrie is a Montréal-based soprano, singer-songwriter, and performance curator known for their crystalline tone, expressive versatility, and storytelling depth. A sought-after soloist, Len performs regularly with leading early music ensembles including L’Harmonie des Saisons, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, and Ensemble Caprice. Len holds a master’s degree in early music vocal performance from McGill University, where they studied under Suzie LeBlanc and Dominique Labelle. Internationally, Len has trained with the Accademia Europea dell’Opera and the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart. They are one-third of the medieval trio COMTESSA, where they sing and play citole and Anglo-Saxon lyre. A queer, non-binary artist, Len draws on the wisdom of queer elders and ancestors in their research and performance of radically inclusive stories. Their work bridges early music and contemporary folk, with a growing focus on self-accompaniment on period and modern instruments.

A French writer, choreographer and director for the stage and screen, Pascal Rambert received the received the Theater Prize from the Académie Française in 2016 for his entire body of work. Among the affiliated institutions he worked closely with Paris Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and the National Theater of Strasbourg. Rambert’s theatre plays and choreographies have been produced by structure, supported by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, and staged in Europe, North America, Asia, Russia, South America, Middle East. His writings (theatre, stories and poetry) are published in France and translated, published and staged more than 20 languages around the world. His dance pieces, including Memento Mori (2013) created with lighting designer Yves Godin, have been performed at major festivals and contemporary dance festivals in Europe as well as New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles. One of Rambert’s career highlights is Clôture de l’amour (Love’s End) (2011), whose script won the prize for public theater in the Theater 2013 – Dithea competition, the prize for best new French-language play from the Syndicat de la Critique (Critics’ Union) in 2012, and the Grand Prize for dramatic literature from the Centre national du théâtre (National Theater Center) in October, 2012. Clôture de l’amour has been staged more than 180 times in France and much more all over the world, and translated in 23 languages. Another notable play is Répétition (Rehearsal) (2014), presented as part of the Festival d’Automne in Paris, which won Rambert the 2015 annual prize for literature and philosophy at the Académie Française. Other acclaimed works in the past decade include Avignon à vie (Avignon for Life), De mes propres mains (With My Own Hands), Argument, Une vie (A Life), Actrice (Actress), Reconstitution, Nos Parents (Our Parents) and Christine. In 2019, Soeurs (Sisters) premiered in France, followed closely by the Spanish version, Hermanas. In the same year, Rambert was Visiting Belknap Fellow in the Humanities and Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University. In 2022, he created his new play Sowane written for Egyptian actresses and actors during the D-CAF Festival in Cairo (EGY), and adapted his play Finlandia created in Madrid in 2022 for Israel Elejalde and Irene Escolar in French version with Victoria Quesnel and Joseph Drouet at The Bouffes du Nord Theater in Paris (FR). In 2025 he created the Mexican version of Ranger, and the first part of his French trilogy Les conséquences at the TNB in ​​Rennes, which will tour in Paris at the Théâtre de la Ville as part of the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Annecy and Nice. He will recreate Soeurs with Audrey Bonnet and Victoria Quesnel in 2026.

Antoine Plante, Artistic Director and co-founder of Houston-based Mercury Chamber Orchestra, is praised by audiences and musicians alike for his conducting verve and innovative programming, bringing music to life with accessibility and depth. "Plante led his orchestra, the choir and the soloists in an impressive account of the Requiem: authoritative, vigorous, emotionally intense, at times utterly gripping,” said Charles Ward of the Houston Chronicle. Under his artistic direction, Mercury has experienced remarkable audience growth and Plante has become known for his deftness in balancing a great works repertoire with lesser-known pieces and new orchestrations. His exciting musicality has made him an audience favorite, as evidenced by Mercury’s subscription renewal rate of over eighty percent and the orchestra’s need to move to ever-larger halls. A passionate supporter of classical music education, Plante has guided Mercury’s music education programs, a significant effort that includes classroom music education in under-served schools, master classes for school orchestras, and performances for schoolchildren. Plante has also earned a reputation for coaching musicians in period performance technique. Musicians that have worked with him form the core of Houston's spirited early music scene. Plante is experienced in directing orchestral pieces as well as works for voice, and has conducted several operas and ballets. He has collaborated with noted director Pascal Rambert to produce a modern staged version of Lully’s Armide, performed to critical acclaim in Paris and Houston; with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater to create a score for the Dominic Walsh ballet Romeo and Juliet; and with Tara Faircloth to create the original multi-disciplinary production Loving Clara Schumann. Recently, Plante has conducted Handel’s complete Messiah and Water Music, as well as Mozart’s Requiem and Bach's St. Matthew Passion. His opera repertoire includes Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Vivaldi’s Montezuma and Handel’s Rodelinda. In addition to Baroque pieces, his repertoire includes Classical works such as Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn symphonies. He has been guest conductor of Chanticleer, the San Antonio Symphony, Ecuador National Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Grand Opera, Oregon Bach Festival and Atlanta Baroque.

Elisabeth Bancroft Wessel Meindl is an artist, lecturer, writer, and creative curator working across performance, education, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Active in professional and educational theatre since 2003, she brings over two decades of experience supporting live performance across theatre, musical theatre, opera, dance, and hybrid forms. Her early training in dance, piano, voice, and performance continues to inform how she listens, moves, and makes work in collaboration with others. She has called and supported more than sixty productions and events and has worked with organizations including Theatre Under the Stars, Unity Theatre, Rice University, Mercury Baroque, The Alley Theatre, and Théâtre de Gennevilliers. Her work emphasizes clarity, care, and the often-invisible human relationships that allow collaborative art-making to function with integrity. Alongside her theatrical practice, she is a writer and educator with a background in research and philosophy. Her practice now extends into technology and artificial intelligence, where she explores how code and computational systems alter the conditions of creativity, authorship, and care. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Religion from Principia College and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. She is the creator of Creative Refuge Group, an interdisciplinary practice dedicated to collaborating with and cultivating sustainable, reflective spaces for artists, educators, and community leaders.