International Tenor John Easterlin

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John has established himself as one of international opera’s most exciting, diverse, and unparalleled performers.

A five time Grammy Award recipient, with four listings in the Guinness Book of World Records, his international opera credits include multiple productions with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Royal
Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, Beijing Opera in China, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia, in addition to the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera, Washington National Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Florida Grand Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and Dallas Opera. John created the role of Andy Warhol, in the world premiere tour of the Philip Glass opera The Perfect American, and Larry King, in the U.S. premiere of the Anthony Turnage opera Anna Nicole, for BAM's Next Wave Festival. A soloist with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dayton Philharmonic, American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's at both Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden, his additional opera and concert appearances include the Glimmerglass, Ravinia, Spoleto, Salzburg, Saito Kinen, and Merida festivals. Recipient of the Emmy, Olivier, Gramophone, and Diapason D’Or L’Année awards, John has appeared in Broadway's three longest running musicals: Ubaldo Piangi in The Phantom of the Opera, Timon in The Lion King, and Mary Sunshine in Chicago. A Master Puppeteer and Certified Magician, (member of The Magic Circle and The Society of American Magicians), his  television credits include Manifest, Severance, The Gilded Age, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Law and Order.

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Cast – Links to Bios

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Nicole Woodward

(Rosalinda von Eisenstein)

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John Robert Green

(Dr. Falke)

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Sara LeMesh

(Adele)

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Rachel Deatherage

(Orlofsky)

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Dylan Davis

(Alfred)

Ian Bethmann

(Frank)

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David Smolokoff

(Dr. Blind)

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Alexandra Branton

(Sally)

Aidan Babbitt

(Frosch)

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Production Team: Die Fledermaus 2026

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​​Joseph Pucciatti Cofounder | Producer | Conductor

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A Trenton-born pianist, teacher, conductor, and composer, Joseph cofounded Boheme Opera NJ with his wife Sandra in 1989 – this season renamed The State Opera of New Jersey. He is in his 37 th season at the artistic helm of the company. During his tenure, he has conducted multiple performances of 28 of the legendary works of the opera repertoire for the main stage. In 2007. Joseph made his directing debut with Verdi’s Rigoletto, which David Shengold of Opera News described as “an intriguing staging, providing some moments of real frisson”. In 2008, Joseph collaborated with former Artistic Director of American Repertory Ballet Graham Lustig in their critically acclaimed production of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. In 2012, he directed and conducted the company’s debut of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, introducing HD technology to BONJ’s main stage via original artwork and animation created exclusively for the company by virtual master J. Matthew Root, who continues to imagine new virtual sets for the company. A lifetime educator, Joseph retired in July 2023 after completing 45 years as a career music teacher for the Trenton Board of Education. A staunch advocate of instrumental music in the public schools, he founded the Trenton Central High School Orchestra in 1995, which was nominated for an Educational Grammy in 2019. In 2021, Joseph was the Recipient of the Community Engagement Award presented by Princeton University and The Pace Center for Civic Engagement. In 2022, the Princeton University Department of Music established a new prize: the Joseph Pucciatti Prize for Community Engagement in the Arts. The prize is awarded annually to a graduating Princeton University senior whose love of community, artistic imagination and passion for mentorship – all qualities embodied by Joseph – have expanded access to the arts. In the 2023-2024 season, Joseph joined the Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra as its Concert Orchestra conductor, and the following season, became Artistic Director and Conductor of its Symphonic Orchestra.

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Sandra Pucciatti Cofounder | Managing Director | Pianist

Philadelphia-born pianist and opera lecturer, Sandra Pucciatti has appeared as piano soloist, as duo-pianist, and as featured performer with orchestra, in chamber music ensembles and in master classes in the United States and Canada, highlights of which include New York’s American Landmark Festival, Manhattan’s Dalcroze School, the Torrance Performing Arts Center in California and the Ignatieff Theatre in Toronto. She produced and performed a national tour with the East-West Piano Duo, formed with her long-time colleague Sylvia Ho Lau. As a professional accompanist of both vocal and instrumental repertoire, Sandra has collaborated with some of opera’s most distinguished artists in recital, most notably the late legendary bass Jerome Hines. In 1989, together with her husband Joseph, she co-founded Boheme Opera NJ, now The State Opera of New Jersey. In her role as Managing Director since 1997, Sandra has established working collaborations with many of New York’s well-known artist management agencies, seeking out and discovering emerging artists of great potential to perform with the company. She is the creator and presenter of the company’s periodic curriculum based Inside Opera Program. A Summa Cum Laude graduate of both Temple University School of Music with Bachelor of Music and Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) with Master of Arts, she is a protégé of the late Karl Ulrich Schnabel. Sandra is the principal pianist for TSONJ’s active outreach programming.

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Alison Bolshoi  Assistant Artistic Director | Die Fledermaus Stage Director

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Alison comes from a theater family and background and has a degree in Theater & Film with a concentration

in Directing and Shakespeare. She directed plays at Chautauqua, NY right out of college, as well as ran a playreading group at NYU and directed plays for Professors Emeritus Walter Miller and William Packard at NYU, many moons ago. Ms. Bolshoi then went into operaas a singer and is still a working singer today, having performed thrice as a soloist at Carnegie Hall with MidAmerica Productions, at Cesky-Krumlov Festival in Prague, at The Dallas Opera, The Liceu in Barcelona, and many more acclaimed houses, including Boheme Opera, where she has performed Amneris in AIDA, the Witch in HANSEL UND GRETEL, the title role of CARMEN, and Azucena in IL TROVATORE. Ms. Bolshoi is a recipient of numerous grants from The Wagner Society of NY and The American Wagner Society and is a winner of The Liederkranz Wagner Award and the Gerda Lissner Award. Through her work as Assistant Artistic Director of The State Opera of NJ, Ms. Bolshoi decided to revive her talents as a stage director and is thrilled to bring her gifts to our DIE FLEDERMAUS. 

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Delia Vayansky  Production Manager

Delia works with Princeton University Triangle Club, as well as local theatre and opera
companies. She has been a core member of Boheme Opera NJ's production staff for over 20 years, joining it as Assistant Stage Manager, moving up to Principal Stage Manager and then becoming Production Manager in 2019. From 1990 to 2004, she was Assistant Production Manager at McCarter Theatre. She then joined Princeton University's Richardson Auditorium staff as Associate Director, and in 2007 was named Director of the facility. A skilled arts administrator, Delia is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Her memories include a love for school and appreciation of all her teachers. Recalling her childhood education, she offers special thanks to Bill Berresford (4th-12th Grade Band),

Alene York (1st-12 th Grade Dance) and Chris Cummings, Rita Winrow and Jane Wilson for conspiring to get

her involved in theatre in the first place.

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Milan Eldridge | Stage Manager

Milan is a stage manager, filmmaker and theater designer who is fascinated by the ways these different disciplines can interact, inform and influence each other. She is passionate about exploring real-world themes and events through attentive storytelling. Currently, she is the Assistant Stage Manager for the Program in Theater and the Program in Music Theater at Princeton University's Lewis Center for the Arts. Recent stage management credits include the
2024 Princeton Dance Festival (Assistant Stage Manager; Princeton University), Anonymous (Stage Manager; Princeton University), How to Eat an Orange (Stage Manager; La MaMa), From Wind to Wonder! (Stage Manager, Princeton University) and The Winter's Tale [Public Works musical adaptation] (Stage Manager; Princeton University).

This is Milan’s second full season with our company.

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Matthew Lewandowski | Lighting Designer

Touring has taken Matthew throughout the Americas, the Far East, and Europe serving in various capacities for tours such as Cats, Crazy for You, Disney on Ice and as Director of Production and Lighting Designer/Director for the international dance company, Shen Wei Dance Arts. Design credits include work at Harlem’s Apollo Theater with the New York Hip-Hop Theatre Fest, New Year’s Eve at the Hammerstein Ballroom with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah,
various works with Dance CT/Hartford Ballet, The University of Hartford as well as Shen Wei’s Collective Measures, premiering at The American Dance Festival. In 2024 he was awarded the Lehigh Valley Press ABE Award for Best Lighting Design (The Last Five Years). Additional management credits include Music@Menlo, the New York Music Theatre
Festival, American Repertory Ballet, North Carolina Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Performance Garage and the TONY Award winning, Crossroads Theatre Company. Matthew holds an MBA (Fox School of Business, Temple University) and a Bachelor of Music from the Hartt School in Music Direction, Conducting, Accompaniment and Technology for Theatre. He is a proud native son of Philadelphia.

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J. Matthew Root | Virtual Set Artist & Designer

Matt is an artist, designer, animator, illustrator and programmer, as well as a musician, writer and actor in his rare free moments. He has nearly twenty-five years of experience in both traditional and digital illustration and design for all media. His expertise also includes animation and video editing, and complete web design, from concept to computer screen: design, architecture and programming. Matt has been honored with a number of awards for his
creativity and ability to give physical life to his imagination. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts,
Cum Laude, from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has been an extraordinary asset to

Boheme Opera NJ, and now The State Opera of New Jersey, on virtual formats and the application of new branding concepts. Matt has designed The Magic Flute, Faust, La Traviata, La Boheme, Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, Aida, Rigoletto, Hansel and Gretel and Il Trovatore. This is his virtual debut for Die Fledermaus.

Visit his website​

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Jason Milstein | Technical & Sound Designer

Jason Milstein is a film producer, sound editor and postproduction supervisor. His first collaboration with Boheme Opera NJ was in 2012 for The Magic Flute. Jason has since returned for productions of Faust (2013), La Traviata (2014), La Boheme (2015), Carmen (2016), The Barber of Seville (2017), Lucia di Lammermoor (2017), the double bill of Cavalleria Rusticana
(2018) and Pagliacci (2018), Aida (2019), Rigoletto (2022), Hansel and Gretel (2022),

MadamaButterfly (2023), Carmen (2024) and Il Trovatore (2025).
 

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Anthony Wurtz | Costume Designer

Anthony Wurtz has been costuming for over eleven years in PA and NJ and has worked on many community and semiprofessional productions at Kelsey Theatre, Barnstormers, and Clocks and Daggers, along with high schools and operas. He has been nominated at the Perry Awards for his past productions of Boy from Oz, Around the World in 80 Day, and Beauty and the Beast for which he won a Kelsey Award for Best Costumes. His years doing costumes have
set his style aside from others. Outside of costumes, he has done wigs and makeup for productions and many horror locations. He would like to thank his better half Brian and his family and friends for all their love and support.

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Patricia DelSordo | Wig, Hair, & Makeup Designer

Patricia has been Boheme Opera NJ's (now The State Opera of New Jersey’s) Wig, Hair, and Makeup Designer for over 25 years, lending her outstanding design talents to operas including Tosca, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Boheme, La Traviata, Carmen, Hansel and Gretel, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Madama Butterfly, the company's 2025 new production of

Il Trovatore, and many more. Among her other notable work was her opera design of Susannah with Palm Beach
Opera. For 15 years, she was the designer at North Carolina Theater for Miss Saigon, Lou Diamond Phillips, Les Miserable, Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Grease, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Dream Girls, Into the Woods, Little Mermaid and more. Additionally, she designed for five years at Casa Manana Theater in Fort Worth, Texas for Sweeney Todd with Norm Lewis,
Annie with Andrea McArdle as Miss Hannigan, and Driving Miss Daisy with Sandi Duncan. Patricia has been affiliated with Barton College in North Carolina and for five years at Fort Worth Country Day School.

“It's a privilege to do what I do. Thank you Joe and Sandy for your trust.”

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Jeff Cantor | Associate Production Manager | Carpenter

Jeff has been building and designing theater sets for nearly two decades, mostly as Master Carpenter for Maurer Productions OnStage (MPO) at Kelsey Theater as well as the West Windsor Plainsboro High School South (WWPHSS) Drama Program. Notable sets include Noises Off | 2019 Perry Award for Set Design, Around the World in 80 Days | 2016 Perry Award for Outstanding Production of a Play, and Aida | 2012 Perry Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical. Other favorites were making it rain on stage for MPO's production of 'Singing in the Rain', multiple productions of Brighton Beach Memories for both MPO and WWPHSS, as well as Sunday in the Park with George for Pinn Worth Productions at Kelsey Theater. In recent seasons, Jeff had the honor of joining the Boheme Opera NJ team,

now The State Opera of New Jersey and bringing physical sets into being to augment the company’s wonderful virtual sets. Many thanks to Joe and Sandy Pucciatti for these new opportunities and the wonderful fellowship.

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Laura Isabella | Chorus Master

Laura Isabella is thrilled to return as chorus master for The State Opera of New Jersey’s Die Fledermaus. Ms. Isabella has worked all over the Tri-State area with Opera on Tap, Garden State Singers, Operallora, CoOPERAtive, to name a few. In addition to performing, Ms. Isabella is a passionate voice and piano teacher. Ms. Isabella also runs Redivivus Opera, a small grassroots opera company. She relishes any opportunity to support her fellow singers, both on
and off stage, and connect with her community at large. Ms. Isabella holds a Master of Music in
Vocal Performance and Pedagogy with distinction from Westminster Choir College and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Nazareth University. She also holds a Certificate of Leadership from the

Eastman Leadership Academy at the Eastman School of Music.

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Xiyu Deng | Principal Rehearsal Pianist

Dr. Xiyu Deng received her Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Manhattan School of Music. She began studying the piano at the age of five. She has performed as a soloist throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States at the internationally notable concert halls such as Carnegie's Zankel Hall, Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center in New York City, New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in Boston, and Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

She was awarded top prizes at the BNP Paribas, Rising Star; Piano Festival in 2013, New England Conservatory Honors Competition in 2016 and the second prize in Open Class at the 17th Hong Kong | Asia Piano Open Competition in 2012.

She pursued her Bachelor of Music degree at the Central Conservatory of Music as a student of Dr. Bo Tong,

and Master of Music degree with Dr. Gabriel Chodos at the New England Conservatory. This is Xiyu’s second season with our company, now The State Opera of New Jersey.

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Sid Morginstin | Supernumerary

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Sid Morginstin is our perennial supernumerary. He has appeared with the chorus – mouthing words and NOT singing – many productions. Sid is the company’s Recording Secretary and handles various tasks as needed. Sid is a stamp collector and a dealer. He also works for Six Flag Great Adventure (sorry, no free passes). He and his wife,
Helene Reiss are now celebrating their fifth anniversary.

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 The State Opera of New Jersey

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