A Gilded Age Musicale

2025 Gala Performance

The curtain descends on our summer season with an elegant recreation of a Gilded Age vocal recital featuring the dazzling Polish-Canadian coloratura soprano Karoline Podolak, joined by pianist Michael Clement.

Marcella Sembrich’s lakeside studio, adorned with garland and candlelight, serves as the setting for this Gilded Age recital of songs and arias from opera and operettas of the era, including several virtuosic selections from Sembrich’s own repertoire, including “Sempre libera” from Verdi’s La Traviata, the aria with which Sembrich concluded her operatic career on February 9, 1909.