Jul 13, 2009
12:00 AM
The Life

OperaArts Launches Website

OperaArts Launches Website

Palm Springs, CA – Arlene Rosenthal, president of OperaArts, is pleased to announce the launching of the nonprofit’s newly designed website at OperaArts.org .  OperaArts is a nonprofit organization whose goals are to bring quality music, specifically Opera and Operetta to the public at large, accompanied by fine displays of the visual arts.
 
“Our hope is to engender the appreciation of all of these art forms in people who have never had the opportunity to enjoy them,” says Rosenthal, “and to offer those in the Coachella Valley more opportunities to hear fine music.”

OperaArts was created from the collaborative efforts of a small consortium of community residents and opera aficionados. They bring with them years of experience with Opera and Art, and the desire to share this with others. It will strive to present many events over the years, with some offered free to the public and others to act as fundraisers. OperaArts is not membership based, and welcomes all who wish to participate in our events.
 
Samples of upcoming OperaArts programs include: Baritone Gonzalez and Soprano Robin Farnsley on July 21, 2009 at the Rancho Mirage Public Library; Sing to Love: An Evening of Operetta, Broadway and Opera on December 4, 2009 At the Annenberg Theater; Musical Folderol on December 8, 2009 at the Joslyn Senior Center; a piano virtuoso and two opera singers dinner and show on January 23, 2010 at Marrakesh Country Club, Festival of Opera and Art on April 11, 2010 at Desert Civic Center Park; and Opera Under the Stars on April 17, 2010 at Renaissance Esmeralda Hotel.
 
CONTACT:  Arlene Rosenthal P.O. Box 5433  Palm Springs, CA 92263
Phone: (760) 323-8353  E-mail: RoseOperaArts@aol.com  or  http://operaarts.org 

 
  OperaArts Board of Directors

Arlene Rosenthal - President
Karen H. Hall - Treasurer
Le McClellan - Secretary
Kira K. Klatchko - Director
Eva Cohon - Director
Kimberly Nichols - Director
Iby Laslo - Advisory Board
Geri Sorrentino Hoefer - Advisory Board

ABOUT THE BOARD:

  Arlene Rosenthal - President
Arlene grew up in Southern California and graduated from U.C.L.A. She began her teaching career in Los Angeles and later moved to the Bay Area where she taught school for several years. Her first introduction to Opera was in elementary school when she attended a performance of Hansel & Gretel. This experience convinced her that the world of sports was far more preferable. It was later in San Francisco at a performance of La Boheme that she began to fall in love with Opera. She moved to the desert for the peace and quiet and settled on five acres where she could listen to Saturday performances of the MET, stereo cranked as loud as desired. She became involved with the Palm Springs Opera Guild and served on the Board and chaired the annual Vocal Competition for eighteen years. Opera in the Park was her love, which she produced annually for ten years. In 2008 Arlene decided it was time to leave the Guild. She was approached by others who wished to start an organization that would serve more Valley cities and OperaArts was brought to be. Arlene has owned her own custom-clothing company, Rosenthal of Palm Springs for twenty years. She has spent years raising money for non-profit organizations, either organizing fund-raisers or serving on their Boards. She currently serves on the Board of The Well in the Desert, as President, and is on the Museum Associates Council Board.
 

 
  Karen H. Hall - Treasurer
Karen has held senior management positions with top level corporations and has successful operated her own business. She has experience and a solid track record in sales and designing creative concepts in promotional and marketing programs for the domestic and international market place. Karen's experience in the consumer goods arena has spanned more than twenty-five years in both the buying area as the Corporate Buyer for the largest drug chain in the U.S.A., Walgreen Drug, based in Chicago, where she had buying responsibility for an $80 million department and in the consumer sales end of the business as the Senior Vice President - Sales/Marketing, Worldwide with Vidal Sassoon, Inc., based in Los Angeles. During her 7-year tenure with Vidal Sassoon, Karen created the sales and distribution system for the U.S.A. market and developed the marketing platform for system merchandising and promotions for the mass market retailer which is today the standard for all major retailers and consumer manufacturers. She successfully created and executed marketing programs for the international market which was executed in more than 50 countries. This resulted in strong world-wide market penetration and a growth rate from $16 million in the first year to more than $250 million in the seventh year. She was President of an international marketing company, Sales Concepts, which identified potential business opportunities for both domestic and international clients. Her responsibility included formulating business and marketing blueprints for the company's clientele and negotiating all contractual relationships. The clientele roster included such international companies as Jardine Group, Hong Kong and Japan; Ripcosa, Ltd., Germany; International Buyers Group, U.S.A.; and the China National Cereal, Oil and Foodstuff Company (representing the Chinese Government). Karen Hall's successful track record and background have given her creative insight and knowledge in the marketing arena and an extensive management, administrative and P&L background. In each and every one of her endeavors, she has successfully produced an imaginative and solid business approach.
 

 
  Kira K. Klatchko - Director
Kira is a Senior Associate in BB&K’s Indian Wells office. She is an appellate practitioner handling both state and federal appeals arising from all areas of civil practice, ranging from general civil procedure and municipal law to marital dissolution and probate. Ms. Klatchko has been named to the 2009 list of Super Lawyers Rising Stars for Southern California. She is a member of her State and local bar associations, and has served three terms as Chair of the Riverside County Bar Association Appellate Section. She is Vice-Chair of the Best Best & Krieger Appellate Group, and routinely lectures on topics in appellate law. She was recently appointed to a three year term on the State Bar of California's Standing Committee on Appellate Courts, and will begin serving in mid-September 2009. Ms. Klatchko received her B.A. in Political Science, with distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her J.D. at the University of California, Davis, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the UC Davis Journal of Juvenile Law & Policy, and acted as a teaching assistant in both legal research and civil procedure courses. After graduating from law school Ms. Klatchko began practicing law in her family firm, Klatchko & Klatchko, Attorneys at Law, in Palm Springs, thereafter she accepted a position with Best, Best, & Krieger. Her practice centers on Civil Litigation and Appeals. Ms. Klatchko is a volunteer mediator at the Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, and conducts private mediations as part of the Riverside County Court's Civil Mediation Panel. She is a member of the Council of Appellate Lawyers, the Ninth Circuit Pro Bono Panel, and the Warren E. Slaughter and Richard I. Roemer Chapter of the American Inns of Court. Ms. Klatchko is a proud member of numerous clubs and organizations in the Coachella Valley. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Desert Foundation of Academics, Indian Wells Athena Awards, Angel View Crippled Children’s Foundation, and several other community-based organizations.
 

 
  Iby Laslo - Advisory Board
This Hungarian-born dramatic soprano, began her serious musical education at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest. While at the Academy she soon became a soloist in the Hungarain National Ensemble, and her interpretations of the Bartok and Kodály classics based upon Hungarian folk music, opened for her the gates to the Eastern and Western worlds, resulting in concert tours of Romania, Russia, China and North Africa. Her last semester at the Academy was interrupted by the Hungarian Revolution, and she immediately went to Western Europe and completed her studies in Munich and the conservatories in Paris and Salzburg. Then began her operatic career with engagements in Lûbeck and Bremen, and guest appearances throughout Germany, performing in major cities including Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Kassel, under the stage name of Violetta Vary. Because of the timbre and wide range of her voice, her repertoire extends from the heavy Wagnerian roles of Brûnnhilde, Isolde and Senta to dramatic roles such as Turandot, Santuzza, Ariadne, Leonora (La Forza del Destino), Aida and Tosca. Upon coming to the United States she landed in New York and soon was invited to perform in Los Angeles at a birthday celebration for her Professor, Zoltan Kodály. Upon seeing the beauty of Southern California she decided to establish her home here. Later she married Victor Laslo, an engineer and intellectual property lawyer. She was then engaged by the Bremen Opera, so they went back to Germany for a few years. Upon returning home to California she made concert appearances, under her married name, with the Long Beach Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, and operatic appearances as Brûnnhilde in the Seattle Opera production of Die Walkûre, and as Ortrud in Southern California productions of Lohengrin. She and her husband are now retired and living in Palm Desert, where she is actively participating in the public presentation of musical and operatic events.
 

 
  Geri Sorrentino Hoefer - Advisory Board
Acclaimed for her interpretation of Spanish repertoire, Geraldina Sorrentino, is a gifted recitalist, concert artist and operatic performer. Formerly on the voice faculties of Seattle Pacific University and Pacific Lutheran University, she has performed in Portugal, Holland, Germany and France, and has been a featured artist with Northwest Symphony Orchestras, the Laguna Beach Music Festival and the Ojai Music Festival. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, she was a winner of the First Manuel Garcia International Competition. Some of her operatic roles were Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni”, Countess Almaviva in “Le Nozze di Figaro”, the Old Maid in “The Old Maid and the Thief”, Medea in “The Medead”, Concepcion in “L’heure Espagnole”, and Madame de Croissy in “The Dialogues of the Carmalites”. With Seattle Opera she debuted as Silver Dollar in “the Ballad of Baby Doe” and the Mayor’s Wife in “Jenufa” later in the season. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Geraldina began singing with dance bands at the age of 15 and has recently returned to performances of Broadway musicals.

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