Butterfly Creatives' Bios
José Luis Moscovich, is the conductor for Madama Butterfly. He has been General Director of West Bay Opera since 2006. For the preceding nine years he was music director and conductor of the San Francisco Camerata, the only professional orchestra in the US devoted exclusively to the music of Latin American composers. He was also principal guest conductor of the ARTEA Orchestra and the Bay Area Concerto Ensemble. He has also appeared with the Marin Chamber Orchestra, the UCSF Orchestra, the Nova Vista Orchestra, and a number of other ensembles. In 2005 he was invited to open West Bay Opera’s 50th season with Die Zauberflöte. He recently conducted, to critical acclaim, Opera Santa Barbara's production of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice. He returned to Santa Barbara earlier this season, to conduct Puccini's Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. He has also conducted West Bay Opera’s productions of Yevgeny Onegin, Faust, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Il trovatore, Die Zauberflöte, L'elisir d'amore, Tosca, Otello, Les contes d'Hoffmann, Samson et Dalila, Dido and Aeneas, La vida breve, Turandot, Der Freischütz, Orfeo ed Euridice, Der fliegende Holländer, Cavalleria rusticana, and Pagliacci, and Opera Idaho’s production of L’elisir d’amore. Maestro Moscovich has also conducted at the Teatro El Círculo opera house in Rosario, Argentina. He has taught master classes in opera performance in Beijing, China and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and lectured for the Wagner Society of Northern California. Maestro Moscovich has considerable experience as a choral conductor. He was music director of the San Francisco Women’s Chorus, conductor of the San Francisco Jewish Folk Chorus, and assistant conductor of the San Francisco Choral Society.  He wrote the libretto and conducted the fully-staged premiere of Corpus Evita, an opera by composer Carlos Franzetti. He also conducted the San Francisco Camerata in the recording of that work for Amapola Records, which was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2005. His other recording with the Camerata is a CD of Latin American orchestral music, for Klavier Records, which has been featured in radio broadcasts on both coasts, including KKHI and KDFC in San Francisco, and WNYC in New York, as well as in Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. Maestro Moscovich was trained as a clarinetist and conductor in his native Argentina, where he studied at the National Conservatory in Rosario. Selected by the American Symphony Orchestra League, he also trained under Lorin Maazel, Lawrence Leighton-Smith, and the late Maurice Abravanel. He has resided in the United States since 1981.
Eugene Brancoveanu is stage director for Madama Butterfly. He made his debut as stage director last season in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, to critical acclaim. His singing debut was as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte during the 2013-14 Season. Mr. Brancoveanu has directed and starred in multiple productions for Mendocino Music Festival (La bohème, Don Giovanni, The Barber of Seville) and Livermore Valley Opera (Carmen, La bohème). He also directed the rarely performed opera Rita (Donizetti) for the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellowship Program, in collaboration with the New Century Orchestra. Mr. Brancoveanu won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Marcello in Baz Luhrmann's production of La bohème on Broadway. The Romanian-born baritone enjoys an extensive international singing career, performing regularly with San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, New York City Opera, the Romanian State Opera, Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Salzburg Festival, Tel Aviv Opera, the Matsumoto Music Festival under Seiji Osawa, Virginia Opera, and Opera San Jose, among others. He also spent two seasons as a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow, and performed solo recitals for the Schwabacher Recital Series and the San Francisco Young Master Recital Series. As an opera singer and soloist, Mr. Brancoveanu has sung with the San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony at the Tanglewood Music Festival, as well as the Southwest Florida Symphony, Fresno Symphony, Pacific Symphony, and Spokane Symphony. He was featured in the nationwide televised broadcast of Michael Tilson Thomas' The Tomashevskys, which he performed at Carnegie Hall and across the United States. Mr. Brancoveanu's extensive and eclectic repertoire includes roles such as Marcello, the title roles in Rigoletto and Don Giovanni, Figaro (The Barber of Seville), Figaro and the Count (The Marriage of Figaro), Escamillo, Tarquinius (The Rape of Lucretia), Belcore, Silvio (Pagliacci), Papageno, Ned Keene (Peter Grimes), Christian (Un ballo in maschera), Uberto (La serva padrona), Karnak (Le Roi d'Ys), the Pilot (The Little Prince), Boris (Shostakovich's Moskau, Tscherkomuschki), Nicomedes (Lou Harrison's Young Cesar), and the title role in the European premiere of Philip Glass' Orphée. Mr. Brancoveanu has recordings with Universal Classics, Decca, and Deutsche Grammophon, featuring his world premiere recording of the title role of Shostakovich's rediscovered opera, Orango. He began his training at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz and continued at the Academy of Music in Cluj, Romania and the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg. He is also a winner of the National Young Opera Singer Competition in Leipzig, the International Music Award in Loenberg, the Ferruccio Tagliavini International Opera Competition, and most recently, the Loren Zachary Competition.

Bruce Olstad is chorus master for Madama Butterfly. He is the chorus master for Sacramento Opera, Livermore Valley Opera and West Bay Opera, and regularly serves as Assistant Conductor with Livermore Valley Opera. Most recently, he served as chorus director for Andrea Bocelli’s concert in Sacramento, and conducted the world premier of composer Lisa Scola Prosek’s new chamber opera The Lariat, in San Francisco, to great critical acclaim. Mr. Olstad has conducted full productions for Opera San José, Open Opera and Opera Bravura, and has served as assistant conductor for West Edge Opera and West Bay Opera. Mr. Olstad is a Teaching Artist for the San Francisco Opera Guild. He has served as music director of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto since 2011. He is currently writing the libretto to a new opera based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter with his friend, composer Mark Carlson. Mr. Olstad is also the founder and artistic director of Bodhi Tree Concerts North (www.btcnorth.org), a concert series dedicated to presenting high quality performances to the public and donating 100% of the profits to charity. As a pianist, Mr. Olstad has partnered with such acclaimed artists as Marie Plette and Kelley O’Connor, and has played for the master classes of baritone Thomas Hampson and dramatic soprano Luana DeVol. Mr. Olstad holds a master’s degree in Keyboard Collaborative Arts from the University of Southern California and a bachelor's degree in Music from UCLA.
Peter Crompton, is the Set Designer and projections co-designer for  Madama Butterfly. He saw his first opera at the age of ten, but had to wait until 1990 before he was allowed to design and paint one. His previous designs for West Bay Opera include Faust, L’elisir d’amore, Otello, Aida, Turandot, Manon Lescaut, The Threepenny Opera, Don Giovanni, La traviata, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Pagliacci. Mr. Crompton has designed for Festival Opera, Opera San José, Diablo Light Opera Company, Lamplighters, Bay Area Revels, Marin Theatre Company, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Birmingham Opera, Summer Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa, Western Ballet, NVC, Santa Barbara Grand Opera, Berkeley Opera, and West Bay Opera, among others. He has won San Francisco Bay Area Critic’s Choice, Shellies, and Goodman Choice awards. Recent productions include Carmen for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Mary Poppins for Santa Rosa Junior College. Mr. Crompton resides in Santa Rosa, where he teaches set design at Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University, and tends an increasingly bizarre sculpture garden with his wife Robyn. The garden is open every October for ARTrails. His sculpture can be seen at Hammerfriar Gallery in Healdsburg.
Claire Townsend is the costume designer for Madama Butterfly. Among other credits, she designed costumes for La forza del destino and Lucia di Lammermoor for West Bay Opera; Così fan tutte for Opera Ebony; Two Gentlemen of Verona for Shakespeare by The Sea; Romeo and Juliet, Tartuffe, and The Wedding Singer for Cypress College; Julius Ceasar for Marin Shakespeare Festival; Bullshot Crummond for PCPA Theatrefest; As You Like It and Fuenteovejuna for Mira Costa College; and Double Falsehood for Letter of Marque. She currently stitches for the Metropolitan Opera and SNL in NYC. She graduated from Central St. Martins in London.
Edward Hunteris is the lighting designer for Madama Butterfly. This is his second show with West Bay Opera. His first show was The Abduction from the Seraglio. He has worked with Palo Alto Players, Theatreworks and Lyric Theater, Some recent designs include: Death of a Salesman (PAP), Fool for Love (Pear), Mystery of Edwin Drood (SCP) and, most recently, Rent (SCP). 
Frédéric O. Boulay is Projection Designer for Madama Butterfly. He made his debut with West Bay Opera as Projection Designer for Les contes d’Hoffmann and since then has designed projections for Tosca, L’elixir d'amore, Die Zauberflöte, Il trovatore, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Faust and Rigoletto. Frederic's design work is at the intersection of art and technology, and he loves pushing the boundaries of what can be done on stage using new technology. Frédéric has worked with companies such as Opera Parallèle, Rork Music, TEDx, Digital Garage, Youth America Grand Prix to name a few and his designs have been seen throughout San Francisco, the Bay Area, as well as New York City. A native of France, he is a member of United Scenic Artist and holds both a Masters of Arts in Theatre Design & Production and an Executive MBA. Frédéric is of the Owner and Founder of Oaktown Productions and the Managing Director for Rooster Productions. None of this would be possible without the love and support of his amazing wife Magda and his two young boys Étienne & Théodore.
Lisa Cross is the make-up & wig designer for Madama Butterfly. She is an accomplished actress, dancer, singer, choreographer, director and teacher. Her professional performing arts career spans over three decades and includes film, video, commercials, stage, dance, voice and magic. She designs costumes, make up and hair for stage, film and opera. She recently directed, designed and choreographed Zombeo and Juliet, The Musical which was produced at Burlingame High School. She has successfully blended her performance experience with a 30-year career in teaching drama, dance, movement and art at Odyssey Middle School. She assisted with hair and makeup in West Bay Opera’s recent production of Yevgeny Onegin.
Tod Nixon is the sound designer for Madama Butterfly. Tod has been the company's Resident Sound Designer since 2007. He created the sound design for San Francisco Opera's recent production of Show Boat, and the 2011 world premiere production of Heart of a Solider. His association with West Bay Opera began in 2002 when we implemented the company's first computer-controlled supertitles system using TitleDriver, an application Mr. Nixon developed. Mr. Nixon has been a member of San Francisco Opera’s sound and media department since 2000. He was the sound designer for Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon for six years during the 1990s, and he implemented that show's first automated digital audio mixing system. His time at BBB included taking the show for a historic run at London's Covent Garden Music Theater Festival in 1997. Previous sound design work for West Bay Opera includes two productions of Die Zauberflöte, as well as productions of Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Cosi fan tutte, Der fliegende Holländer, Carmen, Orfeo ed Euridice, Madama Butterfly, La bohème, Der Freischütz, La traviata, La forza del destino, Turandot, Dido & Aeneas, La vida breve, Samson et Dalila, Don Giovanni, Aida, Les contes d'Hoffmann, Lucia di Lammermoor, Otello, Tosca, L'elisir d'amore, Il trovatore, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Faust and Rigoletto.
Shirley Benson is the properties designer for Madama Butterfly. Other credits with West Bay Opera include Rigoletto, Faust, Il trovatore, Die Zauberflöte, L’elisir d’amore, Tosca, Otello, Lucia di Lammermoor, Les contes d'Hoffmann, Aida, Don Giovanni, Samson et Dalila, Dido and Aeneas, La Vida Breve and Turandot. Ms. Benson has sung in the chorus with Mission City Opera where she has also been properties manager for seven shows, including The Marriage of Figaro in 2009 and La bohème in 2010. She has also designed properties for many of Lyric Theatre of San Jose’s productions, sometimes also singing in the chorus, including Camelot, Carousel, Kismet, Brigadoon, and a Bollywood-style Sorcerer. Both she and her props were last seen in Lyric's production of The Grand Duke in June of 2013. She will be working on Utopia Limited with Lyric Theatre in the Fall. Ms. Benson has been singing and designing and building props for various community theaters and Bahá'í choirs since the age of 12.
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