ABOUT BREAKING GLASS ARTS
MISSION & VISION
Reimagining opera to create intimate, site-specific productions for contemporary audiences and singers.
Breaking Glass Arts presents operas in English in unique venues, and designs productions to be immersive and participatory experiences. In doing this, we aim to attract new audiences to opera and offer exciting opportunities to local singers. We focus on under-performed and American works, particularly those which tackle social issues.
Women owned, operated, and focused.
BGA is a women owned and operated company, with all of our permanent staff being female. To better reflect the singer population, BGA is committed to keeping our total singers cast each season at 50% female or greater. We plan to meet this goal by focusing works which have more female characters, and changing the sex of some roles. Women have a huge disadvantage in the opera world, with fewer roles available and far more competition.
Some statistics on the opera industry.
Some statistics:
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Of Opera America's list of the top ten operas produced in North America, only 38% of the roles are for women.
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At DIO's season auditions, 86% of the singers were women.
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Of Opera on Tap Colorado's singer roster, 72% are women. (Opera on Tap accepts singers on merit only.)
Help support our mission today.
Denver Immersive Opera is fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3). Tax deductible donations can be made here.
OUR STAFF
Corinne Denny Founder, Artistic and Stage Director
Corinne is deeply passionate about producing opera in exciting, accessible productions. She directed Giovanna's and Bluebeard's Castle for BGA's second season, and directed both The Medium and Trouble in Tahiti in the company's opening season. Corinne was the stage director for Denver Opera Collective's 2017 summer season, modernizing three one act operas: Bastien(ne) and Bastienne (re-imagined as a dispute between a teenage lesbian couple with a translation and script adapted by Corinne), Signor Deluso, and Gianni Schicchi. Other directing credits include Opera on Tap's 2016 touring production of Suor Angelica, set in a religious girls' boarding school, and La Cenerentola for Boulder Opera Company.
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Corinne has extensive experience in business administration and arts management, including five years in the financial services industry. She has also served as the Production Manager for Boulder Opera Company and the Company Manager for Boulder Music Institute.
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Corinne holds a Performer's Certificate in Voice from the University of Denver, a dual MM in Opera and Musical Theatre Performance from Arizona State University, and a BM in Voice Performance from Middle Tennessee State University.
Jessica Nilles Kressin Music Director and Pianist
Jessica recently completed her doctorate in piano performance at the University of Colorado Boulder. Jessica has performed with many instrumentalists and singers, including Simon Estes, with whom she performed at the White House and in his Roots & Wings tour across the state of Iowa. She also worked with University of Oklahoma's opera program and Cimarron Opera.
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As a soloist, Jessica recently performed works of Beethoven in Eisenstadt, Austria, in venues including the Esterházy Palace. An advocate of new music, she frequently performs with the Colorado New Music Ensemble, with which she recently performed Tempest Fantasy by Paul Moravec. At CU Boulder, she performs in the Pendulum New Music concerts and premiered a work by Carter Pann (2016 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music), titled Poems for Jason.
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Jessica studies with Dr. Andrew Cooperstock at the University of Colorado Boulder and also holds degrees in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Oklahoma, and Piano Performance from Wartburg College.
Margaret Ozaki Graves Singer Advocate and Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Representative
Margaret Ozaki Graves enjoys mentoring in the arts through her endeavors as a cultural consultant, arts administrator, teaching artist and professional performer. She is a proponent of inclusion, diversity, equity and access (I.D.E.A.) in the arts, in life and—particularly in opera.
Ozaki Graves has contributed cultural and performance work to Japanese Arts Network (JA-NE), Inside the Orchestra’s 2020 Music of the World, Cleo Parker Robinson’s 2019 Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum, and Central City Opera’s 2019 Madama Butterfly. Her writing is published in the Japanese American Resource Center of Colorado (JARCC) newsletter and Nikkei Today, The Allied Arts and the NATS Journal of Singing. She has taught on topics of culture and diversity/casting for Ithaca College Voice Intensive and the UW-Milwaukee SNATS Chapter and currently sits on a judging committee for the Japanese American Community Graduation Program (JACGP) Scholarships.
She holds degrees from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and Lawrence University—including a doctorate in Vocal Performance Studies and Opera with a cognate in Japanese Aesthetics and Music.
Cristin Colvin Social Media Director
Cristin is particularly passionate about supporting the wide gamut of interdisciplinary performing arts in Denver. She currently manages the social media presence and website for Breaking Glass Arts. She has assisted in creating social media campaigns for other operas and opera companies in the region, previously worked in digital marketing at the University of Denver, and creates websites and digital assets through her business Toxoplasma Arts.
As an opera performer, Cristin has appeared locally with Breaking Glass Arts (Phaino in Here Be Sirens, Giovanna in Giovanna’s, Jazz Trio in Trouble in Tahiti), Boulder Opera, Opera on Tap, and Denver Opera Collective. She has stage directed and appeared in the titular role of the new opera Locust by Wyoming composer Anne Guzzo both nationally and internationally. In addition to opera, Cristin produced an interdisciplinary arts salon series with Redline Contemporary Art Center featuring local musicians and dancers and works by young composers and has appeared as a guest artist at the University of Wyoming in performances of contemporary art song.
She received her Master of Music in vocal performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her Bachelor of Arts in piano and vocal performance from Emory & Henry College in Virginia.