Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts has announced that the three-part workshop, Rediscovering 19th Century Female Voices, led by Ashley Galvani Bell and Anton Armendariz Diaz of Divaria Opera, will begin Wednesday, March 16 from 4 p.m. 5 p.m. via Zoom, and will continue until Wednesday, March 30.

Registration is $90 for all three sessions, or $40 per class, and can be done online 24/7 at baystreet.org or by calling the box office at 631-725-9500, open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Lyrical music has touched people’s emotions since its inception and knowing its origins and history will allow for a deep appreciation of this important and unique art form. This series includes three episodes on prominent female voices in the history of 19th century opera:

• Episode 1: Isabella Colbran – Discovering Mrs. Rossini
• Episode 2: Maria Malibran, a Spanish diva in New York
• Episode 3: Pauline Viardot – The heart in music

Maria Garcia Malibran and Pauline Garcia Viardot visited New York in the 1820s and took part in the very first Italian opera ever performed in the city. All three women were both singers and songwriters in their own right.

Ashley and Anton will take you on a journey through the lives of these women and how they illustrated their experiences through song. Classes will be framed by original filmed documentary episodes woven with first-hand material and music composed by these historical figures, and will also include additional biographical material about their lives with the opportunity for questions and answers. The teachers come from a background in opera performance and staging, and their passion is likely to ignite yours. Ashley Bell has been hailed by Opera News as “delightful” and by Opera Wire as “a landscape of unknown depths”. She has performed as a soloist in the United States, Italy, Spain, France and Russia. Recent performances include her Carnegie Hall debut as soprano soloist in Hadyn’s Nelson Mass and Schubert’s Mass in C; her debut as Madama Butterfly with Townsend Opera; her debut as Mimi in La Bohème with the Mississippi Opera and the Natchez Festival; She in a critically acclaimed performance of The Human Voice at the Rioja Forum in Spain and the New York Opera Fest; and her New York City Opera debut in Montemezzi’s L’Amore Tre Re. Ashley is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Yale University and is fluent in five languages. Upcoming performances include a tour of La Voix Humaine in Spain and Mimi in La Bohème with Opera Modesto of California.Anton Armendariz Diaz completed his training in directing and interpreting films with Eduardo Gil and Jordi Godall, director and teacher at the Institut de Teatre de Barcelona. As a teenager, Mr Diaz was nominated for best film at the Barcelona International Speleological Film Festival, competing with established professionals and TV channels such as BBC, Antene 3 and TVE. As a director in Europe, he has directed L´Elisir D´Amore, Cosi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, El sueño de Mozart (a production based on the Da Ponte trilogy), La Dolorosa, La Traviata, El Barberillo de Lavapies, La Voix Humaine, Don Pasquale & Heroinas, and Women in Zarzuela, among others. In 2011 he made his New York directorial debut with Divaria Productions with a golf-themed production by Elisir D’Amore, and in 2014 he presented a successful bilingual version of the zarzuela La Dolorosa in honoring International Women’s Day. in 2014. His latest film Rival Queens, shot during the pandemic, screened at more than 10 international film festivals and won awards such as Best Documentary Feature (Madrid Arthouse Film Festival) and Best Historical Documentary (International Documentary Film Awards).Bay Street Theater is a year-round professional theater and non-profit community cultural center that strives to innovate, educate and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. It serves as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource and home to a community of artists.