Port Angeles symphony’s ‘Tosca’ to bring passion, intrigue

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, April 29, 2026

PORT ANGELES — When Errin Duane Brooks was a young boy in Detroit, a member of the church choir, he noticed something about certain other singers. They possessed voices with stunning power and nuance.

Later, when Brooks began earning his degree in vocal performance, he realized: Those singers were classically trained — and “they could sing anything: gospel, R&B,” he remembered.

Brooks is now a classically trained, Grammy-winning opera singer who still joins the choir at the New Liberty Missionary Baptist Church whenever he goes home.

“I don’t have a choice,” he quipped, adding quickly that it’s not a problem to sing in this choir, the one that gave him a place to nurture his gift.

Brooks is on the Olympic Peninsula this weekend to sing Mario Cavaradossi, the leading man in the Port Angeles Symphony’s performance of “Tosca.” He joins soprano Kristin E. Vogel, who sings the title role, along with five other guest artists and the full orchestra and chorus of musicians and singers from across the region.

“Tosca” will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave. Tickets are available at portangelessymphony.org, at Port Book and News in Port Angeles and at the door. The public also is invited to the final dress rehearsal at 10 a.m. Saturday; tickets will be sold at the door and on the symphony website.

“I am so thrilled to have this opportunity. I love this music,” said artistic director and conductor Jonathan Pasternack, who began casting the production a year ago.

This is a concert performance, he noted, with intensely dramatic scenes, special effects to simulate cannon shots and rifle fire, powerful singing and Puccini’s melodic score.

“‘Tosca’ is a story of love, political intrigue, jealousy and passion — with beautiful, exciting music flowing through it all,” Pasternack said of the opera, which premiered in Rome, Italy, in 1900.

Saturday’s performance will be in Italian and Latin, with English supertitles provided by Jonathan Dean of Seattle Opera.

Brooks, who came to the Peninsula to sing with Vogel in the Port Angeles Symphony’s “La Bohème” in June 2024, explained his role like this: Cavaradossi is a painter, an artist who is devoted not only to Tosca, his love, but also to his country.

“I get into a bad situation with Baron Scarpia, who tries to seduce my lady,” Brooks said.

“The baron is in a powerful position, and he’s jealous of me because he wants [Tosca], and so he tries to make my life difficult.”

Anyone can relate to this story, Brooks added — anyone who has been in love.

“‘Tosca’ is just so beautifully written. It’s got great music throughout. If you love great music, this is the show to come to.”

Vogel, for her part, calls Tosca not just a dream role, but the dream role for a soprano such as herself.

“She is an opera singer. She’s very jealous, and incredibly passionate and very loving and kind. And you see that Tosca and Cavaradossi are really in love. Puccini brings in these little moments,” Vogel said, to make these people real.

Like Brooks, Vogel started out singing in church. Growing up in Houston, Texas, she went on to show choirs, musical theater and her high school chorus.

One day a choir teacher said: “You should really look at opera.”

“She was right,” said Vogel, who has performed around the globe. She now lives in Vienna, Austria, where she sings with an ensemble called Vien.noir.

Vogel didn’t hesitate to say yes to “Tosca” in Port Angeles. She knows Pasternack and Brooks well, having performed with them in operas, including “Madame Butterfly” and “La Bohème.”

“In ‘Tosca,’ it’s especially important that you trust your colleagues. It’s very difficult music, and there are a lot of conversational moments when you have to be so locked in to each other,” Vogel said.

“And this is the challenge: You’re expressing these enormous emotions, you’re feeling incredibly strong feelings — and at the same time, you have to sing.”

Vogel can scarcely wait to reunite with her fellow performers. Brooks, who has just sung the role of Calaf in Puccini’s “Turandot” with the Pacific Symphony in Orange County, Calif., also has performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and won his Grammy award for the Met’s recording of “Porgy & Bess.”

In “Tosca,” Brooks and Vogel will join baritone David Meyer as Baron Scarpia, Michael Hawk as Cesare Angelotti and Alexander Adams triple-cast as Sacristan, Sciarrone and the Jailer. Andrew Etherington as Spoletta and Port Angeles-based musician and teacher Sage Bateman, as a Young Shepherd, complete the cast.

Opera is an art form for “telling these incredibly powerful stories,” Vogel said.

Just as important, she believes, is that this music gives voice to the big emotions all of us experience.

“It’s so freeing,” the soprano added.

In our daily lives, she said, we don’t have time to stop and feel our desires and passions.

But “in opera, you do.”

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Diane Urbani de la Paz is a freelance writer and photographer who lives in Port Townsend.