Maria Todaro
The Divas Unleashed project.
Operatic comedy duo Divas Unleashed resulted from a conversation between two opera singers about the often ridiculous behavior of those in the opera industry.
It didn’t take long for stage director and former singer Maria Todaro and soprano Michelle Jennings to conclude that there was simply too much comedic material found in the real-life stories of opera singers not to write a show about them. Thus, the idea for the show, The Benefit, was born. The Divas enlisted the help of writer Karl Tiedemann (NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman) and fight choreographer Rick Sordelet (Aida, The Lion King, Curtains, on Broadway; Cyrano at the Met, Royal Opera House, La Scala), to lend their talents to the project. The Divas’ passion for opera, musical antics, stage combat, and physical comedy are all packaged neatly in this self-contained, 80-minute operatic play.