CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Opera Carolina is bringing Gian Carlo Menotti’s psychological chamber opera The Medium to Charlotte with an accomplished artistic team led by Grammy Award-winning contralto and Metropolitan Opera veteran Victoria Livengood, conductor Stefano Vignati and director Steven LaCosse.
The production will be staged at Halton Theater on Saturday, November 14, 2026, combining established opera performers and artistic leaders with a work known for blending music, theater and psychological suspense. Livengood will portray Madame Flora, also known as Baba, a role with a significant connection to both her career and Menotti himself.
Victoria Livengood Brings Direct Connection to Menotti
Livengood’s participation gives the Opera Carolina production a direct artistic link to the composer. She knew Menotti personally, worked with him and developed her interpretation of Madame Flora under his guidance.
Their collaboration also extended to television when Livengood portrayed Baba in a production of The Medium recorded in Italy for RAI, Italy’s national public broadcaster. Menotti directed the production himself and later described Livengood as his “ideal Baba.”
Their artistic relationship continued until the final period of Menotti’s life. Livengood was performing in Monte Carlo when Menotti died in 2007. Shortly before his death, he had visited her and continued sharing his thoughts about The Medium and his vision for Madame Flora.
That relationship provided Livengood with firsthand insight into Menotti’s interpretation of a character whose fear, uncertainty and psychological deterioration drive the opera’s dramatic tension.
Menotti also has an established cultural connection to the Carolinas. He founded the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, in 1958, creating an artistic bridge between Europe and the United States. That concept expanded to America in 1977 with the creation of Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.
Opera Carolina’s production therefore connects Menotti’s regional legacy with an artist who worked directly with the composer and performed one of his best-known dramatic roles under his direction.
Experienced Cast and Creative Team Join Production
Kristin Sampson will appear as Monica, Madame Flora’s daughter and an emotional center of the story. Tim Bostwick will perform as Mr. Gobineau, while Aubrey Cole will portray Mrs. Gobineau. The performer taking the role of Toby will be announced later.
Stefano Vignati, Opera Carolina’s General Director and Music Director, will conduct the production. An internationally active conductor, Vignati has continued to represent the Charlotte-based company through his work abroad while developing artistic connections between Opera Carolina and the wider international opera community.
Steven LaCosse will direct the production. He is the A.J. Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Opera and Artistic Director of the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. His career combines professional stage direction with education and mentorship for emerging singers.
Opera Carolina Artistic Director Claudio Ferri championed the decision to present The Medium as part of a broader effort to return significant but less frequently performed works to the stage while expanding opera’s traditional audience.
Psychological Drama Targets New and Established Opera Audiences
Written in English, The Medium combines opera with the immediacy and suspense of a stage thriller. Opera Carolina selected the work in part for its potential to reach younger audiences, theatergoers and people experiencing opera for the first time, while continuing to appeal to established opera audiences.
The story centers on Madame Flora, a fraudulent medium who stages séances for grieving clients with assistance from Monica and her mute servant, Toby. During one of her carefully planned deceptions, however, Baba experiences something she cannot explain.
“Was it part of the illusion — or did something actually reach out from the darkness?”
That moment begins Madame Flora’s psychological unraveling. A woman accustomed to manipulating the fears and grief of others gradually becomes consumed by her own uncertainty.
Menotti uses the increasingly unstable situation to examine grief, deception, manipulation, fear, guilt, paranoia and the fragile boundary between reality and what the mind believes to be real.
With Livengood’s personal connection to Menotti, Vignati’s international conducting experience, LaCosse’s work developing emerging opera artists and Ferri’s emphasis on rediscovering compelling works, Opera Carolina’s The Medium brings together operatic history and contemporary theatrical storytelling for Charlotte audiences.
