Creative Team
Music and Original Story: Nika Leoni
Libretto: Kathryn Thompson Favazza & Nika Leoni
Nika Leoni
Composer
Nika Leoni’s music has been characterized as “what modern composition should be – full of emotion and interesting harmonies” and “very much of our time, … direct and approachable.” Nika’s compositions have been performed in New York, Boston, Kansas City, St. Louis, Starkville (MS), and Brussels (Belgium), and her operatic soliloquy "Euridice" was broadcast on WCNY radio (New York), KNVC (Nevada), and DelMarVa Public Radio (Maryland) as part of Foxtales and Fables on Feminine Fusion show in March 2019.
Recent chamber and vocal pieces include "Prelude" in the Steps of Rachmaninov for cello and piano, which was performed in November 2023 as part of Festival OSMOSE in Brussels (Belgium) as well as featured at the Cello Museum in New York in 2024, "Two Blake Songs" for voice, clarinet, and viola, "Dance Suite for Two Flutes," which was featured in the October 2021 issue of the Flute Examiner, and "Sentimental Haiku Songs" for SABT choir and piano. Selections from the song cycle "Six Love Songs by Sara Teasdale" were performed by KC VITAs at their 2017 Summer Series in Kansas City and at the 2016 Calliope's Call Concert Series in Boston, as well as by students at Poetry and Song Program at Mississippi State University's Department of Music (2019). Latest commissions included a new song cycle "Floral Impressions," Two Italian Christmas Carols written for The St. Louis Women's Chorale and performed at Christmas on the Hill Concert at St. Ambrose Church in 2019, as well as the music score for an independent full feature film, for which she also composed, recorded, and produced the feature song. Nika's album of her own arrangements of Russian Romances, titled Dark Eyes and released on Larion Records™, received high critical acclaim and is sold in music stores worldwide.
More information, music, and reviews can be found at www.NikaLeoniMusic.com
Kathryn Thompson Favazza
Librettist
Kathryn Favazza is an American Librettist, Soprano, Producer, and Co-Founder of Make Music St. Louis,
Inc.
Kathryn has collaborated with composer Nika Leoni for the past few years. In addition to working on "The Secret of the Gold Queen," Kathryn has also collaborated with Nika on a full-scale opera
"Flame and Shadow: The Passion and Pain of Sara Teasdale" which is still in progress.
As a singer, Kathryn
has performed many lead roles to high acclaim including Gilda (Rigoletto), Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor),
Adina (L'Elisir d'amore), Violetta (La Traviata) with various opera companies throughout New York, New
Jersey and Washington, D.C. She has appeared as a featured concert soloist across the country in venues such
as Carnegie Hall, NY and the Sheldon Concert Hall, St. Louis. Kathryn has produced opera performances and
concerts (including benefit concerts) with much success for theaters in New York, St. Louis, and Washington
D.C. areas