ABOUT
BIOGRAPHY & PROJECTS
BIOGRAPHY
Praised for her "enticing strength and marvelous vocal character" (Arts Knoxville), Christine Alfano's powerful and sparkling voice has charmed audiences at home and abroad. Her "luscious" voice is particularly at home in the music of the bel canto, romantic and veristic periods. Her singing has been featured on NPR's "Performance Today," America's most popular classical music radio program. Passionate about spreading love for the art form while creating opportunities for fellow artists, she was awarded the 2025 Emerging Artist Award from the First Coast Cultural Center in recognition of her work to advance the arts through opera in Northeast Florida.
This season, Christine returns to Sarasota Opera as a Resident Artist. In addition to singing numerous public and private concerts as well as outreach engagements throughout the region, she will cover the role of Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte. Notable fall concert appearances as a soloist with the company include Orchid Evening with Sarasota Opera, presented at Marie Selby Botantical Gardens and Moonlight and Melodies: Under the Stars with Mozart. Following the fall, she will continue performing with Sarasota Opera as a Studio Artist for their Winter 2026 Festival Season, covering the role of Mimì in Puccini's La bohème. Summer features an exciting company, role, and major venue debut in New York City, which will be announced soon!
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​The 2024-2025 season featured two role debuts, as well as an apprenticeship with Sarasota Opera. In October, Christine performed the role Gertrud in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel in her company debut with Amelia Island Opera under the baton of Maestro Keith Chambers. In early December, Christine returned to Saint-Saëns' Oratorio de Noël as the Soprano Soloist. She spent three months as an Apprentice Artist with Sarasota Opera during their Winter 2025 season, performing in Verdi's Stiffelio, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. Springtime featured her return to Amelia Island Opera to sing the role of Kate Pinkerton and to study cover the title role in Madama Butterfly. Active also in the concert realm, she collaborated with the UK-based VIDA Guitar Quartet in a concert featuring Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with Beaches Fine Arts Series.
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A passionate advocate for new music, she has performed in several world premieres, most notably Marble City Opera's production of Pesci's Royal Flush. Other recent new-music credits include Psychiatrist in A Severed Chord with Voices of the Valiant and Ms. Dara in An Embarrassing Position with Tennessee Opera Theatre. Other roles from prior seasons include Angelica in Puccini's Suor Angelica with Bold City Opera, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus and Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte, both with Tennessee Opera Theatre. Notable international credits include La Ciesca in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi with the Brancaleoni International Music Festival and the Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival. In 2022, she was a featured soloist at the Ehrbarsaal in Vienna, Austria, where she performed arias and duets from Bellini’s Norma and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Christine was a participant in the 2022-2023 Professional Artist Workshop at Gulfshore Opera and is an alum of both the Knoxville Opera Studio (2020-2022) and the Palm Beach Opera Studio (2014). She was an Apprentice Artist (2025) and a Resident Artist (2025) with Sarasota Opera, and will return this coming winter as a Studio Artist (2026). She received her Master of Music degree in Voice Performance and her Graduate Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy from the University of Tennessee College of Music in 2022, where she was the Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Tennessee Opera Theatre. She attended Florida State University College of Music for her undergraduate work, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in both Music and Italian.
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Christine is a member of the Musical Theatre faculty at Florida School of the Arts, and maintains a thriving voice studio in Jacksonville, Florida. When she's not singing, teaching, or producing, she can be found spending time with loved ones, exploring new places, eating great food, or being lost in a fantasy novel.
Zweite Dame
Die Zauberflöte
TENNESSEE OPERA THEATRE
PROJECTS
DIRECTING
Christine is also active in the opera world as an emerging stage director. Most recently, she directed a site-specific production of Bluebeard’s Castle for Bold City Opera, which was described as “a feat of minimalism that feels grand in its design and powerful in its performance. With innovative staging in an octagonal church — uncannily echoing the shape of Bluebeard’s castle itself — the production brings an air of eeriness that enriched the audience’s sense of entrapment and mystery. Directed with attention to both intimate detail and operatic scale, the show unfolds in a space that melds seamlessly with the story’s Gothic tone.” (JaxPlays).
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In summer 2022, she directed the world premiere of Pluto by Michael J. Polo in both the United States and Austria, collaborating with Maestro Gregory Buchalter. Summer 2023 featured her return to Austria to direct another world premiere, A Girl from Ipanema by Brazilian composer Diogo Carvalho. She has assistant directed for organizations including the Lakes Area Music Festival (The Rake's Progress) Tennessee Opera Theatre (Die Zauberflöte), and the Vienna Summer Music Festival (La bohème, Die Zauberflöte, Hänsel und Gretel, Don Giovanni). She was a Production and Directing Intern for Marble City Opera and Druid City Opera, and is particularly inspired by cinematic directors Yorgos Lanthimos, David Lynch, and Wes Anderson.
BOLD CITY OPERA
In late 2022, Bold City Opera was formally founded by locally-based soprano Christine Alfano and conductor Brandon Michael Smith. What started off as a dream between two collaborating musicians came to fruition with BCO's extraordinarily successful first season in 2023. This inaugural season featured free outreach performances of Barber's A Hand of Bridge at The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, as well as a highly celebrated and nearly sold-out production of Puccini's Suor Angelica at St. John's Cathedral. Season Two featured greatly expanded programming, with three one-act operas on the calendar— two of which were offered free to the public— and a wider array of outreach events that cater to opera lovers as well as to singers themselves. Now in its third season, BCO continues to produce exciting works in innovative and unexpected ways, attracting both newcomers and established opera fans alike.
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Mission Statement:
Bold City Opera creates cutting-edge opera by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and championing immersive experiences. By producing works in innovative and revolutionary ways, we aim to cultivate and educate new audiences. We aspire to build community by forging a vision of opera that is universally accessible, inclusive of underrepresented voices, and which showcases regional and emerging artists. BCO is proudly a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.