Jim Gasparini

Jim Gasparini (Supernumerary) began his operatic career at the Metropolitan, playing Arquebusier beside Placido Domingo in Verdi’s Don Carlo.  His role consisted in marching onstage carrying an old-fashioned musket, then standing stiffly at Domingo’s side while he sang a plea for the lives of heretics about to be burned at the stake.  As Bryan Baker (Jim’s director in Luminescence, the UUCB choir) remarked, “it has been downhill ever since.” He has sung bass in the chorus of the California Christmas Revels for nine seasons, played various roles in the Burning Man Opera, and was a founding member of the throat-singing choir Ohana.