The Art of Connection

The first time Melanie Bacaling (MM '15, voice) heard her friend Gabriella Reyes (BM '16, voice) sing was in a classroom at Boston Conservatory. “We met in a class called Intro to Opera. Can you imagine that?” she says. “Look at us now.”

Fast-forward roughly a decade and the pair find themselves at home in the halls of the Metropolitan Opera House, with Reyes singing soprano roles on Met stages and Bacaling behind the scenes on the stage-directing staff. Their “introduction to opera” appears to have been predictive, setting in motion two careers that are leading them—steadily, diligently—to the top ranks of the art form in the U.S. But their Boston Conservatory class also sparked a creative connection that has deepened with time and a friendship that’s buoyed them as they’ve navigated a tough industry.

“Melanie’s always been someone that can remind me, in those moments that I feel like an utter failure—she’s always been there to remind me: ‘No, you have this power and you can continue to shine,’” Reyes says. “She’s taught me grace.” 

After years of circling in the same orbit, the duo will work on their first professional production together at Lyric Opera of Chicago in March 2025. Bacaling will make her professional directing debut at the helm of La Bohème, with Reyes starring as Musetta.

The two artists are hitting their strides in parallel, and their relationship illustrates a familiar phenomenon among Boston Conservatory alums: The bonds they forged as students can play out over decades, and those deep connections make performances much richer.

“You connect with these souls who you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we were able to create some magic together. I wanna do this again,’” says Bacaling. In a performing arts world that relies heavily on freelance jobs, the drive to keep making collaborative magic can become a kind of networking—particularly for opera. “With the magnitude of the stories, you can’t help but become connected in that kind of way,” explains Bacaling. “And so the networking inherently becomes finding the people that you feel soul connections with in order to continue telling truthful stories on some of these most incredible stages.”

“We Speak a Similar Language”

“The origin of theater is that people who liked each other got together to tell a story,” says Nathan Troup, associate professor of opera. But that’s not how professional storytelling works in the twenty-first century, with casts and crews typically assembled ad hoc. “It’s engineered in reverse now; we put people together and hope that they all have a good time.”

Troup has been directing operas at Boston Conservatory since Bacaling and Reyes were students together. Close connections among performers can elevate an entire production, he notes, because from day one, communication flows more easily. “We speak a similar language. There’s a trust,” he says. “I’m familiar with your journey. It means that we can lose some of the formalities.” 

That built-in rapport tends to result in more convincing performances, with character relationships that feel authentic. This can be especially useful when rehearsal time is brief, according to Troup. “It’s something that you can’t really create in two weeks,” he says.

Bacaling could not agree more. When she was hired to direct La Bohème, the cast had already been decided. Hearing that her good friend would be playing Musetta felt like a gift, and it helped to ease a bit of pressure as she prepared to make her directorial debut in her hometown of Chicago. 

“When they told me the cast, and I heard Gabi’s name, there was just this relief that came over me. To know that I’m in a room with her and with other artists that I absolutely love and adore and trust—we have that synergy and that inner knowing of one another,” she says. “It’s just going to be vibes.”

“The networking inherently becomes finding the people that you feel soul connections with in order to continue telling truthful stories on some of these most incredible stages.” 
—Melanie Bacaling

Wearing the “Mentor Hat”

Bacaling got her first taste of directing as Troup’s assistant on Boston Conservatory productions, including his 2016 staging of Le Nozze di Figaro, in which Reyes played the Countess. It was clear to Troup early on that Bacaling had the skill set, intellectually and emotionally, to become an excellent director. “You have to be generous and interested and observant, and you have to be able to successfully see an artist and understand what they bring to the table,” he says. 

The career path to professional opera director is not so straightforward, however. What kept Bacaling on track and advancing consistently upward, according to Troup, was a combination of humility and hard work. She made the most of every opportunity she was given, from her days doing unpaid internships to landing a staff position as assistant stage director at the Met. 

“Who she was in those positions—even if it was sweeping the rehearsal room floor as a production assistant—caught the eye of companies very early on,” Troup says. “It showed that she was a team player, she was a committed worker.”

That commitment has kept Bacaling exceptionally busy in recent years. She assistant-directed the world premiere of Will Liverman’s The Factotum at Lyric Opera of Chicago in February 2023 and associate-directed a new production of Madama Butterfly with the Detroit and Cincinnati operas later that year. And in 2024, she assistant-directed two Met productions, Carmen and X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.

Nearly 10 years after Bacaling earned her master’s degree, she and Troup are friends and peers. (“Her circles are my circles,” he says.) But she still counts on him, now and then, to put on his “mentor hat” and help her work through whatever problem is at hand, be it a directing issue or career decision.

“He gives so generously and so honestly,” she says. “I truly feel that he is somebody who is in my corner—and has always been in my corner.”

“That’s What I’m Choosing”

Gabriella Reyes grew up in Meriden, Connecticut, a factory town that happens to be the birthplace of the great twentieth-century soprano Rosa Ponselle. Her passion for opera was acquired from her grandmother, who was especially fond of Bizet’s Carmen. Reyes also played tuba in her high school band—and this particular detail from her college application made a lasting impression on Professor Patty Thom. 

Though Reyes was accepted to Boston Conservatory fresh out of high school, she could not afford to attend, so she enrolled at a Bible college instead. By the end of her first year, she was plotting a course back to her music studies and preparing to re-audition. “When I came back the second time, [Patty Thom] remembered me. She was like, ‘You’re the tuba player.’”

Thom, who was then chair of the Voice/Opera Department (now Vocal Arts), saw to it that Reyes received a full scholarship to Boston Conservatory, and then she quickly became one of Reyes’s most influential teachers. “She has this air of elegance, this poise, this beautiful energy. She’s never afraid to be her absolute self,” Reyes says of Thom. “I think that confidence she gave off, I just started to embody. I was like, ‘Yep, that’s what I’m choosing.’” 

Reyes also credits Thom for her patience, especially on days when Reyes would show up for lessons exhausted from a long shift as a restaurant server. Thom says she never doubted Reyes’s commitment: “She was invested and serious and open to new ideas, and she always brought a beautiful attitude to her work.”

After graduation, Reyes spent a year studying at Boston University’s Opera Institute, then won a position in the Met’s coveted Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Unlike many of her peers at the Lindemann, Reyes had not been able to attend summer opera training programs because she worked full time. Still, she never felt that she was at a disadvantage—quite the opposite, in fact. 

“I felt confident in showing up. I knew my translations. I knew my texts. I knew how to prepare my music. I knew how to analyze my music,” she says. “My time at BoCo truly prepared me for the professional world, more than any other program in all my training.”

Reyes’s career hit new heights in 2024. At the Met, she played Margarita Xirgu in a new production of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar. She also took a turn as Mimì in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production of La Bohème. The Met Opera cast recording of Florencia en el Amazonas, for which she played Rosalba, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Opera Recording; it was the first Spanish-language opera the Met had presented in nearly 100 years. And in September, Reyes received the Sphinx Organization’s highest honor, the Medal of Excellence, recognizing her commitment to addressing systemic obstacles within Black and Latino communities.

Her mentor Thom has been present for many of Reyes’s triumphs, both at the Met and further afield, in Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and most any place that Reyes winds up onstage. “Seeing her perform in grand venues like the Met and Walt Disney [Concert] Hall, I still see the authenticity that she brought to every one of her performances at Boston Conservatory,” Thom says.

That kind of authenticity gives rise to—and sustains—creative connection, and friendship itself. It’s also the foundation on which Bacaling would love to continue building her career. “It’s my dream to keep making art with my favorite people and—Gabi being one of my favorite people—just manifesting continual work together,” she says.

READ: STAGES 2025

“The Art of Connection” first appeared in the 2025 issue of STAGES, Boston Conservatory’s annual magazine.