OUR TEAM
Chris Holloway
General Director
Chris is a native Texan tenor and has performed in opera, oratorio and recital both in the United States and abroad. He has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, and the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Metha and Lawrence Foster just to name a few. For many years, Mr. Holloway performed operatic roles with the Houston Grand Opera and other international companies. Chris continues traveling around the U.S. and abroad, singing in concert, and has appeared on and maybe seen on national broadcasts of ABC, CBN, and PBS. For several years, Chris Holloway was the Coral Ridge concert series director in Fort Lauderdale, FL. After returning to Houston, TX, he and his wife, Sasha, founded Opera Leggera, a performing arts company in Kingwood, TX. Since then, Chris has served as general director of Opera Leggera.
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Sasha Holloway
Artistic Director
Sasha was born in Odessa, Ukraine. Throughout her career, Sasha has performed with numerous opera and musical theatre companies around the world such as Odessa State Opera Theatre (Ukraine), Florida Grand Opera, Theatre under the Stars (Houston), Opera in the Heights, Yiddish Shpiel (Germany/Austria), Miami Opera, West Palm Beach Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. She has sung in more than one hundred different productions. Her roles included Mercedes in Carmen, Olga in Eugene Onegin, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Fyodor in Boris Godunov and many others. In 2005, Sasha and her husband, Chris Holloway, founded Opera Leggera (light opera) in Kingwood, TX. Since Opera Leggera’s beginnings, Sasha has created, directed, and produced 20+ original productions and has a distinct vision for Opera Leggera to bring the beauty of music and theatre to people. Sasha, her husband, Chris, and their daughter, Hannah, enjoy singing in concert around the U.S. and abroad.
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Mikhail Smigelskii
Music Director / Accompanist / Band Leader
Mikhail has performed on the world most prestigious stages including Carnegie Hall, Saint Petersburg’s and Moscow’s Philharmonias, Berliner Philharmonie, Kölner Philharmonie, and has collaborated with established European and American opera, music theater and concert companies. Dr. Smigelski began his advanced musical studies at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, where he received the Bachelor of Music degree and, subsequently, Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, Germany, where he completed the Master of Music degree in opera performance. Upon moving to the United States he earned a Master of Music degree in choral conducting at Sam Houston State University and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in opera performance at the University of Texas at Austin. Teachers include Alexander Loginov, Evgeniy Fedotov, Henner Leyhe, Dr. Walter Foster and Nikita Storojev. Outside of serving as Music Director at Opera Leggera, Dr. Smigelski teaches voice, works as a freelance audio producer/engineer and serves as a Director of Music in The Woodlands, TX.
