Bill Neely
He has also performed many opera roles. With Cinnabar Opera Theater, he has sung the roles of John Sorel (The Consul), Voltaire/Pangloss (Candide), Alfio (Cavalleria Rusticana), Jack Rance (Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West), Tonio (Pagliacci), the Forester (Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen), Cartwright (Janice Wilson's The Wedding), Ford (Falstaff), Count Almaviva (Marriage of Figaro), Schaunard (La Bohème), the Emperor (The Nightingale), Dr. Bartolo (Barber of Seville); with North Bay Opera, as the four villains (Tales of Hoffmann) and Scarpia (Tosca); with Livermore Valley Opera in the title role of Don Giovanni; with West Bay Opera as Scarpia (Tosca), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly), Don Alfonso (CosÏ fan tutte), Dr. Malatesta (Don Pasquale), and Falke (Die Fledermaus); with Berkeley Opera as Papageno (The Magic Flute); with Berkeley Contemporary Opera as the Traveller (7 roles in Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice), and Blazes (Peter Maxwell Davies’ The Lighthouse); with San Francisco Lyric Opera as Escamillo (Carmen), Scarpia (Tosca), Germont (La Traviata), and Albert (Werther). He has also performed with San Francisco Choral Society, Berkeley Symphony, Pocket Opera, San Francisco Bach Choir, Cabrillo Festival, Diablo Symphony, Valley Choral Society, San Francisco Lyric Chorus and San Jose Symphonic Choir.
Bill has performed many musical theatre and opera roles around the Bay Area. His musical theatre roles include Don Quixote / Cervantes (Man of La Mancha), Sweeney Todd (Sweeney Todd) with Solano College / North Bay Opera; the title role of Yeston and Kopit’s Phantom with Broadway By The Bay; Petruchio / Fred in Kiss Me Kate with Piedmont Light Opera Theatre; Carl-Magnus in A Little Night Music and Danilo in The Merry Widow with Lamplighters. For forty years he has sung with the Lamplighters, performing most of the baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire.