OUR MISSION
To present lesser-known operatic gems that deserve to be widely heard; to educate a wide range of people to the beauty and emotional richness of great operatic works at reasonable prices; to cast a wide net in engaging an ethnically diverse and gendered ensemble of singers, directors, and crew; and to engage both emerging artists and established performers to foster a communal musical experience for cast and audiences.
OUR DIRECTORS
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Martha Birnbaum, Executive Director
Martha Birnbaum is Founder and Executive Director of Opera Cambridge (formerly The Cambridge Chamber Ensemble).
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Opera Cambridge has brought to life great works ranging from lesser-known, often female, composers to the neglected works of famous composers. Among Opera Cambridge’s productions are Pauline Viardot Garcia’s Cendrillon, Handel’s early opera Silla, John Blow’s Baroque Venus & Adonis, and Gustav Holst’s chamber piece Savitri – all captivating masterpieces, yet often overlooked. Recent works include Handel’s oratorio Samson as fully staged opera for which we won the 2025 American Prize in Opera Performance; the American premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti’s Labyrinth, and Thomas Arne’s Baroque romp Thomas & Sally.
Martha has directed Caldara’s Il Giuoco del Quadriglio and Mozart’s The Impresario as intimate living-room opera. An accomplished linguist, she has provided her own copyrighted translations from Italian to English for Il Giuoco and Handel’s Silla, and from German to English for The Impresario. She has sung Belinda in Dido and Aeneas, Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus, Dame Hannah in Ruddigore, and Leila in Iolanthe. She is on the Board of Directors of the New England Gilbert and Sullivan Society (NEGASS) and Editor-in-Chief Emerita of its newsletter, The Trumpet Bray.
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Martha has a B.A. in German Language and Literature from Bryn Mawr, and a PhD in Linguistics from Brown.
Stephanie Beatrice, Music Director
Stephanie Beatrice is an award-winning conductor, music director, and educator acclaimed for her dynamic artistry and bold leadership on the podium. Described as “a force of nature with a baton,” Beatrice has earned critical praise for her “smart musical direction” and for capturing the “dynamism of the music and ever-shifting moods with great sensitivity.”
Beatrice serves as Music Director of Opera Cambridge (formerly the Cambridge Chamber Ensemble), Calliope (a choral-orchestral ensemble), and the Philharmonic Society of Arlington, where she leads both the Arlington-Belmont Chorale and the Chamber Chorus. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Dee Opera, and of the Beatrice MasterSingers, a professional chamber choir.
Her work has been recognized through The American Prize for Best Opera Performance (2025) Handel’s Samson with Opera Cambridge, and the 2024 DASH Award for Best Music Direction for Princess Ida with the Sudbury Savoyards.
Beatrice served as a Conducting Mentor with Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) at Carnegie Hall, has conducted at the Artes Italia Italian Opera Workshop, and was a mentee in the Girls Who Conduct Early Career Program.
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A champion of accessibility and education in the arts, Beatrice developed an online database and digital archive of lesser-known and underperformed operas—available on YouTube—bringing these works to new audiences and preserving them for future generations. At Dee Opera she founded the Opera Connect education and outreach program uniting educational institutions and seasoned performers through workshops, rehearsals, and shared performances.
Deeply committed to music education, Beatrice has held music director roles in K–12 settings and served as Adjunct Professor of Music at Eastern Nazarene College. Beatrice holds a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the New England Conservatory of Music and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Maine, with orchestral conducting studies at the Juilliard School’s Extension Division.
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David R. Gammons, Stage Director
David R. Gammons is a director, designer, visual artist, and arts educator. His previous opera directing credits for Opera Cambridge include John Blow's Venus and Adonis and Gustav Holst's Savitri.
David’s professional stage productions have been seen in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and abroad. His theatre directing credits include acclaimed productions for SpeakEasy Stage Company, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Apollinaire Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Central Square Theater, The New Rep, and Gloucester Stage. David’s directing projects have been nominated for forty-six Elliot Norton Awards, including multiple Norton award wins for Outstanding Director (2007, 2017, & 2022), Outstanding Production (2012, 2013, & 2022), and Outstanding Designer (2020).
Over the last decade, David has served as Associate Professor at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Lecturer in Theatre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Directing at Virginia Tech. He has created an expansive range of course curricula in acting, directing, devising, design & visual thinking, Shakespeare, script analysis, and contemporary performance practice. David has taught courses and created productions at educational institutions all around the Boston area: Harvard University, MIT, The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Boston College, Suffolk University, Northeastern University, Brandeis University, Emerson College, Bridewater State University, and Concord Academy, where he proudly served as the Director of the Theatre Program for fifteen years.
David is also invested in experimental, devised, and movement-based performance work, and has conceived and directed more than twenty-five world-premiere original productions and dance-theatre pieces. He is proud to have collaborated with innovative actors, dancers, choreographers, writers, dramaturges, and designers on bold new works with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Headlong Dance Theatre, No More Masterpieces, LAND Collective, Phantom Theatre, Spencer/Colton, Lorraine Chapman: The Company, and the Theatre and Dance Companies of Concord Academy.
David is a graduate of the Directing Program of the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, where he trained with Ron Daniels, Robert Scanlan, Alvin Epstein, and Tommy Derrah, under the leadership of visionary founder Robert Brustein. He is also a graduate of Harvard University, with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies, focused on painting, sculpture, and photography.
Please visit https://davidrgammons.com/.