(Credit: © 2022 Tina Boyadjieva)

On May 3, 2022, the American Friends of the Donizetti Opera Festival held its first luncheon at the Lotos Club in New York City.

The event marked the first for the organization, which supports artists in their studies on the Donizetti legacy and bel canto and the festival held in November.

The event opened with a cocktail hour in which guests were delighted with Hors d’oeuvres and champagne. That was followed by a lunch that consisted of three courses.

During the meal, the President and Chairman of the AFDOF Aranzazu Escudero de Zuloaga gave a few remarks about the organization and the double mission of the AFDOF.

“Three years ago Maestro Riccardo Frizza thought about the importance of having an organization in the United States of friends of the Donizetti Opera Festival. With the support of the Bergamo Festival, the professionalism of Karen Kriendler (former executive director of the Richard Tucker Foundation), and thanks to the legal activity pro-bono of the K&L Gates law firm in New York, at the end of 2019 the constitution of the ‘American Friends of the Donizetti Opera Festival Inc’ non-profit entity, 501 (C) (3) corporation, was created and has operated ever since,” Escudero de Zuloaga noted.

She added, that “due to the pandemic, the American Friends of the Donizetti Opera Festival decided to postpone its presentation until the member singers of its Artists’ Board, chaired by Sondra Radvanovsky, were performing at the Met Opera in the new production of ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ under the Maestro Frizza.”

Following Escudero de Zuloaga’s remarks, Music Director Riccardo Frizza spoke about the festival and its 2022 edition, which will see the event present “La Favorite” and two rarely performed works by Donizetti: “L’aio nell’imbarazzo” and “Chiara e Serafina.” Maestro Frizza also showcased two videos, one that summarized the festival and the other that gave guests an overview of the renovations to the famed Teatro Donizetti.

In attendance at the lunch were tenor Javier Camarena, who will perform at the festival in “La Favorite” and soprano Davinia Rodriguez, as well as Cesare Bieller, Italian consul in New York; Irene Asquini, Adjunct consul in New York; and Riccardo Cursi, vice Italian Consul in New York.

Following the lunch, guests were invited to see the “Lucia di Lammermoor” manuscript at the Italian Cultural Institute, which was brought to the United States from the Angelo Mai Library in Bergamo, for the first time on the occasion of the new production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at the Metropolitan Opera.