When she was a young girl, mezzo-soprano Annalisa Stroppa would come home from school to a healthy diet of “The Three Tenors” and Mario del Monaco. Her grandparents idolized these artists and quickly impregnated their granddaughter with an unshakeable passion for opera. “That’s when I discovered I had a special voice and from then on, there was no one stopping {…}
Most opera singers can’t wait to rush in and sing their dream roles. In fact, in today’s world, with the high demand for singers to mature at an earlier age, a lot of young singers start young and end young, the pressure simply too great to sustain a lasting and healthy career. Iwona Sobotka was privy to this scenario early {…}
David Portillo’s career at the Metropolitan Opera got off to an expected start. As a lyric tenor, he sang the lead role in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville,” an opera that he and most tenors of his FACH are quite familiar with. His debut was a huge success, the tenor earning rave reviews for his lush vocal quality and fearless {…}
The Wagner tenor is a rare breed, often defined by a thick and granular quality that can easily cut through the orchestra, all while singing the most difficult music in the operatic canon. When we think of Wagnerian voices, we think dark and heavy, not light and delicate. Unless of course, we are talking about Klaus Florian Vogt. Arguably the {…}
How do you maintain a dramatic soprano voice fresh? The answer isn’t always obvious for a singer of that voice type. These voices, prized for their sheer power and weight, often face the most difficult repertoire in the operatic canon, many of which can be damaging if sung too often. But for acclaimed Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, who sings Beethoven’s {…}
Matthew Polenzani loves Mozart’s “Idomeneo.” During a recent interview with OperaWire, the tenor went so far as to call it the composer’s “greatest opera.” That’s right, with output that includes gems such as “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “Don Giovanni,” “Così Fan Tutte” and “Die Zauberflote,” Polenzani, who is among the greatest exponents of these very operas, puts his marker on {…}
Anna Caterina Antonacci is regarded as one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos of our time. She has performed all over the world in diverse repertoire and has thrilled audiences with her dramatic acting and vocal fireworks. Recently she has been making waves in Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine,” one of the most popular one-woman operas in the world. She has performed the {…}
“I have always felt like the odd one out. The way I put my voice together. No one knows what to do with me. In terms of my height, I was a six-foot girl since I was 10-years-old. I have always been the outsider.” This was Elza Van Den Heever’s response to my question regarding how she relates to the {…}
A butterfly can never be caged or it dies. The same can be said of an opera singer, who needs the freedom to explore and develop as an artist. When an artist is caged and not allowed to carve out an organic path, he or she may burn out very quickly. During a recent interview with OperaWire, soprano Pretty Yende {…}
When people talk about soprano Angela Meade, the first thing that they associate with her is one name – Verdi. The soprano has almost become synonymous with the great maestro from Busseto, her star thrust into the spotlight when she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in “Ernani” in 2008. Since then she has championed Verdi, singing some of his most {…}
Those two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Those immortal words by Robert Frost might as well apply to almost anyone who takes on an artistic endeavor. But for bass Matthew Curran, the path to operatic success has been a truly unusual one, as {…}
