Deborah Voigt’s Spring 2009 includes role debut at New York’s Rose Theater
Deborah Voigt, internationally renowned for her performances
in operas by Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, and Strauss, gives her first performance
of Gluck’s seldom-performed Alceste on
May 26, in concert with the New York City Opera Orchestra and the Collegiate
Chorale at the Rose Theater. A great classic role, the title part in
Christoph Gluck’s second “reform” opera was a Metropolitan Opera specialty of
Kirsten Flagstad and Eileen Farrell, who made her company debut in the opera.
Deborah Voigt comments: “I am very much looking forward to
another concert with the Collegiate Chorale and the opportunity to sing this
rarely-performed piece.”
While Voigt gives her role debut as Alceste with the
Collegiate Chorale, she has previously sung concert performances of
Beethoven’s Fidelio and two of his rare cantatas
with the group. The May 26 concert will be the second version of the
opera, as first performed in Paris in 1776. The growing international
Gluck revival – of which last season’s Met production of Iphigénie en
Aulide was a prime example – is receiving another
local boost with this singular performance. After the sudden death last
year of Robert Bass, artistic director of the Collegiate Chorale, it’s fitting
that Voigt is returning to sing an important new role with the group.
Except for this concert in New York, Voigt’s spring schedule
calls for a lot of travel: she is currently finishing a run of performances as
Amelia – one of her signature roles – in Verdi’s Ballo at
Paris’s Opéra Bastille (through May 13). Late May and early June give
Deborah Voigt a chance to look at the “midnight sun”, with a recital in
Reykjavik and an orchestral concert in Copenhagen. In concert with the
London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, she sings some of her most popular
pieces – arias by Beethoven, Wagner, and Strauss – including the final scene
from Salome. She goes to Germany for a
series of concerts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester under Ingo
Metzmacher, starting at the Berlin Philharmonie (June 19); and continuing to
nearby Cottbus for the Brandenburg Summer Concerts (June 20); then
Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the Richard Strauss Festival (honoring the 60th anniversary
of the composer’s death with his valedictory work on June 23); and finally
Paris, where the tour concludes at the historic Salle Pleyel (June 24).
At each of these four concerts with the DSO, Voigt sings both the “Liebestod”
from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and
Strauss’s Four Last Songs.
In July, Voigt returns to Covent Garden for a series
of Tosca performances, and she’ll open
Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 55th season with that same opera on
September 26.
Voigt was recently profiled on the NY-1 television interview
program One on 1 with Budd Mishkin.
That video can be viewed at the following link: www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=96129.
A list of Deborah Voigt’s upcoming engagements follows.
Deborah Voigt: spring 2009 engagements
May 26: New York, NY
Gluck: Alceste (title role)
Rose Theater at Lincoln Center
Collegiate Chorale / George Manahan
May 31: Reykjavik, Iceland
Recital with Brian Zeger, piano
Háskólabíó Concert Hall
June 5: Copenhagen, Denmark
Beethoven: “Abscheulicher” from Fidelio;
Strauss: Salome (final scene)
Tivoli Concert Hall
Tivoli Symphony Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko
June 12: London, England
Wagner: “Dich, teure Halle” (Tannhäuser), “Du
bist der Lenz” (Die Walküre); Strauss: “Zweite Brautnacht” (The
Egyptian Helen), “Ich kann nicht sitzen” (Elektra);
Beethoven: “Abscheulicher” (Fidelio);
Strauss: Salome (final scene)
London Symphony Orchestra / Asher Fisch
Barbican Hall
June 19-24
Wagner: “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde;
Strauss: Four Last Songs
Tour with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Ingo Metzmacher
June 19: Berlin – Philharmonie
June 20: Cottbus, Germany – Brandenburg Summer Concerts
June 23: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany – Richard Strauss Festival
June 24: Paris – Salle Pleyel