Joyce DiDonato to host “An Opera Celebration” on PBS.
On December 15, Joyce
DiDonato will be the onscreen host for the first telecast of the Richard Tucker
Music Foundation Gala since 2002 to be shown nationwide on PBS. She shares reminiscences of performing
in the concert, and introduces her colleagues – among them Diana Damrau, Renée
Fleming, and Simon Keenlyside, who sang Don Giovanni to her Donna Elvira in
London a few months ago.
A sign of recognition
early in her career was Joyce DiDonato’s 2002 Richard Tucker Award from the
Richard Tucker Music Foundation.
Last year, she gladly came to the Foundation’s rescue when a colleague was
indisposed just before the annual Tucker Foundation Gala in New York. She flew in from Europe on the day of
the concert, borrowed a dress, and sang three selections – including a
signature “Una voce poco fà” from Rossini’s Barber
of Seville – that were described by the New
York Times as “among the most spectacular vocal feats this listener has
ever heard, thrown off with ease, a sense of fun, and pinpoint control.”
DiDonato comes to Carnegie
Hall for three concerts in January
The
Kansas-born shutterbug and widely-read blogger was the star of last season’s Barber of Seville telecast by The Met: Live in HD. This January, New York audiences may
attend any or all of her three Carnegie Hall performances – on two consecutive
Sunday afternoons and the Friday between.
On January 18, 2009, she joins a bevy of colleagues on Carnegie’s main
stage for the annual Marilyn Horne Foundation gala, celebrating the great
mezzo’s 75th birthday and her foundation’s 15th anniversary. The following Sunday
afternoon, January 25, DiDonato joins James Levine and his MET Orchestra, again
on the main stage, singing both Rossini’s song cycle La regata veneziana and Mozart’s concert aria “Ch’io mi scordi di
te?”, with Peter Serkin at the piano.
On January 13, EMI’s
Virgin Classics label releases DiDonato’s CD Furore!
On
Friday, January 23, furor will reign in Zankel Hall, when DiDonato performs
nine Handel arias from her new CD, Furore,
with France’s superb early music ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, and its leader,
Christophe Rousset – the same band heard on the recording. Les Talens Lyriques will give DiDonato
some respite with a few spirited orchestral selections between her arias.
“Joyce DiDonato has made some terrific
records over the past few years, including a delicious program of Handel
duets,” stated a Gramophone review
three years ago. Now, DiDonato –
an unrivaled international Handel star – has recorded Furore, her first disc of
solo scenes and arias for EMI’s Virgin Classics label, all furioso excerpts from Handel operas. Furore was
released in Europe to coincide with DiDonato’s first Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at London’s Royal Opera
House in September, and will be released in the U.S. on January 13 to coincide
with her three Carnegie Hall
appearances between January 18 and 25.
The
London Sunday Times described Furore as “a brilliant, and mostly offbeat, program of angry
arias by temperamental, high-voiced heroes and vindictive heroines,” and warned
that “Handelians will want to fasten
their safety belts,” while the Observer stated: “Under the title Furore, American mezzo Joyce DiDonato …
bring[s] her rare dramatic intensity and purity of tone to 14 mad scenes from
Handel. Pain mingles exquisitely
with sorrow … [and] there are calmer beauties here, too, in a collection that stands way out from the recent spate of
Handel recitals.”
Furore includes arias and scenes from Handel’s Serse, Teseo, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Admeto,
Hercules, Semele, Imeneo, Ariodante, and Amadigi di Gaula, and is a jewel in the crown of DiDonato’s growing
discography. EMI has a webpage
dedicated exclusively to the recording, www.didonatofurore.com.
Joyce
DiDonato at work:
December 15, PBS-TV (check local listings): Hosting the 2008 Richard
Tucker Music Foundation Gala
www.pbs.org, www.richardtucker.org
January 18, 2009, Carnegie Hall, NYC: Marilyn Horne Foundation Gala
January 23, Zankel Hall, NYC: “Furore!” – Handel arias with Les Talens Lyriques /
Christophe Rousset
January 24: Joyce DiDonato
hosts the Met’s HD broadcast of Gluck’s Orfeo
ed Euridice in select movie theaters around the world.
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/
January 25, Carnegie Hall, NYC: MET Orchestra / James Levine
Mozart: “Ch’io mi scordi di te?”, with Peter Serkin, piano; Rossini: La regata veneziana