This Week, Angela Meade Headlines William Tell on North American Tour with Turin’s Teatro Regio, Crowned by Carnegie Concert on Sunday (Dec 7)

Tomorrow, following her triumphant European appearances in the same production, Angela Meade launches a North American tour with Italy’s Teatro Regio di Torino and Gianandrea Noseda, headlining concert performances of William Tell in Chicago (Dec 3), Toronto (Dec 5), New York City’s Carnegie Hall (Sun, Dec 7), and Ann Arbor (Dec 9). The New York performance marks the soprano’s second engagement at the Stern Auditorium this season, and she continues to dominate the Manhattan cultural scene in the New Year. For her eagerly awaited New York Philharmonic debut, she joins the orchestra for three accounts of Verdi’s Requiem with Alan Gilbert at Avery Fisher Hall (Jan 15-17), and she also looks forward to revisiting one of her jaw-dropping 57 vocal competition wins, sharing the stage with fellow George London Award-winner Nicholas Pallesen for a George London Recital at the Morgan Library (Jan 11). As Opera News explained in its November cover story, when Meade became the youngest singer ever selected as the face of the magazine’s annual “Diva” issue, “Easily the most talked-about soprano of her generation, … Meade inhabits her stardom. … [She is] not just an extravagantly accomplished singer but a diva now thoroughly in her element.”

Despite the popularity of the William Tell overture’s famously galloping finale, the epic scale and extravagant vocal demands of Rossini’s final opera have rendered revivals few and far between. About singing the role of the princess Mathilde, Meade says:

 “Mathilde is an interesting part for me because it is one of the bridges between Rossini and early Verdi. In William Tell Rossini    was moving away from the ultra-florid style of The Barber of Seville and Semiramide and towards something approaching the early Verdi of Ernani or I Lombardi. Mathilde’s music, in keeping with her station as a Hapsburg princess, is stately, grand and beautiful.”

The soprano first undertook the role in May, making her Italian debut in a fully staged production of the opera at Turin’s Teatro Regio that was hailed as “a major achievement” (Financial Times). It was with the same cast and conductor that Meade went on to grace concert performances at Italy’s Stresa Music Festival and Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival, where, according to London’s Telegraph,

“Mathilde was also impressively incarnated by the American soprano Angela Meade, who has recently become a big favourite at the Metropolitan Opera. One could hear why: the voice is sumptuous and it paints the music with a confidently broad brush and a richly coloured palette.” 

For her upcoming North American tour, Meade reunites with the Teatro Regio di Torino, conductor Gianandrea Noseda, and cast members including John Osborn, who reprises his signature role as Arnoldo.

For her first appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Meade joins mezzo-soprano Lilli Paasikivi, tenor Brandon Jovanovich, and bass-baritone Eric Owens under the baton of music director Alan Gilbert for Verdi’s Requiem at Avery Fisher Hall (Jan 15–17). When she performed the same work with the Philadelphia Orchestra last season, the American Record Guide pronounced hers “a flawless and electrifying performance,” in a review that continued: “She made the ending of the ‘Libera Me’ passionate, sonic, and supple; and she was utterly one with the chorus. It was a moment of vocal gold.”

In 2008, Meade took the operatic community by storm, winning an unprecedented nine national and international vocal competitions in just four months. These included her George London Award, which she revisits this season in partnership with baritone Nicholas Pallesen, winner of the 2013 award, at a George London Recital with pianist Danielle Orlando at the Morgan Library in New York (Jan 11). The soprano is an acclaimed recitalist; her Kennedy Center recital debut prompted the Baltimore Sun to declare:

“The singer has the one key element that cannot be faked by any amount of aggressive publicity – a voice. A real, honest-to-goodness, fully formed vocal instrument that has you sitting up to take notice from the first note. As Meade demonstrated … that voice is backed by keen musicality.”

Further details of Angela Meade’s upcoming engagements follow, and additional information may be found at her website: angelameade.com.

 

Angela Meade: upcoming engagements

Dec 3-9
U.S. tour with Teatro Regio di Torino / Gianandrea Noseda
Rossini: Guglielmo Tell in concert (Mathilde)
Dec 3: Chicago, IL (Harris Theater)
Dec 5: Toronto, ON
Dec 7: New York, NY (Carnegie Hall)
Dec 9: Ann Arbor, MI

Jan 8
Myrtle Beach, SC
Promenade Concert Series
Recital with Danielle Orlando, piano

Jan 11
New York, NY
George London Recital
Morgan Library and Museum
With Nicholas Pallesen, baritone; Danielle Orlando, piano

Jan 15–17
New York, NY
New York Philharmonic / Alan Gilbert (NYPO debut)
Verdi: Requiem

Feb 6, 9, 11, 14
Seville, Spain
Teatro de la Maestranza
Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra / Maurizio Benini, conductor
Bellini’s Norma (Norma)

March 20, 23, 26, 31; April 4, 8, 11
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera / James Levine
Verdi: Ernani (Elvira)

March 22
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera
National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert (as emcee and guest artist)

March 24 (sold out)
New York, NY
Opera News – The Singers’ Studio
Rose Building, Lincoln Center
A Conversation with Angela Meade
With F. Paul Driscoll, Opera News Editor-in-Chief

March 27
Philadelphia, PA
Academy of Vocal Arts
Gala concert
AVA alumni & resident artists

April 24-26
Oviedo, Spain
Verdi: Requiem

June 7-14
Manchester, UK
St. Peter’s Church, Blossom St., Ancoats
Opera Rara recording sessions
Donizetti’s Le duc d’Albe (Hélène d’Egmont)

 

www.angelameade.com
www.facebook.com/Angela-Meade
twitter.com/SoprAngela

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© 21C Media Group, December 2014