Brava, VIVICA!
photo credit: Christian Steiner
Hailing from Alaska, America’s ‘last frontier,’ the thrilling mezzo-soprano VIVICA GENAUX continues to earn accolades from audiences and critics alike for her enthralling performances on the world’s greatest stages, praise focusing on both the unique beauty of her voice and the astounding brilliance of her technique, which combine to create unforgettable portraits of some of the most engaging characters in opera. Consistently lauded as one of the pre-eminent interpreters of Baroque and bel canto music, she continues to explore new avenues in these repertories.
During the 2013-14 season, Vivica continues to balance her appearances in the United States and abroad with operatic engagements, concerts, and recitals in new venues and locales, in addition to returns to favorite cities and institutions with which she has enjoyed triumphs in past seasons. This season, she expands her repertory with three of the most intriguing rôles in opera: Dido in Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Manlio in Antonio Vivaldi’s Tito Manlio, and Sesto in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito. These parts will bring her repertory to a total of fifty-six rôles, of which thirty-six are travesti rôles. She will also sing Vagaus in Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha triumphans, as well as three of her bel canto specialties: Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Isabella in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri, and Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti ed i Montecchi. She will also make her début with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Along with her numerous appearances throughout the world, Vivica will celebrate the release of two new recordings during this season, both on labels within the Sony family. In November 2013, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi will release her recording of Johann Adolph Hasse’s opera Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra. Later in the season, Sony Classical will release Baroque Divas, a disc celebrating the vocal glories of the rivalry between Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. In this release, Vivica lends her talents to a quartet of today’s Baroque leading ladies.
In “Italian Girl in Algiers” Photo credit: Mirco Magliocca
Vivica launches her 2013-14 Season on 20 September with the first of her new rôles, Manlio in Vivaldi’s Tito Manlio, at France’s Festival d’Ambronay. She returns to the United States for a much-anticipated private concert with Miami-based Seraphic Fire on 12 October. A week later, on 19 October, she makes her début ‘south of the border’ with a performance of Baroque arias with Lars Ulrik Mortensen and his Concerto Copenhagen for Guanajuato, Mexico’s Festival Cervantino. Vivica bids farewell to 2013 in Vienna, where she reprises one of her ‘calling card’ rôles, Angelina in La Cenerentola, at the Wiener Staatsoper (23, 27, and 30 December).
Vivica rings in the new year alongside frequent collaborators soprano Simone Kermes and Cappella Gabetta (Andrés Gabetta, Leader) with performances of a fascinating new program paying homage to the fierce but artistically productive rivalry between Eighteenth-Century powerhouses Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. Exploring the rich legacy of music composed for these superstars of Baroque opera by Bononcini, Giacomelli, Händel, Hasse, Leo, Lotti, Porpora, Porta, and Sarro, the program is premièred on 16 January at Schloss Elmau in Bavaria, with subsequent presentations scheduled for later in the season and beyond. Her first performances of the rôle of the firebrand Sesto in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito take her to the Teatro Calderón in Valladolid, Spain (29, 31 January; 2 February). Vivica eagerly anticipates her first pairing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which will accompany her in concerts of jewels from her Baroque repertory under the direction of Nicholas McGegan on 13 and 18 February. March finds her in Spain for a performance of Tito Manlio at Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional (23 March). Rejoining Maestro McGegan, this time with his own Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, she sings the rôle of Vagaus in Juditha triumphans throughout the San Francisco Bay Area (2, 4, 5, and 6 April). Her final new rôle of the season is that of the ill-fated Queen of Carthage, Dido, in Dido and Aeneas, whom she will introduce to the public via a production by Opéra de Rouen Haute-Normandie, first at the Company’s home base in Rouen (9, 10, 11, and 13 May) and later at the Opera House of the Château de Versailles (14 and 15 June). Between her outings as Dido, she will sing the rôle of another star-crossed lover, Romeo in I Capuleti ed i Montecchi, in a concert performance at Dortmund’s Klangvokal Musikfestival on 6 June. Vivica will celebrate the start of summer by returning to her home state of Alaska to sing Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri with Opera Fairbanks. She, Ms. Kermes, and Cappella Gabetta resume their journey through the music that pitted Faustina Bordoni against Francesca Cuzzoni with performances at Lübeck’s Schleswig-Holstein Festival on 22 and 23 July. Vivica brings down the curtain on her season with a series of master classes at the Weimar Festival in late July and early August.
