VIVICA GENAUX, mezzo-soprano

"...the leading baroque
and bel canto interpreter
of her generation..."

"not only
soars above the orchestra
but seems to surpass nature
in her interpretation
of the nightingale!"

The music you're hearing is one of the arias excerpted in "A Voice Out Of The Cold" - an exciting video documentary on Vivica Genaux, available on DVD exclusively on FanFaire.com

Career Highlights / Past Seasons

   Among the highlights of her 2010-11 season were operatic performances at:

the Deutsche Staatsoper and Salzburg Whitsun Festival in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, led by René Jacobs, and L’italiana in Algeri at the Opéra National de Paris and Wiener Staatsoper. Concert presentations of other large-scale vocal works included Leonardo Leo’s oratorio Sant’Elena al Calvario in Cracow with Mo. Biondi and Europa Galante, the Rossini Stabat Mater under Myung-Whun Chung at the Saint-Denis Festival, as well as two events at the Wiener Konzerthaus: Meyerbeer’s Emma di Resburgo with the Kammerorchester moderntimes_1800 and Handel’s Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with Concerto Copenhagen. With the latter ensemble, both in Copenhagen and Vienna, she also performed a tribute to the famed Baroque diva and muse, Faustina Bordoni, featuring arias by Handel and Hasse. With Concerto Köln she presented a different Bordoni tribute in Herne, Germany, as well as further Handel/Hasse concerts in Germany (Cologne, Halle, Schwetzingen & Potsdam), France (Strasbourg, Montpellier, Brive-la-Gaillarde & Vendée) and also for her debut at Copenhagen’s Tivoli Festival. With Kammerorchester Basel she performed Rossini works in Paris, Versailles and Lucerne. She also sang with Andrew Litton and the hr-Sinfonieorcheter in Wiesbaden, performed a U.S. recital for Tannery Pond Concerts in the Berkshires, and gave a command performance in Brussels for the government of Belgium.

Ms. Genaux’s professional stage debut was with the Florentine Opera in October 1994 as Isabella in L’italiana. She subsequently sang the role with numerous companies, including the Opéra National de Paris, San Francisco Opera and Turin’s Teatro Regio, among others. Rosina/Il barbiere di Siviglia is her most performed role, having sung it with twenty-one companies including: the Wiener, Deutsche and Bayerische Staatsopers; Metropolitan, De Nederlandse, Washington National and Dallas Operas; and at the Dresden Festival. She has played Angelina/Cenerentola with twenty-two companies including the: Semperoper, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opera Orchestra of New York (at Carnegie Hall), Washington Concert Opera, Teatro Municipal de Santiago, New Israeli Opera, Japan Opera Foundation, and the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Among her other bel canto credentials are the trouser parts of: Title Role/Tancredi (Vienna/Budapest); Neocle/L’assedio di Corinto (Baltimore); Malcolm/La donna del lago (Caramoor); Orsini/Lucrezia Borgia (Caramoor/Minnesota Opera); Falliero in Bianca e Falliero (Washington Concert Opera); Hassem in Donizetti’s Alahor in Granata (Seville); Pippo/La gazza ladra (Caramoor); Arsace/ Semiramide (Minnesota & Caramoor) and Romeo/I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (Minnesota/ Pittsburgh). In the Baroque and early-Classical repertoires her Handel roles are the most varied and numerous, encompassing everything from fearless generals to ruthless goddesses, from impetuous young men to love-sick maidens disguised in male attire, from caped Crusaders to the most nefarious of villains and finally to allegorical visions: Il Piacere/Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Madrid/Vienna); Bradamante/Alcina (Paris); Title Role/Ariodante (Dallas/San Diego); Polinesso/Ariodante (Paris/London/ Madrid/Vienna); Title Role/Arminio (Solothurn/Siena/Amsterdam); Title Role/Giulio Cesare (Washington); Sesto/Giulio Cesare (San Diego); the dual roles of Juno and Ino/Semele (Les Talens Lyriques in Paris, and London and The New York City Opera); and the Title Role/Rinaldo (Montpellier/ Innsbruck). She has also labored lovingly to help widen the appreciation for the works of Johann Adolf Hasse, both in her many concerts and on stage: Piramo/Piramo e Tisbe (Salzburg/Montpellier); Marc’Antonio/Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra (Paris/Brussels) and Selimo/Solimano (Berlin/ Dresden). Additionally, she has made a strong impact as: Penelope/Il ritorno d’Ulisse (Munich–three engagements); Title Role/Vivaldi’s Giustino (Solothurn); Irene/Bajazet (Vienna/Yokohama/Montpellier/Venice/Cracow/Paris/Madrid/Metz); Antiope/ Ercole sul Termodonte (Cracow/Vienna/Paris); Teologia in Alessandro Scarlatti’s La Santissima Trinità (Palermo/Lyon/Paris); Nerone in Domenico Scarlatti’s Ottavia restituita al trono (San Sebastián); Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (Los Angeles); and in a pair of Haydn roles - Costanza in L’isola disabitata (Bamberg) and Ernesto in Il mondo della luna (Vienna).

Included among her many notable past concert and recital engagements have been those with: the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, La Cetra, Collegium Apollineum, Il Complesso Barocco, Concentus Musicus Wien, Concerto Copenhagen, Concerto Italiano, Concerto Köln, Europa Galante, Freiburger Barockorchester, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Kammerorchester Basel, Kammerorchester moderntimes_1800, Les Paladins, Les Talens Lyriques, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and at the BBC Proms; festival appearances in: Rome, Prague, Ludwigsburg, Halle, Schwetzingen, St. Denis, Lanaudière, Montpellier, San Remo, Antibes, Ravello and Caramoor; performances with: the Münchner Kammerorchester, New York Chamber Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, New York Festival of Song, in her native Alaska (Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau), at the Wiener Konzerthaus, London’s Barbican Center, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Teatro Real in Madrid, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, on a South American tour (São Paulo/Rio de Janeiro/Montevideo and Buenos Aires), Herbst Theater in San Francisco and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, as well as on French TV on “Les Victoires de la Musique” and Eve Ruggieri’s “Musique au cœur 5 étoiles”.

Ms. Genaux’s discography/videography continues to grow steadily. The two previously-mentioned record¬ings to be made in 2011-12 are set for release within the following season: the Handel/Hasse duet disc with soprano Veronica Cangemi and Cappella Gabetta on Sony; and Vivaldi’s L’oracolo in Messenia, with Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante on Virgin Classics. Her most recent releases include: the 2010 Oehms Classics CD of Hasse’s Sanctus Petrus et Sancta Maria Magdalena, led by Michael Hofstetter from the 2008 Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiel; a DVD of the Vienna production of Il mondo della luna, led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt on the Unitel Classica/C Major label (2010); and the Virgin Classics CD of Vivaldi’s Ercole sul Termodonte (2010/11), conducted by Fabio Biondi leading Europa Galante, with a cast that includes Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Philippe Jaroussky and Rolando Villazón. Ercole was given a 2011 Echo Klassik Prize for “Opera Recording of the Year (17th-/18th-Century)”, marking the mezzo’s third such Echo award for her work with the Biondi/Europa Galante team, preceded by “Pyrotechnics – Vivaldi Opera Arias” (Virgin, 2009), which also received a 2010 Grammy© nomination for “Best Classical Vocal Performance,” and by Bajazet (Virgin, 2005), which won the Echo Klassik award in 2006, as well as a Grammy©-nomination. Among other recently released CDs are the world-premiere recording of Vivaldi’s L’Atenaide, with Federico Maria Sardelli leading the Orchestra Barocca Modo Antiqua on the Naïve label, as well as Virgin Classics’ “Handel/Hasse, Arias and Cantatas” (2006), with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roy; La Santissima Trinità (Biondi/Europa Galante) released in 2004; and, in 2003, her first solo disc on the label, “Bel Canto Arias,” featuring works by Rossini and Donizetti, with John Nelson conducting the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris. Harmonia Mundi produced two Baroque recordings, both conducted by René Jacobs, which have garnered copious critical and popular accolades: Handel’s Rinaldo, in 2003 and the Grammy©-nominated “Arias for Farinelli” in 2002. Arminio, recorded live in 2001, released on Virgin Classics, led by Alan Curtis, won the 2002 International Handel Prize. Other live recordings include: Alahor in Granata on the Almaviva label; “Rossiniana,” released by Agora with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi; and “An Evening of Arias and Songs by Gioacchino Rossini,” with accompanist Martin Dubé. A documentary, “A Voice out of the Cold,” has been seen on television world-wide. “Fracture,” her first film, in which she made a cameo appearance, was released internationally in the Spring of 2007 and is now available on DVD.

In May 2008 Pittsburgh Opera honored Ms. Genaux with their Maecenas Award and the previous year she garnered the New York City Opera’s Christopher Keene Award. She is also the recipient of other distinctions: the Premio “Opera CD Classics – Città di Mondovi” and the Florentine Opera’s Marie Z. Uihlein Artist Prize. She has also been recognized by several other musical organizations, including the Fort Worth, Baltimore and Palm Beach Operas. In 1997 she won a prestigious ARIA Award, and was lauded as the “1999 Artist of the Year” by the Dresden Music Festival. She makes her home in Motta di Livenza and studies with Claudia Pinza, continuing her long-time association with EPCASO (Ezio Pinza Council of American Singers of Opera).

VIEW a VIDEO CLIP from VIVICA's PYROTECHNICS EMI RECORDING SESSION


Click on and learn more about this fast rising opera star hailed as "the preeminent Rossini interpreter of the new generation," a singer "naturally suited to the baroque and bel canto styles, with a voice that has in it both the duskiness of twilight and the freshness of morning!"