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, new video documentary on Vivica Genaux, available on DVD exclusively on FanFaire.com

Career Highlights / Past Seasons

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   Among the highlights of her 2008-09 season were engagements with:

Theater an der Wien (Ariodante); Madrid’s Teatro Real (Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno); Turin’s Teatro Regio and Pittsburgh Opera (L’italiana in Algeri); Bamberger Symphoniker (Haydn’s L’isola disabitata); and made her ninth appearance at the Caramoor Festival (Semiramide). She sang recitals at Tannery Pond in the Berkshires, as well as in Pittsburgh; performed with Concerto Köln in Fénétrange, Cologne, Lyon, Saarbrücken, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires; and was featured in Vivaldi’s Ercole sul Termodonte with the team of Biondi/Europa Galante in Cracow, Vienna and Paris.

Additionally, she offered works by Hasse at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, sang a program of Baroque arias at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall with members of the Venice Baroque Orchestra, as well as sang concerts at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, performed a Cantata, The Birth of Christ, as part of Rome’s Easter Festival, participated on a Gala Concert in Fairbanks celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Statehood for her native Alaska, sang sacred works by Pergolesi and Handel/Ferrandini at the Festival de Saint-Denis, and sang Rossini arias for her BBC Proms debut.

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 seven other 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 eighteen companies including the: Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Semperoper, Opera Orchestra of New York (at Carnegie Hall), Santiago’s Teatro Municipal, New Israeli Opera and the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Among her other bel canto credentials are the trouser parts of: Neocle/L’assedio di Corinto (Baltimore); Malcolm/La donna del lago (Caramoor); Orsini/Lucrezia Borgia (Caramoor/Minnesota Opera); Hassem in the Donizetti rarity Alahor in Granata (Seville); Pippo/La gazza ladra (Caramoor); Arsace/Semiramide (Minnesota) 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: Bradamante/Alcina (Paris); Title Role/Ariodante (Dallas/San Diego); Polinesso/Ariodante (Paris/London/Madrid); Title Role/Arminio (Solothurn/ Siena/Amsterdam); Title Role/Giulio Cesare (Washington); Sesto/Giulio Cesare (San Diego); Falliero in Bianca e Falliero (Washington Concert Opera) the dual roles of Juno and Ino/Semele (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 Hasse, both in her many concerts and on stage: 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); Teologia in Alessandro Scarlatti’s La Santissima Trinità (Palermo/Lyon/Paris); Nerone in Domenico Scarlatti’s Ottavia restituita al trono (San Sebastián); and Orfeo in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (Los Angeles).

Included among her many notable past concert and recital engagements have been those with: the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, La Cetra, Il Complesso Barocco, Concerto Italiano, Concerto Köln Europa Galante, Freiburger Barockorchester, Les Talens Lyriques, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestre National de France, and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; festival appearances in: Prague, 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, Teatro Real in Madrid, Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, Herbst Theater in San Francisco and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, as well as on French TV on Eve Ruggieri’s “Musique au cœur 5 étoiles”.

Several future recording projects are planned as Ms. Genaux’s discography continues to grow steadily. Due on the market in the 2009-10 season are two Vivaldi projects for Virgin Classics with Fabio Biondi/Europa Galante - Ercole sul Termodonte and “Pyrotechnics – Vivaldi Opera Arias”.

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

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, which has received consistent praise; the lavishly lauded, Grammy©-nominated Biondi/Europa Galante Bajazet (2005); 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).

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!"

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