Ernani Bios
SALVATORE LICITRA
(Ernani)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Radames/ Aida (2004-05)
Also this season: Ernani, Zurich Opernhaus; Turandot, Metropolitan Opera; La fanciulla del West, San Francisco Opera.
“In each Verdi opera you must show so many colors, so many ideas about the character,” says the renowned Italian tenor. “Verdi, who came from a very poor family, had to fight in every moment in his life – and when he came to Milan, the conservatory refused him. Surely he wanted to put himself into his score as a brave and noble warrior. Ernani was a bandit, of course, but noble, on the right side, and a good example to follow. The amazing moment dramatically is near the end when, in keeping his promise to Silva, he shows that he’s completely honest. In today’s world, it’s a kind of positive message to everyone. Not that we have to die – the point is, do the right thing, be brave enough to keep your promises and remain true to yourself.” Licitra stars regularly at the Metropolitan Opera; his successes there include Tosca (debut, 2002), Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci (Turiddu and Canio in the same evening), Aida, La forza del destino, Un ballo in maschera, and the new production of Il trittico (HD transmission worldwide). Licitra’s close associations with major companies include the Zurich Opernhaus ( Aida now on DVD, new production of Andrea Chénier ), La Scala, and the Vienna Staatsoper. Besides role debuts as Ernani (Deutsche Oper Berlin) and Don Carlo (Los Angeles Opera), he has made recent appearances in Munich, Florence, Rome, Covent Garden, Washington, Paris, and at the Verona Arena. He collaborated with Marcello Giordani and Ramón Vargas in concert in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Licitra has recorded Il trovatore and Tosca (the latter on DVD, both under Riccardo Muti), two aria recitals, and a duet program with Marcelo Álvarez.
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SONDRA RADVANOVSKY
(Elvira)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Leonora/ Il trovatore (2006-07); title role/ Susannah (2002-03).
Also this season: Il trovatore, San Francisco Opera; Stiffelio, Metropolitan Opera; Don Carlo, Opéra National de Paris .
“ Ernani deserves to be as well known as Ballo or Trovatore,” says the American soprano. “I absolutely hear echoes of the bel canto composers in Elvira’s music, and she’s definitely the most bel canto -oriented of the Verdi heroines I’ve sung. The role is wellwritten if you have the upper extension, the lower extension, the trills, the coloratura, the line – Verdi demands everything! Singers who perform this music really need to be in their thirties or forties, but you still need fresh, youthful innocence for Elvira. I try to think of my first time falling in love! In the ensembles I love riding above the orchestra and chorus – it’s thrilling. You have to have a voice with thrust; that’s what Verdi wanted.” An internationally celebrated Verdian, Radvanovsky counts among her specialties in this repertoire Elena/ I vespri siciliani (Metropolitan Opera, Vienna, Paris, Genoa), Elisabetta/ Don Carlo (Met, San Diego), Lina/ Stiffelio (Covent Garden), LuisaMiller (Met), and her most-often-performed role, Leonora/ Il trovatore (11 major houses to date, most recently San Francisco Opera). Other major successes in non-Verdi roles include Roxane/ Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Plácido Domingo (Met, debuts at Covent Garden and La Scala), Manon Lescaut (Leipzig), Lucrezia Borgia (Washington, Canary Islands), and Suor Angelica (Los Angeles). Met audiences have also heard her in leading roles of Mozart, Bizet, Offenbach, Puccini, Wagner, and Strauss. Radvanovsky has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and in recent concert collaborations with Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Moscow) and Richard Margison (Festival de Lanaudière).
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BOAZ DANIEL
(Don Carlo)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Ford/ Falstaff (2007-08).
Also this season: Don Carlo, Vienna Staatsoper; Tannhäuser, Teatro Regio (Turin); Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien (Vienna Konzerthaus).
“I think Carlo is Ernani ’s most interesting figure,” says the Israeli baritone, who is making his role debut. “He’s motivated in three completely different ways – by his love for Elvira, his desire for vengeance on Don Juan of Aragon (Ernani), and by the idea of becoming emperor.” Each of the character’s four arias is “a gem. It’s also interesting to see his egocentricity; in his first-act duet with Elvira he’s speaking as her king and says ‘What I desire from you is pure love’ without saying what he wants to give her.” Last year Daniel debuted another Verdi portrayal, Renato/ Un ballo in maschera, in Frankfurt. The Tel Aviv native, a favorite artist at the Vienna Staatsoper since his 1998 debut, has performed there in more than ten leading roles, most recently Posa/ Don Carlos, Lescaut/ Manon Lescaut, Valentin/ Faust, Enrico/ Lucia di Lammermoor, and Gunther/ Götterdämmerung. Daniel has also appeared at Vienna’s Volksoper (title role/ Don Giovanni ), the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Enrico), the Salzburg Festival (Ping/ Turandot ), and the New Israeli Opera (Posa). In 2009 he debuted at Covent Garden as the Herald/ Lohengrin (“Not that big a role, but difficult and definitely appreciated when done well”) and sang his much acclaimed Kurwenal/ Tristan und Isolde at Dresden’s Semperoper. He previously sang Kurwenal with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the Opéra National de Paris tour of Japan with Semyon Bychkov conducting and with Donald Runnicles for both the BBC Symphony Orchestra (available on CD) and San Francisco Opera (American debut). Daniel eagerly anticipates his Italian debut as Wolfram/ Tannhäuser: “It’s a long role and a technical challenge. I’m very much looking forward to it.”
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GIACOMO PRESTIA
(Silva)
Lyric Opera debut
Also this season: Don Carlo, Opéra National de Paris; Simon Boccanegra, Teatro Real (Madrid); I vespri siciliani, Teatro Regio (Parma).
The Italian bass finds that “in singing Verdi’s music you must communicate a degree of sweetness, but with authority and an imposing vocal presence behind it.” Silva in Ernani begins with a superb legato aria, which Prestia considers “the only lyrical moment in his music. The rest is very aggressive, even enraged – full of revenge and rancor.” Regarding the vow Ernani makes to Silva, “I realize that in today’s world this sense of honor doesn’t really exist. Perhaps in The Godfather – although there, of course, it’s criminals who possess a mistaken, misguided idea of honor.” The bass previously portrayed Silva in Parma (CD, DVD), Piacenza, and Turin. Prestia first attracted attention as a winner of the Pavarotti competition (Philadelphia) and Italy’s “Verdi Voices” competition, Having made his professional debut in Verdi’s Alzira (Fidenza, 1991), Prestia has since become a much sought-after Verdian internationally. He has been acclaimed at La Scala, the Teatro Comunale in his native Florence, and in the leading houses of Paris, Vienna, Zurich, Berlin, Madrid, and Buenos Aires. Prestia has collaborated with such major conductors as Abbado, Gatti, Mehta, and Muti. Recent highlights have included the original French version of Don Carlos (Barcelona), Simon Boccanegra (Barcelona), La forza del destino (Genoa, Vienna), the Verdi Requiem (Bologna), Aida (La Scala), and Nabucco (Vienna,Munich). Among Prestia’s successes in non-Verdi repertoire have been Norma (Trieste), Anna Bolena (Palermo), and Dvoˇrák’s Requiem (Berlin Philharmonic). He comes to Chicago immediately after appearing in Geneva as Fiesco/ Simon Boccanegra, a portrayal now available on CD in a production from Bologna.
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KATHRYN LEEMHUIS
(Giovanna)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Lady Artisan /Lulu, Javotte/ Manon (both 2008-09).
Also this season: Katya Kabanova, Lyric Opera; Candide, Ravinia Festival.
The Ohio-born mezzo-soprano is a second year Ryan Opera Center member. She greatly enjoyed performing with Natalie Dessay and Jonas Kaufmann in last season’s Manon: “They had a particular wisdom onstage. Their singing was great, of course, but I was also blown away by their acting. All of us in the Ryan Opera Center were overwhelmed by them. And in Lulu, Marlis Petersen was a great colleague – so sweet and, like Jonas and Natalie, a normal human being, totally cool and down to earth. The three of them, and also Frank Lopardo in Madama Butterfly, showed me that no matter if you’re tired or stressed out, you always need to be considerate to all your colleagues.” Leemhuis has appeared as Hermia/ A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dorabella/ Così fan tutte (Tanglewood); Flora/ La traviata (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis); Third Maid/ Elektra (Cleveland Orchestra); Hansel/ Hansel and Gretel and Tulip/Bolcom’s A Wedding (Indiana University); Cherubino/ The Marriage of Figaro (Oberlin); Dido/ Dido and Aeneas (Buenos Aires’s Teatro Colón); and concerts with the Carmel Bach Festival and theMarilyn Horne Foundation’s “The Song Continues” Festival (Carnegie Hall). She is the winner of the 2009 American Opera Society competition, former first-place winner in the Irma Cooper Opera Columbus International Vocal Competition, and a former regional winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Kathryn Leemhuis is sponsored by Anne Gross and Robert C. Marks.
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RENE BARBERA
(Riccardo)
Lyric Opera debut
Also this season: The Elixir of Love student matinees, Lyric Opera.
The tenor is a first-year Ryan Opera Center member and a 2008 Grand Finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. As a child in his native Texas, he sang with the San Antonio Boys’ Choir and then, in high school, he competed for Texas’s All-State Choir. He is an alumnus of the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he won the largest award given to undergraduate vocalists and also portrayed Ottario/ Belisario, Arbace /Idomeneo, and Lippo Fiorentino/ Street Scene. He was the 2006 winner of the Heafner/Williams Vocal Competition and the Charlotte Opera Guild Vocal Competition (college division). In 2007, competing in the Charles A. Lynam Vocal Competition, he received the grand prize of a concert with the Greensboro Symphony, which he sang last fall. Barbera is a former participant in the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria; the Vocal Arts Symposium of Colorado Springs; San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program; and Florida Grand Opera’s young artist program (Gastone/ La traviata, Hadji/ Lakmé ): “The highlight for me at FGO was getting to sing the final dress rehearsal of La Cenerentola. We’d only run the opera with the covers one time – never onstage or in costume or with the maestro. Despite whatever mistakes I made, the fact that I was able to do my staging without cues made me feel I’d really accomplished something.” René Barbera is sponsored by an Anonymous Donor.
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PAUL CORONA
(Jago)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Eight roles since 2007-08, most recently Sciarrone/ Tosca (2009-10); Steersman/ Tristan und Isolde, Bonze/ Madama Butterfly (both 2008-09).
“This season my roles, Jago in Ernani and Sciarrone in Tosca, are medium-to-small, with low stress,” says the Illinois-born bassbaritone, a third-year Ryan Opera Center member. “That means I’ll have the opportunity simply to soak everything in during rehearsals and performances, as I did when I played Dr. Grenvil in Traviata during my first season at Lyric.” Corona relished his four assignments last season. In Tristan und Isolde, for example, “I was amazed by the quality of voice you need to get over the orchestra – it takes such a huge sound. I was thoroughly impressed by all the singers in Lyric’s Tristan production.” Last summer Corona made his first Ravinia Festival appearances, first in Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny Songspiel and then as Marullo/ Rigoletto (“The experience of doing Lulu at Lyric came in handy when I was learning the Weill piece”). Corona has portrayed Osmin/ The Abduction from the Seraglio, Antinoo/ The Return of Ulysses, and Somarone/ Beatrice and Benedict, all with Chicago Opera Theater. The Northwestern University alumnus, a 2006 Grand Finals winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, has received awards from the Sullivan Foundation and the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation. A 2006 Santa Fe Opera apprentice artist, Corona recently appeared in concert at Chicago’s Symphony Center. Paul Corona is sponsored by Julie and Roger Baskes.
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RENATO PALUMBO
(Conductor)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci (2008-09); Attila (2000-01).
Also this season: opening of seasons at Bari’s Teatro Petruzzelli ( Turandot) and Venice’s Teatro La Fenice ( Manon Lesca ut); Mefistofele, Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera; La traviat a, San Diego.
The Italian conductor feels that “you must use your head and your brain more to explore the psychological aspects of the principal characters in the mature Verdi works,” whereas in the earlier pieces such as Ernani “you have to use your heart. You have to understand the atmosphere, and you also can’t be afraid to get your hands insanguinate [bloody]. There is a incredible power inside this score, like fire, and when you play with fire, you’re bound to get burned – it’s the same in early Verdi! In conducting this piece, use this incredible power of life, this passion. It will be boring if you treat this score as you would the later Verdi.” Now highly in demand internationally, Palumbo debuted in opera at age 19 with Il trovatore, has since developed an enormously successful career encompassing guest appearances in many of the most important theaters in Italy and beyond. These include La Scala, the Opéra National de Paris, the RoyalOperaHouse/Covent Garden, Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival, and the major companies of Rome, Turin, Parma, Florence, Bologna, Barcelona, Tokyo, and Washington. Palumbo is former general music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he has recent led Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci, as well as works by Weber, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini. Verdi has also brought him recent successes in Paris ( Un ballo in maschera ), Vienna ( La traviata, Don Carlo ), Bilbao ( I due Foscari ), Venice ( Nabucco ), Verona ( Aida ), and Turin ( Rigoletto). Palumbo’s discography and videography together encompass repertoire of Rossini, Meyerbeer, Marschner, Verdi, Franchetti, and Giordano. The Italian government has awarded Palumbo the rank of Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana.
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JOSE MARIA CONDEMI
(Stage Director)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Tristan und Isolde (2008-09); associate stage director, Così fan tutte (2007-08).
Also this season: Il trovatore, Seattle Opera; The Elixir of Love, Sacramento Opera; Faust, San Francisco Opera
“While grounded in a specific time period and roughly based in historical facts, Ernani is ultimately about the interplay between the facades, the masks that people have to wear because of their status in society and the unbridled passion they sometimes exhibit in response to those constraints. So the basic truth about the characters and the story is universal. I am particularly interested in exploring how the characters in the story deal with the power they have, and what happens when they choose not to use it. There are several instances in the opera in which different characters have the opportunity to exercise the power they hold and put an end to their misery yet they choose not to do it” Condemi is a former Adler Fellow in stage direction at San Francisco Opera, where, in addition to the company’s recent Tosca, he has previously directed Così fan tutte (mainstage), Earthrise (workshop of a piece SFO commissioned from Pulitzer Prize-winner Lewis Spratlan), Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi and La bohème (Merola Program), and Die Fledermaus and Don Giovanni (Western Opera Theater tours). Other notable directing engagements include Ainadamar (Cincinnati), Luisa Miller (Toronto), La bohème (Seattle), Don Giovanni (Cincinnati, Portland), Donizetti’s Maria Padilla (Minneapolis), Il trovatore (Austin), The Elixir of Love and Don Pasquale (Opera San José), and Poulenc’s Les mamelles de Tirésias (University of Cincinnati, first-prize winner, National Opera Association competition). As an associate director Condemi has worked at Lyric, Canadian Opera Company, and Houston Grand Opera. A former Fulbright Scholar, he is also a recipient of the Argentina National Endowment for the Arts Award.
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SCOTT MARR
(Set and Costume Designer)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Sets and costumes for The Pearl Fishers (2008-09); new set pieces and costumes for Ring cycle (2004-05); production design director (since 2007).
“I studied Italian paintings of the period – works by Titian, Raphael, Caravaggio,” says Lyric’s production design director, “and they greatly influenced my approach to Ernani. I continued to study over and over the color palettes, textures, and even fabrics, but I also paid strong attention to Spanish architecture, with all the tile work and stonework and Spanish talavera [painted ceramics], the Moorish influence and all of the detail and ornamentation. After reading the libretto, which is set in 1519, I started looking at El Greco, including the view of Toledo – Verdi sets the opening scene on the mountains of Aragon. Then, of course, I went to the Art Institute and sat and stared at ‘The Assumption of the Virgin’ for a very long time, just to get a sense of Spanish art, the dark shadows, the color palette. In listening to the music of Ernani, I realized that it’s lighter than the tragic, dark story. The romanticism from the period when Verdi was composing the opera can’t be ignored.” Marr serves as a liaison between Lyric’s stage management and the company’s directors and designers. Besides three productions for Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center, the Illinois native’s stage designs include The Count of Luxembourg (Light Opera Works), Help, Help, the Globolinks (Madison Opera), Noye’s Fludde (Chicago Opera Theater, where he also assisted designer Maurice Sendak for Brundibar/Comedy on the Bridge ), and both Candide and the American premiere of Philip Glass’s Marriages Between Zones 3, 4, and 5 (DePaul Opera Theater, where he has designed for the past decade).
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DUANE SCHULER
(Lighting Designer)
Previously at Lyric Opera: More than 125 productions since 1977, most recently Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci, Tristan und Isolde, The Pearl Fishers (all 2008-09).
Also this season: Katya Kabanova, Lyric Opera; La fanciulla del West, Netherlands Opera; Lulu, La Scala.
“In Ernani the transition from the first scene’s vast desert to Silva’s luxurious palace offers wonderful possibilities,” says the American lighting designer. “This opera requires discreet lighting support, rather than broad strokes and storms. The production is all about texture; the scenery surfaces are very detailed, and enhancing them is my job. Because the wall has vacuum-form textures (plastic that has been molded into carved detail), it takes light beautifully and becomes more interesting than mere painted canvas. The scenery provides a wonderful background for the very striking costumes. The walls give both light and shadow, meaning that you can have a lot of cross-light that make the costumes vibrant while also enhancing the wall’s surfaces.” Schuler’s work has been seen frequently in Europe, including recently Lyon ( Lulu, The Queen of Spades ), Baden-Baden ( Tannhäuser ), and Salzburg ( Benvenuto Cellini ). He has designed for Covent Garden, La Scala, and the major companies of Dresden, Vienna, Barcelona, and Amsterdam. Among Schuler’s 23 Metropolitan Opera productions are the recent Thaïs and La rondine, as well as the world premieres of The Great Gatsby and The First Emperor. Additional American opera credits include many productions in San Francisco (most recently Boris Godunov and La rondine ), Santa Fe, Houston, and Los Angeles. Schuler has designed for American Ballet Theatre and the Stuttgart, Berlin, and Houston ballet companies. His theater credits include productions for the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Ahmanson Theatre (Los Angeles). Schuler is a founding partner of Schuler Shook, a theater planning and architectural lighting design firm (Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas).
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DONALD NALLY
(Chorus Master)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Chorus master since 2007-08.
Upcoming: First season as music director of Cincinnati’s Vocal Arts Ensemble; commissioned premieres of David Lang, Lansing McLoskey, and Paul Fowler with The Crossing, Philadelphia.
“At times,” comments Lyric’s chorus master, “Verdi seems to have chosen topics in which the chorus fills out the story or provides spectacular diversions – Traviata, Rigoletto, and even Falstaff. But elsewhere he chose dramas in which the chorus is a character or an extension of one, therefore becoming fully engaged in its role and his writing for it. Don Carlos is such an opera, as is Ernani – a series of scenes in which the struggle between forces is largely dependent on the allegiance of the protagonists’ followers and borne on the strength of their singing.” Nally is winner of the 2009 ASCAP/Chorus America National Award for Adventuresome Program with The Crossing, his Philadelphia-based professional chamber choir that specializes in new music (their recording of Kile Smith’s Vespers was released last April). Former chorus master of Welsh National Opera, Nally conducted that company on tour in major cities throughout England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. While in the U.K., Nally often guest-conducted London’s Philharmonia Chorus and collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Cymru of Wales, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. He was previously based in Philadelphia as chorus master at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, director of music at Saint Mark’s Church, and artistic director of the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia. He also collaborated regularly with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Pennsylvania Ballet. Nally was for many years chorus master at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy.
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RICHARD JARVIE
(Wig and Makeup Designer)
Previously at Lyric Opera: Wigmaster and makeup designer since 2000-01; supervisor of the wig department and principal makeup artist, 1982-2000.
Also this season: The Magic Flute, Atlanta Opera; The Ghosts of Versailles, Northwestern University.
For Ernani, “it’s exciting to be working in a different capacity with my Lyric colleague Scott Marr in his first totally new production for the company,” says Lyric’s wigmaster and makeup designer. “We’ve been discussing this show for more than a year. The opera takes place in a period where all the men and women look fantastic (unlike, say, the Victorian era, where the women’s hair had the center part that I find fabulous but women generally don’t). Ernani is quite modern for the men – virtually all of them are using their own hair. Look at El Greco’s paintings, where all the men had short, closely cropped hair! The women are simple but not severe, curly with lots of braids close to the head, and with lots of stuff woven elegantly into the braids. We’ve been looking at the paintings of Titian and Urbino to give us an idea of how naturalistic things can be. You can contrast this with the Renaissance, a rather severe time for the women, with plucked eyebrows and raised foreheads. In the 16th century it’s prettier, more natural and down to earth.” Jarvie was wigmaster and makeup designer for Chicago Shakespeare Theater from 1989 to 2000. He has previously served as wigmaster for Minneapolis’s Tyrone Guthrie Theater and wig/makeup supervisor for the Thomas Patterson Theater of the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada. He currently teaches at both Northwestern University and DePaul University.
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