Suburban housewives rejoice! Your favorite blind opera singer is debuting at the Met!
Andrea Bocelli will make his solo recital début at the Metropolitan Opera House on Sunday, February 13, 2011 at 5:00 p.m. The performance will feature the celebrated Italian tenor singing a program of arias by Handel, and lieder and art songs by Beethoven, Wagner, Liszt, Richard Strauss, Fauré, and Tosti. Bocelli will be accompanied by pianist Vincenzo Scalera. Tickets go on sale to the general public on September 12th.
Bocelli has performed classical recitals and opera on the stages of the Vienna State Opera, the New York Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Washington Opera, the San Antonio Opera, the Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, Florence’s Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino amongst others. In 1999, the Italian tenor was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist. His album of that year, Sacred Arias, became the best-selling classical album ever released by a solo artist. Since then, He has received the Platinum Europe Award, two World Music Awards, the Classical Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and the National Music Award for Best Classical Artist. At the Classic Brits 2003, he received two awards for his album Sentimento: Best-Selling Classical Album and Album of the Year (People’s Award). He has also been named Best of the World at the American Music Awards. Five of his recordings to date have reached the Top 10 on the Billboard 200, and a record-setting seven have topped the Classical albums charts in the United States where he also hold the record for having 3 recordings listed in the top 3 places of charts. In 2006, Bocelli became a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, and on March 2, 2010, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for his contribution to Live Theater.
Bocelli has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, and has worked with Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Josè Carreras, Lorin Maazel, Seiji Ozawa, Valery Gergiev, Gianandrea Noseda, Zubin Mehta, and Myung-Whun Chung, among others. Bocelli’s repertoire includes Puccini, Schubert, Verdi, and Donizetti, and he has shared the stage with current stars ranging from Angela Gheorghiu to Anna Netrebko, Denyce Graves, Renèe Fleming, Olga Borodina and Cecilia Bartoli.
Bocelli made his stage début in Verdi’s Macbeth in 1994, with performances in Pisa, Mantova, Lucca, and Livorno, under conductor Claudio Desderi. His first major operatic concerts were at Cagliari and at the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago in 1997. In 1998, he returned to Cagliari to perform Rodolfo in La Bohème. Bocelli had his Arena di Verona début in 1999 in Merry Widow, conducted by Anton Guadagno. Later that year, he made his American début in Detroit in Massenet’s Werther. In 2002, Bocelli returned to Torre del Lago to perform Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. His most recent operatic and classical performances include the role of Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Werther (title role) on stage at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale, Don José in Carmen staged at Rome Opera, and Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana at the San Antonio Opera.
Vincenzo Scalera graduated from the Manhattan School of Music and shortly thereafter worked as an assistant conductor with the New Jersey State Opera. He continued his studies in Italy and in 1980 joined the musical staff of La Scala as coach and pianist, assisting conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Gianandrea Gavazzeni and Carlos Kleiber, among others. Scalera has participated in many important music festivals, including Edinburgh, Martina Franca, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Les Chorégies d’Orange, the Carinthian Summer in Ossiach, and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. He has accompanied such celebrated singers as Carlo Bergonzi (with whom he has collaborated extensively), Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras, Leyla Gencer, Sumi Jo, Raina Kabaivanska, Katia Ricciarelli, Juan Diego Flórez, Maria Guleghina, Renata Scotto, Cesare Siepi, Lucia Valentini Terrani, and Leontina Vaduva, among others. Scalera is currently a staff member of the Accademia d’Arti e Mestieri dello Spettacolo at La Scala.
Program
Handel
“La speme ti consoli” from Partenope
“Care selve” from Atalanta
“Frondi tenere. . . Ombra mai fu” from Serse
“Let the Bright Seraphim” from Samson
Beethoven
Dimmi, ben mio, che m’ami, Op. 82, No. 1
L’amante impaziente (Arietta buffa), Op. 82, No. 4
Beato quei che fido amor, Op. 88
Ich liebe dich, WoO 123
Wagner
Der Engel (Wesendonk Lieder #1)
Liszt
O, quand je dors
R. Strauss
Zueignung
Fauré
Mai
Chanson d’amour
Après un rêve
La lune blanche
Le secret
Mandoline
Tosti
Serenata
A ‘vucchella
L’ultima canzone
L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra
So, what do you think? Will this program of “greatest hits” be a runaway success? Are you planning on going to see Mr. Bocelli? Is this what you would take your date to for Valentines Day? Bocelli-fan or no? Tell me all about it in the comments below.
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I am going to the Met to listen to UNAMPLIFIED opera performances that cast far better tenors than Bocelli. There is no way I am going to pay to listen to Bocelli at the Met. He has no business being there. He’d probably be amplified and this would be a new low for the Met as Met doesn’t amplify classical music recitals or operas. What a joke. Gelb must really be desperate for money.