HVOROSTOVSKY& RADVANOVSKY:

TWO OPERA LEGENDS

TO PERFORM A CONCERT TOGETHER FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NORTH AMERICA

He has been called “the supreme singing actor” “with a virtuoso display of smoky tone and sensual, forthright phrasing.”  With her “rich, tremulous soprano voice and affecting intensity,” she is hailed as the top Verdi soprano of our age.

An Italian Opera Spectacular features an evening of passionate arias and duets from Un Ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball), Simon Boccanegra, and other great stage works by Verdi, along with such favorites as the Song to the Moon from Dvorak’s Rusalka, and the final scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

Hvorostovsky and Radvanovsky will perform with the Orchestre de la Francophonie, under the baton of Constantine Orbelian.  Jean-Philippe Tremblay, the orchestra’s music director, will conduct some of the finest orchestral selections from opera, by Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni. 

Hvorostovsky and Radvanovsky first performed together in Russia in 2009.  The Toronto concert marks the start of a North American tour that takes the artists to Montreal’s Place des Arts March 26  Washington’s Kennedy Center March 29, and New York’s Carnegie Hall April 1.

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BOTH STARS FEATURED IN NEW VERDI RECORDINGS: In addition to regular performances at the Metropolitan Opera, both Hvorostovsky and Radvanovsky have toured widely.  Their recent joint concerts of Verdi scenes and duets in Russia were recorded and will be released shortly on Delos.  As well, Radvanovsky’s Moscow performances led to her first solo recording of Verdi arias, also on Delos and scheduled for release in April.

HVORSTOVSKY’S SIMON BOCCANEGRA:  While the versatile Russian baritone is a great interpreter of Russian opera and music of his homeland, he is in demand worldwide as a recitalist and for his Verdi roles.  When he first performed the title role in Simon Boccanegra in 2006 with the Houston Grand Opera, the Houston Chronicle praised his “magnetic” stage presence and “lustrous” sound, marveling at “his ability to convey the emotional point of words.”  When he reprised the role for the San Francisco Opera in September 2008, the San Francisco Chronicle raved, “His vocal production was superb, a virtuoso display of smoky tone and sensual, forthright phrasing.”  The Bay Area Reporter summed him up at the “supreme singing actor.”  This year (2010) sees Hvorostovsky again at the Met, as well as the Covent Garden and Vienna opera houses, and touring extensively in Russia, North America and Canada.   www.hvorostovsky.com

Vanity Fair wrote that Hvorostovsky “is sending aficionados the world over into a collective swoon, inviting an adulation that recalls the advent of Baryshnikov in the dance world of the seventies.”  And he was a rare classical musician to be named one of People Magazine’s 50 most beautiful people.

RADVANOVSKY’S FIRST TOSCA & AIDA: One month after her Toronto performance, Sondra Radvanovsky will sing her first Tosca in the Opera Colorado production of the Puccini melodrama (www.operacolorado.org/operas/tosca-artists).  In October 2010, she will make both her Canadian Opera Company and role debuts in the title role of Verdi’s Aida.  On March 20,  audiences will enjoy a foretaste when she includes Aida’s aria O Patria Mia in the program.

The New York Times has praised her “rich, tremulous soprano voice and affecting intensity,” while The Times (UK) hailed her as “a true Verdian, with a big, juicy, vibrato-rich sound.”  San Francisco’s Chronicle summed up her September 2009 performance in Il Trovatore: “Even if nothing else happens during the rest of the San Francisco Opera’s 2009 fall season, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky has already provided us with at least one extraordinary and indelible musical memory.” (Hvorostovsky alternated as Count di Luna in that production.)

This January has seen her as Lina in the Metropolitan Opera’s remount of Verdi’s Stiffelio, with Plácido Domingo conducting – in what the New York Times described as “a richly expressive performance as Lina, Stiffelio’s guilt-stricken wife… She sang with utter integrity, supple phrasing, nuanced colorings and aching vulnerability. Her bright, strong voice filled Verdi’s lines and penetrated the orchestra without forcing…  She won me over, and the cheering audience, with her impassioned performance.”

Radvanovsky is also appearing this season as Elisabetta in Don Carlo at the Paris Opera; and in the Verdi Requiem with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.   www.imgartists.com/sondraradvanovsky 

PROGRAM*  

VERDI Forza del Destino Overture

VERDI Ernani, Ernani  involami   

VERDI Ernani Gran’ Dio!…Oh de’ verd’ anni  

VERDI Aida O Patria mia Aida    

VERDI La Forza del Destino Morir! Tremenda cosa!     

VERDI Aida Prelude   

VERDI Simon Boccanegra Favella al Doge  

 -INTERMISSION-

PUCCINI Preludo Sinfonico    

VERDI Don Carlo  Io morro Don Carlos    

DVORAK Rusalka Song to the Moon     

PUCCINI Manon Lescaut Intermezzo 

VERDI Un Ballo in Maschera Ah tal colpa

MASCAGNI Cavalleria Rusticana Intermezzo   

TCHAIKOVSKY Eugene Onegin  Closing Scene         

program is subject to change*