Carmen Monarcha
Encyclopedia
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
singer.
Born into an artistic family in northern Brazil, her father is a writer and her mother a renowned Brazilian singer. She learned from a young age to play the cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
and at first trained to be a concert cellist. However, she began to develop her singing voice and commenced taking lessons in Brazil. During the course of her career in music she became acquainted with fellow Brazilian singer, Carla Maffioletti
Carla Maffioletti
Carla Maffioletti is a Brazilian opera singer.She was born in the largest city in southern Brazil; a port town on Guaíba River. As a very young girl she began playing the violin before changing to classical guitar. Her talents were such that by her early teens she was performing at concerts...
. After finishing her schooling, she and Maffioletti went to Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
, the Netherlands, for further vocal training. While there, Monarcha was hired as a vocalist by orchestra leader André Rieu
André Rieu
André Léon Marie Nicolas Rieu is a Dutch violinist, conductor, and composer best known for creating the waltz-playing Johann Strauss Orchestra.- Early life and studies :...
to tour Europe and the United States with his Johann Strauss Orchestra. She stole many hearts while performing the "Vilja Song" from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
.
She received critical acclaim as a winner at the Bidu Sayão Vocal Competition
Bidu Sayão International Vocal Competition
The Bidu Sayão International Vocal Competition is a singing competition held at the city of Belo Horizonte in Brazil named after that country's most famous opera singer, Bidu Sayão. It is a competition for up-and-coming young singers and as such has an age restriction, currently open to singers of...
, a major international singing competition held annually in Brazil that is named in honor of that country's most famous opera singer, Bidú Sayão
Bidu Sayão
Bidú Sayão was a Brazilian opera soprano. One of Brazil's most famous musicians, Sayão was a leading artist of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1937 to 1952.-Life and career:...
.
When her studies in the Netherlands were complete, Monarcha returned to her native Brazil but was lured back to Europe to perform as a soloist for Rieu's 2003 tour and has remained with the orchestra since. A soprano, she has sung on several of Rieu's albums and has appeared in his PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
television broadcasts in the United States, receiving particular praise for her interpretation of "O mio babbino caro
O mio babbino caro
"O mio babbino caro" is a soprano aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi , by Giacomo Puccini, to a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is sung by Lauretta after tensions between her father Schicchi and the family of Rinuccio, the boy she loves, have reached a breaking point that threatens to...
" from Puccini's opera Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
. She has sung the "Habanera
Habanera (aria)
In the form of habanera, there is a famous aria from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. It is sometimes referred to as "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle." . Its score was adapted from the habanera "El Arreglito," originally composed by the Spanish musician Sebastián Yradier...
" from Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, also for PBS.