Joyce DiDonato
Encyclopedia
Joyce DiDonato is an award-winning American opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

tic mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...

 particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, and Rossini. DiDonato has performed with many of the world's leading opera companies and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

s.

Early life and education

Joyce DiDonato was born Joyce Flaherty in Prairie Village, Kansas
Prairie Village, Kansas
Prairie Village is a city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 21,447.- History :...

 in 1969, the sixth of seven children in a close-knit Irish-American family. She sang in choir and musicals in high school and dreamed of becoming a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 star or pop singer. DiDonato entered Wichita State University
Wichita State University
Wichita State University is a NCAA Division I public university in Wichita, Kansas with selective admissions. WSU is one of six state universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The current president is Dr. Donald Beggs....

 (WSU) in the autumn of 1988 where she studied vocal music education. She was initially more interested in teaching high school vocal music and musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 and did not become interested in opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 until her junior year, when she was cast in a school production of Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...

. After graduating from WSU in the spring of 1992, DiDonato decided to pursue graduate studies in vocal performance at the Academy of Vocal Arts
Academy of Vocal Arts
The Academy of Vocal Arts is a school dedicated to providing free higher education to aspiring opera singers. The school was founded in 1934 by Helen Corning Warden and is located at 1920 Spruce Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-History:...

. Following her studies in Philadelphia, she was accepted in Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...

's young artist program in 1995. While there she appeared in several minor roles and understudied
Understudy
In theater, an understudy is a performer who learns the lines and blocking/choreography of a regular actor or actress in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to appear on stage because of illness or emergencies, the understudy takes over the part...

 for larger parts in such operas as Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Le nozze di Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...

, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

' Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....

, Kálmán
Emmerich Kalman
Emmerich Kálmán was a Hungarian-born composer of operettas.- Biography :Kálmán was born Imre Koppstein in Siófok, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, Hungary in a Jewish family.Kálmán initially intended to become a concert pianist, but because of early-onset arthritis, he focused on composition...

's Gräfin Mariza and the 1994 world premiere of David Lang
David Lang (composer)
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion.-Biography:...

's Modern Painters. DiDonato was honored as the Outstanding Apprentice Artist by the Santa Fe Opera that year. In 1996 she became a part of Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

's young artist program where she sang from the autumn of 1996 to the spring of 1998. During the summer of 1997, DiDonato participated in San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...

's Merola Program.

During her apprentice years, DiDonato competed in several notable vocal competitions. In 1996 she won second prize in the Eleanor McCollum Competition and was a district winner of the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 National Council Auditions. In 1997 she won a William Matheus Sullivan Award
Sullivan Foundation
The Sullivan Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to finding, developing, and furthering the careers of promising opera singers within the United States. Founded in 1956 through the bequest of a prominent lawyer, William Matheus Sullivan, the foundation has awarded grants to close to...

. In 1998 she won second prize in the Operalia Competition
Operalia, The World Opera Competition
Operalia, The World Opera Competition is an annual international competition for young opera singers. Founded in 1993 by renowned tenor Plácido Domingo, the competition has helped launch the careers of several important artists, such as Brian Asawa, José Cura, Joyce DiDonato, Elizabeth Futral, Inva...

, first place in the Stewart Awards, won the George London Competition]], and a received a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation
Shoshana Foundation
The Shoshana Foundation is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1986 upon the death of Richard F. Gold who was a long time administrator at both the New York City Opera and Chamber Opera Theater of New York. The foundation's work focuses on assisting promising opera singers at the start of...

.

Career

DiDonato began her professional career in the 1998–1999 season singing with several regional opera companies in the United States. She most notably appeared as the main heroine, Maslova, in the world premiere of Tod Machover
Tod Machover
Tod Machover , is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist....

's Resurrection
Resurrection (opera)
Resurrection is an opera by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Maxwell Davies conceived in 1963 whilst at Princeton University. However, the composer did not complete the opera until over 20 years later...

with the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

. She gave a recital in San Francisco that year as part of the Schwabacher recital series.

In the 1999–2000 season, DiDonato performed the role of Meg in the world premiere of Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo
Mark Adamo is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata "Late Victorians, "Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra," and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house:...

's Little Women
Little Women (opera)
Little Women is the first opera composed by American composer Mark Adamo to his own libretto after Louisa May Alcott's tale of growing up in New England after the American Civil War, Little Women. The opera also includes text by John Bunyan , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Little Women (1998) is the...

at Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

 with Stephanie Novacek
Stephanie Novacek
Stephanie Novacek is an American operatic mezzo-soprano who has appeared at many of the world's opera houses. A regular performer at the Houston Grand Opera and Opera Atelier, Novacek is especially known for her performances in contemporary operas and in obscure operas, particularly baroque works,...

 as Jo and Chad Shelton
Chad Shelton
Chad Shelton is an American operatic tenor. Particularly associated with the acclaimed Houston Grand Opera , Shelton has excelled in performances of contemporary American operas and in the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi...

 as Laurie. She performed the role of Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro with Santa Fe Opera and the role of Isabella in Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...

with the New Israeli Opera. In addition, DiDonato gave a recital at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

's Morgan Library under the auspices of the George London Foundation and sang the mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...

 solos in the Seattle Symphony
Seattle Symphony
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra's season runs from September through July, and serves as the pit orchestra for most productions of the Seattle Opera in addition to its own concerts...

's production of Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

's Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...

.

In the 2000–2001 season, DiDonato made her debut at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

 as Angelina in Rossini's La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...

, returned to Houston Grand Opera as Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....

, and sang the mezzo-soprano solos in Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

's Mass in B minor with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and conductor John Nelson
John Nelson (conductor)
John Wilton Nelson is an American conductor. Nelson studied at Wheaton College, and later at the Juilliard School of Music with Jean Morel ....

. In 2000, DiDonato received the ARIA (Awards Recognizing Individual Artistry) award, which annually recognized American "vocal artists of exceptional ability and undeniable promise".

In the 2001–2002 season DiDonato made her debut with Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...

 as Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte, her debut with De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera , in Amsterdam, is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Het Muziektheater, a modern building designed by Cees Dam which opened in 1986....

 as Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare in Egitto , commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724...

, her debut with Opéra National de Paris as Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...

, her debut with Bavarian State Opera
Bavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...

 as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro under the baton of Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...

, and returned to Santa Fe Opera to perform the role of Annio in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito
La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...

. She made several concert appearances including performances of Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...

's Gloria with Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...

 and the La Scala Orchestra
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

 and Mendelssohn
Mendelssohn
Mendelson is a Polish/German Jewish family name, meaning "son of Mendel", Mendel being a Yiddish diminutive of the Hebrew given name Menahem, meaning "consoling" or "one who consoles".Mendelssohn is the surname of a number of people:...

's A Midsummer Night's Dream with Ensemble Orchestral de Paris. In 2002, DiDonato was given the Richard Tucker Award.

In the 2002–2003 season, DiDonato made her debut with the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

 as Sister Helen in Jake Heggie
Jake Heggie
Jake Heggie is an American composer and pianist.Jake Heggie is the composer of the operas Dead Man Walking , The End of the Affair , At The Statue of Venus , To Hell and Back , and Moby-Dick , as well as the stage work For a Look or a Touch...

's Dead Man Walking
Dead Man Walking (opera)
Dead Man Walking is the first opera by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Terrence McNally; it premiered on October 7, 2000 at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera.-Roles:...

, her debut with Théâtre du Châtelet
Théâtre du Châtelet
The Théâtre du Châtelet is a theatre and opera house, located in the place du Châtelet in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.One of two theatres built on the site of a châtelet, a small castle or fortress, it was designed by Gabriel Davioud at the request of Baron Haussmann between 1860 and...

 in the title role of Rossini's La cenerentola, her debut at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 as Zlatohrbitek the fox in Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...

's The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.-Composition history:When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's...

under the baton of Sir John Eliot Gardiner
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...

, and her debut with the New National Theatre Tokyo as Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. She performed the title role in Rossini's Adina
Adina (opera)
Adina is an operatic farsa in one act by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Marchese Gherardo Bevilacqua-Aldobrandini. The opera develops the popular theme of the "abduction from the seraglio"....

at the Rossini Opera Festival
Rossini Opera Festival
The Rossini Opera Festival is an opera festival held in August of each year in Pesaro, Italy, the birthplace of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini....

 in Pesaro
Pesaro
Pesaro is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. According to the 2007 census, its population was 92,206....

 and the role of Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro with Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....

. In concert, DiDonato performed Mozart's Requiem with the Seattle Symphony
Seattle Symphony
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra's season runs from September through July, and serves as the pit orchestra for most productions of the Seattle Opera in addition to its own concerts...

, Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

's Les nuits d'été
Les nuits d'été
Les nuits d'été , Op. 7, is a song cycle by the French composer Hector Berlioz. It is a setting of six poems by Théophile Gautier. The collection was completed in 1841, and initially composed for either baritone, contralto, or mezzo-soprano, and piano...

with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, and made her Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 debut in a production of Bach's Mass in B Minor with the Orchestra of St. Luke's
Orchestra of St. Luke's
The Orchestra of St. Luke's is an American chamber orchestra based in New York City.It was founded in the summer of 1979 at the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York....

 under the baton of Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier
Peter Schreier is a German tenor and conductor.-Early life:Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and spent his first years in the small village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist...

. She toured Europe with Marc Minkowski
Marc Minkowski
Marc Minkowski is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. His mother is American, and his father was Alexandre Minkowski, a Polish-French professor of pediatrics and one of the founders of neonatology...

 and Les Musiciens du Louvre
Les Musiciens du Louvre
Les Musiciens du Louvre is a French period instrument ensemble, formed in 1982. Originally based in Paris, since 1996 it has been based in the Couvent des Minimes in Grenoble. The Guardian considers it one of the best orchestras in the world.- History:Founded by Marc Minkowski in 1982, the...

 in performances of Les nuits d'été
Les nuits d'été
Les nuits d'été , Op. 7, is a song cycle by the French composer Hector Berlioz. It is a setting of six poems by Théophile Gautier. The collection was completed in 1841, and initially composed for either baritone, contralto, or mezzo-soprano, and piano...

. In 2003 DiDonato was the recipient of New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

's Richard Gold Debut Award

In the 2003–2004 season, DiDonato made her debut with the San Francisco Opera as Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and reprised the role with Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

. She performed Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...

with De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera
De Nederlandse Opera , in Amsterdam, is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Het Muziektheater, a modern building designed by Cees Dam which opened in 1986....

 and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival
Aix-en-Provence Festival
The festival international d'art lyrique is an annual international music festival which takes place each summer in Aix-en-Provence, principally in the month of July. Devoted mainly to opera, it also includes concerts of orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo instrumental music.-Establishment:The...

. She sang the role of Ascanio in a concert performance of Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini (opera)
Benvenuto Cellini is an opera in two acts with music by Hector Berlioz and libretto by Léon de Wailly and Henri Auguste Barbier. It was the first of Berlioz's operas. The story is loosely based on the memoirs of the Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. The opera is technically very challenging...

with the Orchestre National de France
Orchestre National de France
The Orchestre national de France is a symphony orchestra run by Radio France. It has also been known as the Orchestre national de la Radiodiffusion française and Orchestre national de l'Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française .Since 1944, the orchestra has been based in the Théâtre...

 and appeared in solo recitals at the Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...

, the Kennedy Center
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...

, Kansas City's Folly Theater
Folly Theater
The Standard Theatre, now known as the Folly Theater and also known as the Century Theater and Shubert's Missouri, is a former vaudeville hall in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Built in 1900, it was designed by Kansas City architect Louis S. Curtiss...

, and Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

 among others. She sang at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...

 in a production of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's Symphony No. 9
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...

with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...

.

In the 2004–2005 season, DiDonato made her debut with the Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève is an opera house in Geneva, Switzerland.As with many other opera houses, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a venue and an institution. The venue is a majestic building, towering over Place Neuve, officially opened in 1876, partly destroyed by fire in 1951 and reopened in...

 as Elisabetta in Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

's Maria Stuarda
Maria Stuarda
Maria Stuarda is a tragic opera, , in two acts, by Gaetano Donizetti, to a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari, based on Friedrich Schiller's 1800 play Maria Stuart....

. She returned to La Scala in the role of Angelina in Rossini's La Cenerentola and once again played Rosina in a new production of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia by Luca Ronconi
Luca Ronconi
Luca Ronconi is an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director.- Biography :After growing up in Tunisia, where his mother was a school teacher, he graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome in 1953. He acted in productions of Luigi Squarzina, Orazio Costa, Michelangelo Antonioni...

 at the Pesaro Festival and the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Teatro Comunale di Bologna
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy, and is one of the most important opera venues in Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season....

.

In the 2005–2006 season, DiDonato made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro and played Stéphano in Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

's Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...

at the Met. She returned to the Royal Opera House as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, sang her first Sesto in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito with Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève is an opera house in Geneva, Switzerland.As with many other opera houses, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a venue and an institution. The venue is a majestic building, towering over Place Neuve, officially opened in 1876, partly destroyed by fire in 1951 and reopened in...

, and sang the role of Dejanira in Handel's Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....

 in New York and at the Barbican Centre
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...

 in London with William Christie (musician)
William Christie (musician)
William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....

. In addition, DiDonato appeared in several concerts with the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

 and gave a recital at Wigmore Hall in London. She closed the Santa Fe Opera's 50th anniversary season in the title role of Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

's Cendrillon
Cendrillon
Cendrillon is an opera—described as a "fairy tale"—in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Cain based on Perrault's 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale. The scenario was conceived by Massenet and Cain at the Cavendish Hotel while they were in London for the...

. In 2006, DiDonato was given the Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award.

In the 2006–2007 season, DiDonato debuted at the Teatro Real
Teatro Real
The Teatro Real or simply El Real , is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.-History:...

 as the Composer in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

' Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...

, returned to the Opéra National de Paris as Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...

, and returned to Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

 as Angelina in La Cenerentola. She sang Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Metropolitan Opera and sang her first Octavian in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

' Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...

with the San Francisco Opera. She toured the U.S. and Europe on an extensive recital tour with accompianist Julius Drake
Julius Drake
Julius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...

. DiDonato won the Metropolitan Opera's Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...

 Award in 2007.

In the 2007–2008 season, DiDonato debuted at the Liceu
Liceu
The Gran Teatre del Liceu , or simply Liceu in Catalan and Liceo in Spanish, is an opera house on La Rambla in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain...

 as Angelina in La Cenerentola and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...

 as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. She sang the title role in Handel's Alcina
Alcina
Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy...

with Alan Curtis
Alan Curtis (harpsichordist)
Alan Curtis is a noted American harpsichordist, musicologist, and conductor of baroque opera. After graduate studies at the University of Illinois , where he wrote his dissertation on the keyboard music of Sweelinck, he studied in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt, with whom he subsequently recorded...

 and Il Complesso Barocco and the title role in Handel's Ariodante
Ariodante
Ariodante is an opera seria in three acts by Handel. The anonymous Italian libretto was based on a work by Antonio Salvi, which in turn was adapted from Canti 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso...

at the Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève is an opera house in Geneva, Switzerland.As with many other opera houses, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a venue and an institution. The venue is a majestic building, towering over Place Neuve, officially opened in 1876, partly destroyed by fire in 1951 and reopened in...

. She sang Roméo in Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

's I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...

with Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....

 and returned to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

's Teatro Real
Teatro Real
The Teatro Real or simply El Real , is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.-History:...

 as Idamante in Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...

in July 2008. DiDonato also gave recitals at La Scala, Lincoln Center, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and performed a special concert of Handel arias which was recorded in Brussels.
In the 2008–2009 season, DiDonato returned to Covent Garden as Donna Elvira in Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

and as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. In a performance of that opera on July 7, DiDonato slipped onstage and broke her right fibula; she finished the first act hobbling and the rest of the performance on crutches. She then performed the five remaining scheduled performances from a wheelchair. She will be performing the roles of Beatrice in Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict
Béatrice et Bénédict
Béatrice et Bénédict is an opera in two acts by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz wrote the French libretto himself, based closely on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing....

with Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

, Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo
Idomeneo
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...

with Opéra National de Paris, and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia in her debut with Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...

. DiDonato will appear in concerts with the New York Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony
Kansas City Symphony
The Kansas City Symphony is a United States symphony orchestra based in Kansas City, Missouri. The current music director is conductor Michael Stern. The current home of the Symphony is the Lyric Theatre, located in Downtown Kansas City on 11th Street between Wyandotte and Central Streets...

, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the latter of which under the baton of James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...

. She will be touring Europe and the United States with Les Talens Lyriques
Les Talens Lyriques
Les Talens Lyriques is a baroque orchestra founded in 1991 by French conductor Christophe Rousset.The ensemble takes its name from Jean-Philippe Rameau's opéra-ballet Les fêtes d'Hébé ou les talens lyriques .- External links :...

 giving concerts of Handel arias and will give performances at Wigmore Hall and the Rossini Opera Festival.

In October 2010, DiDonato won the Klassik Echo Award as Singer of the Year.

DiDonato has sung in concert with the SWR Orchestra Kaiserslautern
Südwestrundfunk
The Südwestrundfunk is a public broadcasting company for the southwest of Germany, specifically the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The company has main offices in three cities: Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz, with the director's office being in Stuttgart. It is an...

, The King's Consort
The King's Consort
The King's Consort is a prominent British period music orchestra founded in 1980 by the English conductor and harpsichordist Robert King . The ensemble has an associated choral group, Choir of The King's Consort. Together, they have made over 90 recordings, largely on the Hyperion label, and sold...

, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, the Cleveland Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...

, and the San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...

.

DiDonato played the role of Isolier in Rossini's Le Comte Ory
Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...

 with the Metropolitan Opera in April 2011.

Personal life

DiDonato is married to Italian conductor Leonardo Vordoni with whom she lives in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

. She was married once previously and continues to use her first husband's surname professionally.

Opera roles

  • Adalgisa, Norma
    Norma (opera)
    Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...

    (Vincenzo Bellini
    Vincenzo Bellini
    Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

    )
  • Adina, Adina
    Adina (opera)
    Adina is an operatic farsa in one act by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Marchese Gherardo Bevilacqua-Aldobrandini. The opera develops the popular theme of the "abduction from the seraglio"....

    (Rossini)
  • Alcina, Alcina
    Alcina
    Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy...

    (Handel
    George Frideric Handel
    George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

    )
  • Angelina (Cenerentola), La Cenerentola
    La Cenerentola
    La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...

    (Rossini)
  • Annius, La clemenza di Tito
    La clemenza di Tito
    La clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...

    (Mozart
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

    )
  • Ariodante, Ariodante
    Ariodante
    Ariodante is an opera seria in three acts by Handel. The anonymous Italian libretto was based on a work by Antonio Salvi, which in turn was adapted from Canti 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso...

    (Handel)
  • Ascanio, Benvenuto Cellini
    Benvenuto Cellini (opera)
    Benvenuto Cellini is an opera in two acts with music by Hector Berlioz and libretto by Léon de Wailly and Henri Auguste Barbier. It was the first of Berlioz's operas. The story is loosely based on the memoirs of the Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. The opera is technically very challenging...

    (Berlioz
    Hector Berlioz
    Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

    )
  • Beatrice, Béatrice et Bénédict
    Béatrice et Bénédict
    Béatrice et Bénédict is an opera in two acts by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz wrote the French libretto himself, based closely on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing....

    (Berlioz)
  • Cendrillon, Cendrillon
    Cendrillon
    Cendrillon is an opera—described as a "fairy tale"—in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Cain based on Perrault's 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale. The scenario was conceived by Massenet and Cain at the Cavendish Hotel while they were in London for the...

    (Massenet
    Jules Massenet
    Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

    )
  • Cherubino, The Marriage of Figaro
    The Marriage of Figaro
    Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...

    (Mozart)
  • The Composer Ariadne auf Naxos
    Ariadne auf Naxos
    Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...

    (Richard Strauss
    Richard Strauss
    Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

    )
  • Dejanira, Hercules
    Hercules
    Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...

    (Handel)
  • Donna Elvira, Don Giovanni
    Don Giovanni
    Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

    (Mozart)
  • Dorabella, Così fan tutte
    Così fan tutte
    Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....

    (Mozart)
  • Elena, La donna del lago
    La donna del lago
    La donna del lago is an opera by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on The Lady of the Lake, a poem by Sir Walter Scott.This opera was the first to be based on Scott's romantic works...

    (Rossini)
  • Elisabetta, Maria Stuarda
    Maria Stuarda
    Maria Stuarda is a tragic opera, , in two acts, by Gaetano Donizetti, to a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari, based on Friedrich Schiller's 1800 play Maria Stuart....

    (Donizetti
    Gaetano Donizetti
    Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

    )

  • Elmira, Floridante
    Floridante
    Floridante is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was by Paolo Antonio Rolli after Francesco Silvani's libretto for Marc'Antonio Ziani dramma per musica La costanza in trionfo of 1696....

    (Handel)
  • Grace Kelly, Jackie O
    Jackie O (opera)
    Jackie O is a chamber opera in two acts composed by Michael Daugherty to a libretto by Wayne Koestenbaum. The 90 minute work, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera in 1995 and premiered in 1997, is inspired by American musical and popular culture of the late 1960s and episodes in the life of...

    (Michael Daugherty
    Michael Daugherty
    Michael Kevin Daugherty is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. Influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism, Daugherty is one of the most colorful and widely performed American concert music composers of his generation...

    ) @
  • Idamante, Idomeneo
    Idomeneo
    Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...

    (Mozart)
  • Isabella, L'italiana in Algeri
    L'italiana in Algeri
    L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...

    (Rossini)
  • Isolier, Le Comte Ory
    Le comte Ory
    Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...

    (Rossini)
  • Maslova, Resurrection
    Resurrection (opera)
    Resurrection is an opera by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Maxwell Davies conceived in 1963 whilst at Princeton University. However, the composer did not complete the opera until over 20 years later...

     (Tod Machover
    Tod Machover
    Tod Machover , is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist....

    ) @
  • Meg, Little Women
    Little Women (opera)
    Little Women is the first opera composed by American composer Mark Adamo to his own libretto after Louisa May Alcott's tale of growing up in New England after the American Civil War, Little Women. The opera also includes text by John Bunyan , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Little Women (1998) is the...

     (Mark Adamo
    Mark Adamo
    Mark Adamo is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata "Late Victorians, "Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra," and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house:...

    ) @
  • Octavian, Der Rosenkavalier
    Der Rosenkavalier
    Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...

    (Richard Strauss
    Richard Strauss
    Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

    )
  • Romeo, I Capuleti e i Montecchi
    I Capuleti e i Montecchi
    I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...

    (Bellini)
  • Rosina, The Barber of Seville
    The Barber of Seville
    The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...

    (Rossini)
  • Sesto, La clemenza di Tito (Mozart)
  • Sesto Pompeo, Giulio Cesare
    Giulio Cesare
    Giulio Cesare in Egitto , commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724...

    (Handel)
  • Sister Helen, Dead Man Walking
    Dead Man Walking (opera)
    Dead Man Walking is the first opera by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Terrence McNally; it premiered on October 7, 2000 at the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera.-Roles:...

    (Jake Heggie
    Jake Heggie
    Jake Heggie is an American composer and pianist.Jake Heggie is the composer of the operas Dead Man Walking , The End of the Affair , At The Statue of Venus , To Hell and Back , and Moby-Dick , as well as the stage work For a Look or a Touch...

    )
  • Stephano, Roméo et Juliette
    Roméo et Juliette
    Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...

    (Charles Gounod
    Charles Gounod
    Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

    )
  • Zlatohrbitek the fox, The Cunning Little Vixen
    The Cunning Little Vixen
    The Cunning Little Vixen is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.-Composition history:When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's...

    (Janáček
    Leoš Janácek
    Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...

    )


@ Indicates a world premiere

Listen

in Rossini's The Barber of Seville in Rossini's La Cenerentola in Handel's Floridante in Mozart's Don Giovanni

Complete opera recordings

  • Alcina in Handel's Alcina
    Alcina
    Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy...

    with conductor Alan Curtis
    Alan Curtis (harpsichordist)
    Alan Curtis is a noted American harpsichordist, musicologist, and conductor of baroque opera. After graduate studies at the University of Illinois , where he wrote his dissertation on the keyboard music of Sweelinck, he studied in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt, with whom he subsequently recorded...

     and Il Complesso Barocco, released 2009, Archiv label.
  • Angelina (Cenerentola) in Rossini's La Cenerentola with conductor Alberto Zedda
    Alberto Zedda
    Alberto Zedda is an Italian conductor and musicologist, a specialist of the 19th century Italian repertoire.Zedda studied in his native Milan with Antonino Votto and Carlo Maria Giulini, and made his debut there as conductor in 1956, with Il barbiere di Siviglia...

     and SWR Orchestra Kaiserslautern
    Südwestrundfunk
    The Südwestrundfunk is a public broadcasting company for the southwest of Germany, specifically the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. The company has main offices in three cities: Stuttgart, Baden-Baden and Mainz, with the director's office being in Stuttgart. It is an...

    , released 2005, Naxos label.
  • Ascanio in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini
    Benvenuto Cellini (opera)
    Benvenuto Cellini is an opera in two acts with music by Hector Berlioz and libretto by Léon de Wailly and Henri Auguste Barbier. It was the first of Berlioz's operas. The story is loosely based on the memoirs of the Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. The opera is technically very challenging...

    with conductor John Nelson
    John Nelson (conductor)
    John Wilton Nelson is an American conductor. Nelson studied at Wheaton College, and later at the Juilliard School of Music with Jean Morel ....

     and Orchestre National de France
    Orchestre National de France
    The Orchestre national de France is a symphony orchestra run by Radio France. It has also been known as the Orchestre national de la Radiodiffusion française and Orchestre national de l'Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française .Since 1944, the orchestra has been based in the Théâtre...

    , released 2005, Virgin Classics label.
  • Elmira in Handel's Floridante
    Floridante
    Floridante is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was by Paolo Antonio Rolli after Francesco Silvani's libretto for Marc'Antonio Ziani dramma per musica La costanza in trionfo of 1696....

    with conductor Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco, released 2007, Archiv Produktion label.
  • Grace Kelly in Michael Daugherty
    Michael Daugherty
    Michael Kevin Daugherty is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. Influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism, Daugherty is one of the most colorful and widely performed American concert music composers of his generation...

    's Jackie O with conductor Christopher Larkin
    Christopher Larkin
    Christopher Larkin is an American conductor who is best known for his work within the field of opera. He was Associate Conductor of the Houston Grand Opera for a number of years where he notably conducted the world premieres of Mark Adamo's Little Women and Michael Daugherty’s Jackie O. He is also...

     and Houston Grand Opera Orchestra
    Houston Grand Opera
    Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

    , released 1997, Argo label.
  • Maslova in Tod Machover
    Tod Machover
    Tod Machover , is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist....

    's Resurrection
    Resurrection (opera)
    Resurrection is an opera by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Maxwell Davies conceived in 1963 whilst at Princeton University. However, the composer did not complete the opera until over 20 years later...

    with conductor Patrick Summers and Houston Grand Opera Orchestra
    Houston Grand Opera
    Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

    , released 1999, Albany Records.
  • Meg March in Mark Adamo
    Mark Adamo
    Mark Adamo is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata "Late Victorians, "Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra," and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house:...

    's Little Women
    Little Women (opera)
    Little Women is the first opera composed by American composer Mark Adamo to his own libretto after Louisa May Alcott's tale of growing up in New England after the American Civil War, Little Women. The opera also includes text by John Bunyan , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Little Women (1998) is the...

    with conductor Katherine Ciesinski and Houston Grand Opera Orchestra
    Houston Grand Opera
    Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

    , released 2001, Ondine label.
  • Radamisto in Handel's Radamisto
    Radamisto (Handel)
    Radamisto is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel to an Italian libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym, based on L'amor tirannico, o Zenobia by Domenico Lalli and Zenobia by Matteo Noris...

    with conductor Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco, released 2005, Virgin Classics label.

Concert recordings

  • Antonio Vivaldi: The Complete Sacred Music with conductor Robert King
    Robert King (conductor)
    Robert King is an English conductor and harpsichordist. As a youth, he was a member of the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge...

     and The King's Consort
    The King's Consort
    The King's Consort is a prominent British period music orchestra founded in 1980 by the English conductor and harpsichordist Robert King . The ensemble has an associated choral group, Choir of The King's Consort. Together, they have made over 90 recordings, largely on the Hyperion label, and sold...

    , released 2005, Hyperion label.
  • Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Nights Dream with conductor John Nelson
    John Nelson (conductor)
    John Wilton Nelson is an American conductor. Nelson studied at Wheaton College, and later at the Juilliard School of Music with Jean Morel ....

     and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, released 2003, EMI Classics label.
  • Mozart: The Last Concerto 1791 with conductor Frans Brüggen
    Frans Brüggen
    Frans Brüggen is a well-known Dutch conductor, recorder player and baroque flautist.-Biography:Brüggen studied recorder and flute at the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum. He also studied musicology at the University of Amsterdam. In 1955, at the age of 21, he was appointed professor at the Royal...

     and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, released 2002, Glossa label.

Solo recordings

  • Rossini: Colbran, the Muse, conductor Edoardo Muller and Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
    Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
    The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is one of the best-known orchestras in Italy. It is based at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. At various times it has been known as the Symphony Orchestra of the Augusteo and Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia and the...

    , released 2009, Virgin Classics label.
  • Furore – Mad Scenes from Operas, conductor Christophe Rousset
    Christophe Rousset
    Christophe Rousset is a French harpsichordist and conductor, specializing in the performance of baroque music on period instruments.-Biography:...

     and Les Talens Lyriques
    Les Talens Lyriques
    Les Talens Lyriques is a baroque orchestra founded in 1991 by French conductor Christophe Rousset.The ensemble takes its name from Jean-Philippe Rameau's opéra-ballet Les fêtes d'Hébé ou les talens lyriques .- External links :...

    , released 2008, Virgin Classics label.
  • Amor e gelosia: Handel Operatic Duets with Patrizia Ciofi
    Patrizia Ciofi
    Patrizia Ciofi, born in Casole d'Elsa, Siena, on June 7, 1967, is an Italian operatic soprano. She is married to the conductor Luciano Acocella....

    , conductor Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco, released 2004, Virgin Classics label.
  • The Deepest Desire, accompanied by David Zobel, released 2006, Eloquentia label.
  • Joyce DiDonato: Songs by Fauré, Hahn and Head · Arias by Rossini and Handel, live recording at Wigmore Hall
    Wigmore Hall
    Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

    , accompanied by Julius Drake
    Julius Drake
    Julius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...

    , released 2006, Wigmore Hall Live
    Wigmore hall live
    In October 2005, the Wigmore Hall, London, UK, became the first concert hall to launch its own record label: Wigmore Hall Live, building upon the venue's existing reputation as a recital hall established early in the 20th century. One of the aims was to bring the musical programme to a wider audience...

     label.
  • ¡Pasión!, accompanied by Julius Drake
    Julius Drake
    Julius Drake is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician.-Biography:Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell Room in 1981 and developed a special affinity for the music of Robert...

    , released 2007, Eloquentia label.
  • Diva, Divo, with the Orchestre et Choeur de l’Opera National de Lyon
    Opéra National de Lyon
    Opéra National de Lyon is an opera company in Lyon, France which performs in the Nouvel Opéra, a modernized version in 1993 of the original 1831 opera house.The inaugural performance of François-Adrien Boïeldieu's La Dame blanche was given on 1 July 1831...

     under Kazushi Ono
    Kazushi Ono
    is a Japanese conductor, born in Tokyo. He studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and with Wolfgang Sawallisch and Giuseppe Patanè at the Bavarian State Opera , as a scholar of the Japanese Ministry of Culture. In 1987 he won First Prize in the 3rd Toscanini International...

    , released 2011

Other recordings

  • William Barnewitz: Long Road Home, DiDonato appears as a guest artist, released 2007, Avie label.
  • Plácido Domingo's Operalia '98: A Tribute to Passion and Soul, released 1998, Montblanc label.

Film and television appearances

  • Meg March in Mark Adamo
    Mark Adamo
    Mark Adamo is an Italian American composer and librettist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While he has composed the symphonic cantata "Late Victorians, "Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra," and six substantial choral works, the composer’s principal work has been for the opera house:...

    's Little Women
    Little Women (opera)
    Little Women is the first opera composed by American composer Mark Adamo to his own libretto after Louisa May Alcott's tale of growing up in New England after the American Civil War, Little Women. The opera also includes text by John Bunyan , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Little Women (1998) is the...

    with conductor Katherine Ciesinski and Houston Grand Opera Orchestra
    Houston Grand Opera
    Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...

    , aired on 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....

    ' Great Performances
    Great Performances
    Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on Public Broadcasting Service public television since 1972...

    in 2001.
  • Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia with conductor Bruno Campanella
    Bruno Campanella
    Bruno Campanella is an Italian conductor and a distinguished interpreter of the Italian Opera.He studied composition under Nino Rota and Luigi Dallapiccola. He had Hans Swarowsky and Thomas Schippers as instructors in conducting....

     and Opéra National de Paris, aired on television in 2002, released on DVD 2002.
  • "Gala Jean-Philippe Rameau" – Concert du 20ème anniversaire des Musiciens du Louvre, aired on television in 2003.
  • Dejanira in Handel's Hercules with conductor William Christie
    William Christie (musician)
    William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....

    , Les Arts Florissants
    Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)
    Les Arts Florissants is a Baroque musical ensemble in residence at the Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979. The ensemble derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The organization consists of a chamber orchestra...

    , and Aix-en-Provence Festival
    Aix-en-Provence Festival
    The festival international d'art lyrique is an annual international music festival which takes place each summer in Aix-en-Provence, principally in the month of July. Devoted mainly to opera, it also includes concerts of orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo instrumental music.-Establishment:The...

    , aired on television in 2005, released on DVD 2005.
  • Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia with conductor Antonio Pappano
    Antonio Pappano
    Antonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...

     at the Royal Opera House
    Royal Opera House
    The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

    , released on DVD in 2010
  • Angelina in Rossini's La Cenerentola
    La Cenerentola
    La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...

    with conductor Patrick Summers at the Gran Teatre del Liceu
    Liceu
    The Gran Teatre del Liceu , or simply Liceu in Catalan and Liceo in Spanish, is an opera house on La Rambla in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain...

    , released on DVD in 2010

External links

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