Laura Alonso
Encyclopedia
Laura Alonso is a Spanish
opera
tic soprano
. She began her career in 1999 when she became a member of the Aalto Theatre
in Essen, Germany; a position currently maintains. She has also appeared as a guest artist with major theatres and musical ensembles internationally.
, Alonso earned university diplomas in both singing
and the violin
in her native country before pursuing further studies in Germany. A scholarship from the Alexander von Humbolt Foundation enabled her to study lieder with Hartmut Höll and voice under Aldo Baldin, Anna Reynolds
and Jean Cox and lied with Hartmut Höll at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe. She has gone on to win several singing awards at international competitions, including First Prize in the last Alfredo Kraus Competition as well as the Franco Corelli, Verviers or Jaume Aragall Competitions.
in Essen, Germany. Over the past deacade she has sung numerous roles with that opera house
, including Blanche in Francis Poulenc
's Dialogues of the Carmelites
, Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi
's Rigoletto
, Mimí in Giacomo Puccini
's La bohème
, Pamina in Wolfganag Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute
, Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
, and Zdenka in Richard Strauss
' Arabella
among others. She is the recipient of the Aalto Theatre's Best Artist Award and is scheduled to perform at the theatre for the 2010 European City of Culture
festivities.
As a guest artist, Alonso has made appearances at numerous concert venues and theatres internationally. In Europe she has sung at leading theatres in Pisa, Düsseldorf, Mannheim, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Nancy, Braunschweig, Poissy, Freiburg, Lübeck, Barcelona, and Breno. Her performance credits also include appearances at the Auditorium in Rishon Le Zion (Israel), Teatro Bellas Artes in Mexico, Teatro de Guanajuato, Philharmonie de Cologne, Musikhalle in Hamburg, Konzerthaus and Philharmonie in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Dortmund and Essen, Kuppel Saal in Hannover (Germany), Herodes Aticus in Athens, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Los Angeles Auditorium (USA), Palau de Valencia and Barcelona, among others. She has performed under severl important conductors, including Frühbeck de Burgos, Heiko Matthias Förster, Philipp Jordan, Carlos Kalmar
, Jiri Kôut, Ion Marin, Víctor Pablo Pérez, Zoltan Peszko, and Stefan Soltesz. Some of the other opera roles in her repertoire include Antonia, Zerbinetta, Susanna, Oscar, Lucia, Lulú, Giulia, Nannetta, Sophie, Elvira, Amina, or Violetta in La Traviata.
She has collaborated with stage directors as A. Pilavachi, De Tomasi, Johannes Schaaf, Pontiggia, Berndt, Schlingensief o Hilsdorf at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Tenerife Festivals, at the Festival in Royaumont, Bregenzer Festspiele, Maestranza in Sevilla, at the Expo in Hannover, Innsbrucker Festwochen, Ille de France Festival, Santander Festival, at the Autumn Festival in Madrid and the Opera Week in Berlin, among other musical events.
Among her most recent roles, we can highlight Giulia in La Scala di Seta, performed during a tour with the Freiburger Barockorchester under the baton of Attilio Cremonesi. Furthermore, she excelled at the Berlin Staatsoper with Ariadne auf Naxos. With her debut at the Innsbruck Festival (Austria) in the role of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare by Antonio Sartorio, she won the Diapason D´or, awarded by the French critics, and the CD obtained a great success.
Other special achievements include her role as Magda in La Rondine, which she performed recently in Utrecht (Netherlands) with the T.R.O.S. and Gómez Martínez as conductor, as well as her Salzburg performance in the role of Sandrina, in La Finta Giardiniera, on the occasion of Mozart Year 2006 with Doris Dörrie as stage manager.
Other recent performances have taken place in Santander and La Coruña with the Opera Carmen and also in La Coruña the Spanish Premiere of The rescue of Penelope, by Britten.
She has performed in some of the most important Auditoriums and Theatres in Spain, and at the end of 2007, she sang belcanto repertoire in the Opera Hall at Valladolid Auditorium, with the conductor Alejandro Posada and Canarian tenor Celso Albelo with duets and arias from Lakmé, Rigoletto, Elisir d´amore and Semiramide, alongside the Symphony Orchestra of Castilla y León.
She devotes most of the year to giving recitals and concerts. Next music key events are a Liederabend at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, and another one at the Auditorio Conde Duque with the conductor Manuel Burgueras, as well as several Spanish music concerts in the United States.
Her most ambitious recording project was the Belcanto Arias Album „Col sorriso d´innocenza“, in collaboration with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Malaga, which was published in December 2006, obtaining excellent reviews among the Opera specialised international press.
The record label Columna Musica has recently released her CD collection of Galician songs „Lúa descolorida“, and another one will be released shortly with Spanish repertoire.
Among her next performances are Brahms Requiem, Handel‘s Messiah, Mahler‘s Fourth Symphony, Haydn‘s Creation, and a Spanish Songs Concert alongside the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.
She has played the leading role as Rosario in her debut of the work Goyescas by Granados this year.
She has recently toured the main cities in Germany alongside the Chilean tenor Felipe Rojas, accompanied by the prestigious orchestra Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, singing exclusively Spanish “zarzuelas”.
Soon she will sing alongside the Orchestra da camera di Firenze works by Vivaldi under the direction of the Turkish Master Guven Yaslicam, and El retablo de Maese Pedro by Manuel de Falla in Tel Aviv, as well as playing the role of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in Chile, under the direction of Donato Cabrera, among other commitments.
She will make her debut in the prestigious Alice Tully Hall in New York in November with the opera The Empty Hours by Ricardo Llorca.
A record is to be released shortly including the most beautiful songs composed by Pauline Viardot- García, accompanied at the piano by the prestigious Manuel Burgueras.
In 2011, Laura will perform at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires as Lulú in Alban Berg‘s Opera, conducted by the American Music Director Stefan Lano and Stage Master Alfredo Arias.
Laura Alonso currently lives in Berlin and continues her musical training with Anna Reynolds and Irmgaard Hartmann.
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
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 soprano
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...
. She began her career in 1999 when she became a member of the Aalto Theatre
Aalto Theatre
The Aalto Theatre is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Essen, Germany. It was opened on 25 September 1988 with Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg...
in Essen, Germany; a position currently maintains. She has also appeared as a guest artist with major theatres and musical ensembles internationally.
Early life and education
Born in Vilagarcía de ArousaVilagarcía de Arousa
Vilagarcía de Arousa is a port town situated on the firth of Arousa in Galicia, 45km south of Santiago de Compostela. Vilagarcía has a population of almost 37,000 inhabitants, so it is the eighth largest town in Galicia....
, Alonso earned university diplomas in both singing
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
and the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
in her native country before pursuing further studies in Germany. A scholarship from the Alexander von Humbolt Foundation enabled her to study lieder with Hartmut Höll and voice under Aldo Baldin, Anna Reynolds
Anna Reynolds (singer)
Anna Reynolds is an English classical mezzo-soprano and contralto singer in opera and concert.- Professional career :Ann Reynolds first studied piano, then voice at the Royal Academy of Music...
and Jean Cox and lied with Hartmut Höll at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe. She has gone on to win several singing awards at international competitions, including First Prize in the last Alfredo Kraus Competition as well as the Franco Corelli, Verviers or Jaume Aragall Competitions.
Career
In 1999, at just 23 years of age, Alonso became a member of the Aalto TheatreAalto Theatre
The Aalto Theatre is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Essen, Germany. It was opened on 25 September 1988 with Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg...
in Essen, Germany. Over the past deacade she has sung numerous roles with that opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
, including Blanche in Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
's Dialogues of the Carmelites
Dialogues of the Carmelites
Dialogues of the Carmelites , is an opera in three acts by Francis Poulenc. In 1953, M. Valcarenghi approached Poulenc to commission a ballet for La Scala in Milan; when Poulenc found the proposed subject uninspiring, Valcarenghi suggested instead a screenplay by Georges Bernanos, based on the...
, Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, Mimí in Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Pamina in Wolfganag Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, Susanna in Mozart's 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...
, and Zdenka 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...
' Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
among others. She is the recipient of the Aalto Theatre's Best Artist Award and is scheduled to perform at the theatre for the 2010 European City of Culture
European Capital of Culture
The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by theEuropean Union for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension....
festivities.
As a guest artist, Alonso has made appearances at numerous concert venues and theatres internationally. In Europe she has sung at leading theatres in Pisa, Düsseldorf, Mannheim, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Nancy, Braunschweig, Poissy, Freiburg, Lübeck, Barcelona, and Breno. Her performance credits also include appearances at the Auditorium in Rishon Le Zion (Israel), Teatro Bellas Artes in Mexico, Teatro de Guanajuato, Philharmonie de Cologne, Musikhalle in Hamburg, Konzerthaus and Philharmonie in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Dortmund and Essen, Kuppel Saal in Hannover (Germany), Herodes Aticus in Athens, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Los Angeles Auditorium (USA), Palau de Valencia and Barcelona, among others. She has performed under severl important conductors, including Frühbeck de Burgos, Heiko Matthias Förster, Philipp Jordan, Carlos Kalmar
Carlos Kalmar
Carlos Kalmar is a Uruguayan conductor. He began violin studies at age six. At age fifteen, he enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music where his conducting teacher was Karl Österreicher...
, Jiri Kôut, Ion Marin, Víctor Pablo Pérez, Zoltan Peszko, and Stefan Soltesz. Some of the other opera roles in her repertoire include Antonia, Zerbinetta, Susanna, Oscar, Lucia, Lulú, Giulia, Nannetta, Sophie, Elvira, Amina, or Violetta in La Traviata.
She has collaborated with stage directors as A. Pilavachi, De Tomasi, Johannes Schaaf, Pontiggia, Berndt, Schlingensief o Hilsdorf at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Tenerife Festivals, at the Festival in Royaumont, Bregenzer Festspiele, Maestranza in Sevilla, at the Expo in Hannover, Innsbrucker Festwochen, Ille de France Festival, Santander Festival, at the Autumn Festival in Madrid and the Opera Week in Berlin, among other musical events.
Among her most recent roles, we can highlight Giulia in La Scala di Seta, performed during a tour with the Freiburger Barockorchester under the baton of Attilio Cremonesi. Furthermore, she excelled at the Berlin Staatsoper with Ariadne auf Naxos. With her debut at the Innsbruck Festival (Austria) in the role of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare by Antonio Sartorio, she won the Diapason D´or, awarded by the French critics, and the CD obtained a great success.
Other special achievements include her role as Magda in La Rondine, which she performed recently in Utrecht (Netherlands) with the T.R.O.S. and Gómez Martínez as conductor, as well as her Salzburg performance in the role of Sandrina, in La Finta Giardiniera, on the occasion of Mozart Year 2006 with Doris Dörrie as stage manager.
Other recent performances have taken place in Santander and La Coruña with the Opera Carmen and also in La Coruña the Spanish Premiere of The rescue of Penelope, by Britten.
She has performed in some of the most important Auditoriums and Theatres in Spain, and at the end of 2007, she sang belcanto repertoire in the Opera Hall at Valladolid Auditorium, with the conductor Alejandro Posada and Canarian tenor Celso Albelo with duets and arias from Lakmé, Rigoletto, Elisir d´amore and Semiramide, alongside the Symphony Orchestra of Castilla y León.
She devotes most of the year to giving recitals and concerts. Next music key events are a Liederabend at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, and another one at the Auditorio Conde Duque with the conductor Manuel Burgueras, as well as several Spanish music concerts in the United States.
Her most ambitious recording project was the Belcanto Arias Album „Col sorriso d´innocenza“, in collaboration with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Malaga, which was published in December 2006, obtaining excellent reviews among the Opera specialised international press.
The record label Columna Musica has recently released her CD collection of Galician songs „Lúa descolorida“, and another one will be released shortly with Spanish repertoire.
Among her next performances are Brahms Requiem, Handel‘s Messiah, Mahler‘s Fourth Symphony, Haydn‘s Creation, and a Spanish Songs Concert alongside the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.
She has played the leading role as Rosario in her debut of the work Goyescas by Granados this year.
She has recently toured the main cities in Germany alongside the Chilean tenor Felipe Rojas, accompanied by the prestigious orchestra Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, singing exclusively Spanish “zarzuelas”.
Soon she will sing alongside the Orchestra da camera di Firenze works by Vivaldi under the direction of the Turkish Master Guven Yaslicam, and El retablo de Maese Pedro by Manuel de Falla in Tel Aviv, as well as playing the role of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in Chile, under the direction of Donato Cabrera, among other commitments.
She will make her debut in the prestigious Alice Tully Hall in New York in November with the opera The Empty Hours by Ricardo Llorca.
A record is to be released shortly including the most beautiful songs composed by Pauline Viardot- García, accompanied at the piano by the prestigious Manuel Burgueras.
In 2011, Laura will perform at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires as Lulú in Alban Berg‘s Opera, conducted by the American Music Director Stefan Lano and Stage Master Alfredo Arias.
Laura Alonso currently lives in Berlin and continues her musical training with Anna Reynolds and Irmgaard Hartmann.
Discography Music/CD
- Col sorriso d'innocenza Belcanto Arias by Laura Alonso. Conductor: Alexander Livenson. Orquesta Filarmónica de Malaga. Composers: i.e. Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti. Label: Columna Musica, Spain.
- Lua Descolorida Music from Galicia with Laura Alonso, soprano. Juan Manuel Varela, piano. Songs by Osvaldo Golijov and Antón García Abril. Label: Columna Musica, Spain.
- Antoloxía Vol. 1 A canción de Concerto: Antoloxía Vol. 1. Laura Alonso, soprano. Manuel Burgueras, piano. Cancións sobre textos literarios galegos. Edicións Xerais de Galicia.
- Tutto Verdi Tutto Verdi from the Aalto Theater in Essen. Charity event for the reconstruction of the "La Fenice" in Venice.
- Na Boca Das Camelias Laura Alonso, soprano. Juan Manuel Varela, piano. Music from Galicia by various composers.
- Giulio Cesare Antonio Sartorio: Giulio Cesare in Egitto. Conductor: Attilio Cremonesi. Innsbrucker Barockfestspiele. Laura Alonso as Cleopatra. Label: ORF, Austria