Lydia Caruana
Encyclopedia
Lydia Caruana is a Maltese
operatic soprano
who performs in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe and her native Malta. She has sung in two rarely performed opera
s by Maltese composers, Carmelo Pace
's I martiri and Nicolo Isouard's Jeannot et Colin.
. She later furthered her studies in singing with the Maltese soprano Antoinette Miggiani
and took master classes in Vienna
with the Armenian-Austria
n soprano, Sona Ghazarian
. She made her operatic debut as Musetta in La bohème
at the Teatru Manoel in Valletta in 1995.
Amongst the roles she has performed in Italy
and Malta are the title role in Suor Angelica
, Mimi in La bohème, Norina in Don Pasquale
, Elvira in Don Giovanni
and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus
. She has also sung in rarely performed operas such as Nicolo Isouard’s Jeannot et Colin (as Thérèse) and Carmelo Pace
's I martiri (as Graziella). While she retains her interest in performing and creating roles which are not in the standard operatic repertoire, she continues to perform in Italian opera
, as in her concerts with the Berwald Symphony Orchestra of Stockholm
conducted by Manfred Honeck
and the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Charles Olivieri Monroe.
Caruana has sung in major concert halls across Europe such as the Musikverein in Vienna
, National Concert Hall
in Dublin, Laeiszhalle
in Hamburg
, Theatre of the Estates in Prague
and Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna
. In 2005, concert tours with the Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra took her to 16 German
cities. She also sang in the Das Neue Europa Festival in Ingolstadt
accompanied by the Georgian Chamber Orchestra. During 2006 she presented a Mozart programme in the final concert of the Valetta International Sacred Music Festival, a programme which she also performed in St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh
. In 2007 Caruana partnered, on different occasions, José Carreras
and Andrea Bocelli
in Malta and Joseph Calleja
in Regensburg
for the Rathaus concert series.
Lydia Caruana is also an active recitalist, with a repertoire ranging from Haydn and Liszt
to de Falla. In 2006 she gave a series of recitals in Vienna and Malta with pianist
Paul Gulda, with whom she also recorded a CD of Mediterranean songs. In 2008 she recorded a programme of Maltese composers, and their European contemporaries for the Austrian broadcasting company ORF
in Vienna.
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
operatic 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...
who performs in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe and her native Malta. She has sung in two rarely performed 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...
s by Maltese composers, Carmelo Pace
Carmelo Pace
Maestro Chev. Carmelo Pace was a Maltese composer, and a professor of musical theory and harmonics. Born in Valletta, Malta on August 17, 1906, Pace was the eldest of three children...
's I martiri and Nicolo Isouard's Jeannot et Colin.
Biography
Lydia Caruana was born in Malta, and initially studied music at the Johann Strauss School of Music in VallettaValletta
Valletta is the capital of Malta, colloquially known as Il-Belt in Maltese. It is located in the central-eastern portion of the island of Malta, and the historical city has a population of 6,098. The name "Valletta" is traditionally reserved for the historic walled citadel that serves as Malta's...
. She later furthered her studies in singing with the Maltese soprano Antoinette Miggiani
Antoinette Miggiani
Antoinette Miggiani is a Maltese operatic soprano and singing teacher.-Biography:Antoinette Miggiani was born in Sliema, Malta. After studying piano and voice in her native country, she won a British Council scholarship to study at London's Royal Academy of Music in 1958...
and took master classes in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
with the Armenian-Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n soprano, Sona Ghazarian
Sona Ghazarian
Sona Ghazarian is an Armenian-Austrian operatic soprano.A Kammersängerin of the Republic of Austria, she has sung over 70 roles in the major opera houses of both Europe and the United States.-Biography:...
. She made her operatic debut as Musetta in 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...
at the Teatru Manoel in Valletta in 1995.
Amongst the roles she has performed in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Malta are the title role in Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
, Mimi in La bohème, Norina in Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
, Elvira in 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 Rosalinde in 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 :...
. She has also sung in rarely performed operas such as Nicolo Isouard’s Jeannot et Colin (as Thérèse) and Carmelo Pace
Carmelo Pace
Maestro Chev. Carmelo Pace was a Maltese composer, and a professor of musical theory and harmonics. Born in Valletta, Malta on August 17, 1906, Pace was the eldest of three children...
's I martiri (as Graziella). While she retains her interest in performing and creating roles which are not in the standard operatic repertoire, she continues to perform in Italian opera
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers,...
, as in her concerts with the Berwald Symphony Orchestra of Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
conducted by Manfred Honeck
Manfred Honeck
Manfred Honeck is an Austrian conductor, the son of Otto and Frieda Honeck, from a family of nine children. One of his brothers is the Vienna Philharmonic leader Rainer Honeck....
and the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra
Malta Philharmonic Orchestra
The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra is the national symphony orchestra of Malta. It was founded in 1968 and was originally known as the Manoel Theatre Orchestra, where it was in residence for both opera productions and orchestral concerts...
conducted by Charles Olivieri Monroe.
Caruana has sung in major concert halls across Europe such as the Musikverein in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, National Concert Hall
National Concert Hall
The National Concert Hall is a concert hall located on Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin, Ireland, close to St. Stephen's Green, and is the principal national venue for classical music concerts in Ireland....
in Dublin, Laeiszhalle
Laeiszhalle
The Laeiszhalle is a concert hall in Hamburg, Germany and home to the Hamburger Symphoniker.The hall is named after the German shipowning company F. Laeisz, founder of the concert venue and was planned by the architect Martin Haller.-External links:...
in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Theatre of the Estates in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
and Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna
Philharmonic Academy of Bologna
The Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna is a music education institution in Bologna, Italy.It was established in 1666. Saint Anthony of Padua was chosen as its patron saint and the image of an organ bearing the motto Unitate melos was chosen as its coat of arms...
. In 2005, concert tours with the Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra took her to 16 German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
cities. She also sang in the Das Neue Europa Festival in Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt is a city in the Free State of Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located along the banks of the Danube River, in the center of Bavaria. As at 31 March 2011, Ingolstadt had 125.407 residents...
accompanied by the Georgian Chamber Orchestra. During 2006 she presented a Mozart programme in the final concert of the Valetta International Sacred Music Festival, a programme which she also performed in St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
. In 2007 Caruana partnered, on different occasions, José Carreras
José Carreras
Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...
and Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli, is an Italian tenor, multi-instrumentalist and classical crossover artist. Born with poor eyesight, he became blind at the age of twelve following a soccer accident....
in Malta and Joseph Calleja
Joseph Calleja
Joseph Calleja, , is a Maltese tenor. He began singing at the age of 16 and, having been discovered by Paul Asciak, continued his studies with him. At 19, he made his operatic debut as Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth at Astra Theatre in Gozo and went on to become a prize winner at the Belvedere Hans...
in Regensburg
Regensburg
Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
for the Rathaus concert series.
Lydia Caruana is also an active recitalist, with a repertoire ranging from Haydn and Liszt
Liszt
Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...
to de Falla. In 2006 she gave a series of recitals in Vienna and Malta with pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
Paul Gulda, with whom she also recorded a CD of Mediterranean songs. In 2008 she recorded a programme of Maltese composers, and their European contemporaries for the Austrian broadcasting company ORF
ORF
ORF may refer to:* ORF , the Austrian public service broadcaster.* Open reading frame, a portion of the genome.* The IATA airport code for Norfolk International Airport in Norfolk, Virginia.* ORF format , Olympus raw image file format....
in Vienna.
Recordings
- Mediterranean Melodies - Lydia Caruana (soprano) and Paul Gulda (piano), 2007. Label: Gramola.
2008
- La Bohème (Mimi) - Aurora Opera House, Victoria, MaltaVictoria, MaltaVictoria or Città Victoria is the capital of Gozo, an island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The town has a total population of 6,414 , and by population is the largest locality in Gozo....
- Malta Felice! - ORF Radiokulturhaus, Vienna
- Malta Felice! - SalzkammergutSalzkammergutThe Salzkammergut is a resort area located in Austria. It stretches from City of Salzburg to the Dachstein mountain range, spanning the federal states of Upper Austria , Salzburg , and Styria . The main river of the region is the Traun, a tributary of the Danube...
Festwochen, Gmunden Festwochen Schloss Roith, GmundenGmundenGmunden is a town in Upper Austria, Austria in the district of Gmunden. It has 13,202 inhabitants . It is much frequented as a health and summer resort, and has a variety of goat, lake, brine, vegetable and pine-cone baths, a hydropathic establishment, inhalation chambers, whey cure, etc... - Lydia Caruana in Concert - Mediterranean Centre, Valletta.
- Celebrity Recital of Czech and Maltese Composers - Phoenicia Concert Hall, Valletta
2007
- Concert with José Carreras - Malta Philharmonic Orchestra; St George's Square, Valletta
- Concerto del soprano Lydia Caruana - Accademia di Bologna, BolognaBolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
- Rathauskonzerte Series 2007 - Rathaus, Regensburg
- Love is in the Air - Presidential Palace, Valletta
- 20th Century Music from Malta - Estates Theatre, PraguePraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
- Sterling Opera Recital - Phoenicia Concert Hall, Valletta
2006
- Concert with Andrea Bocelli - Malta Convention Centre
- International Opera Gala - National Concert Hall, Dublin and City Hall, CorkCork (city)Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
- A Celebration of Mediterranean Arias - Bösendorfer-Saal, Vienna
- Opera Gala Concert - Badner Stadttheatre Orchestra; Teatru Manoel, Valletta
- A Celebration of Mediterranean Arias - Teatru Manoel, Valletta
- Finale Concert - International Sacred Music Festival; Vienna-Malta Baroque Ensemble; St John's Cathedral, Valletta
- Semper Europa Nostra - concert; Auberge d’Aragon, Valletta
2005
- An Evening of Romantic Arias - St. Finbarr's Cathedral, Cork
- Nations in Dialogue - concert; Palazzo Parisio, Valletta
- Concert with Soloists of the Vienna Chamber OrchestraVienna Chamber OrchestraThe Vienna Chamber Orchestra is an Austrian chamber orchestra based at the Vienna Konzerthaus....
- Teatru Manoel, Valletta - Das Neue Europa - concert, Stadttheater, Ingolstadt
- 16 city concert tour - Wiener Johann Strauss Philharmonie of BelarusBelarusBelarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
Before 2005
- Don Giovanni (Elvira) - Teatru Manoel, Valletta
- Crossroads of Civilisations - United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Concert; WIPOWorld Intellectual Property OrganizationThe World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world"....
, GenevaGenevaGeneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland... - Mozart Concert in St Giles, Edinburgh, ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
- Don Pasquale (Norina) - new production; Teatro Petrarca, ArezzoArezzoArezzo is a city and comune in Central Italy, capital of the province of the same name, located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about 80 km southeast of Florence, at an elevation of 296 m above sea level. In 2011 the population was about 100,000....
; Teatro di Valdarno, ValdarnoValdarnoThe Valdarno is the valley of the river Arno, although it does not apply to the entire basin of the river. The usage of the term generally excludes Casentino and the valleys formed by the major tributaries, such as the Val di Chiana, the Val d'Ambra , The valley of the Sieve, namely Mugello, the...
; Teatru Manoel, Valletta - La bohème (Musetta) - Teatru Manoel, Valletta
- I martiri (Graziella) - Teatru Manoel, Valletta
- Die Fledermaus (Rosalinde) - Teatru Manoel, Valletta
- Puccini Gala Night - Teatru Manoel, Valletta
- Stabat MaterStabat MaterStabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III...
- Commemoration Concert; Teatru Manoel, Valletta - Jeannot et Colin (Thèrése) - Teatru Manoel, Valletta