Ronald Naldi
Encyclopedia
Ronald Naldi is an American lyric tenor who has performed on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera
, Lyric Opera of Chicago
, Arena di Verona
, L'Opéra Français, Salzburger Landestheater, and New Jersey State Opera
, under the baton of maestri James Levine
, Valery Gergiev
, James Conlon
, David Robertson
, Leonard Slatkin
, Joseph Colaneri
, Charles Mackerras
, Vincent LaSelva, Christopher Keene
, Alfredo Silipigni
, Thomas Booth, Lukas Foss
, Nello Santi
, and Eduardo Müller, and alongside singers Plácido Domingo
, Luciano Pavarotti
, Leo Nucci
, James Morris, and Samuel Ramey
- to name only a few.
Naldi's repertory comprises over 100 operatic roles in six languages, as well as an extensive song repertory in the American, English, French, German and Italian literature.
Naldi has sung 300 performances at the Metropolitan Opera
since his debut there in 1983, including Ismaele in Nabucco
, Tschekalinsky in The Queen of Spades
, and Vitek in the Met premiere of Leoš Janáček
's The Makropulos Case. The 2006-2007 season found him in multiple performances, most notably as Vogelgesang in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
and Bruno in I Puritani
, aside Anna Netrebko
. In '07-'08, he sang in productions of Macbeth
, War and Peace
, Otello
, and The Gambler
, as well as a Boston production of Les Troyens
with James Levine
and the BSO
. In his 16th consecutive season at the Met (2008-2009), he appeared in Lucia di Lammermoor
, The Magic Flute
, Il Trovatore
, and Salome
.
Naldi has also appeared with the festivals of Spoleto
(Italy), Waterloo, Ontario
, and Caramoor
, and toured China, Egypt, the Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka with the Ambassadors of Opera. He has performed with over 25 symphony orchestras and has an extensive repertory of more than 30 oratorios. With St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, he has sung over 200 performances of the chamber operas of Haydn, Mozart, Offenbach, Rieti, Bakst, Fioravanti, and Rossini.
He is a member of the Italian-American Hall of Fame, and the tenor soloist and artist-in-residence in Ocean Grove, New Jersey
, where he is completing his 38th consecutive season.
, Margaret Harshaw
, Luciano Francardi, Luigi Ricci, Carol Bayard, and William Riley.
From 1966 to 1973, he was a professor of voice at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis
).
and Italian songs with orchestrations by John Colaiacovo. The latter won a critics' choice award from Gramophone magazine.
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...
, 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...
, Arena di Verona
Arena di Verona Festival
The Arena di Verona Festival is a summer festival of opera, located in the city of Verona Italy. Since 1936, it has been organized under the auspices of an official body, first the Ente Autonomo Spettacoli Lirici Arena di Verona, , and then, following legislation in 1996 and...
, L'Opéra Français, Salzburger Landestheater, and New Jersey State Opera
New Jersey State Opera
The New Jersey State Opera is an opera company based in Newark, New Jersey. It was established in 1964 as the Opera Theater of Westfield, and shortly after opening Alfredo Silipigni was hired as Artistic Director. The name was changed to the Opera Theatre of New Jersey in 1965, and in 1968 the...
, under the baton of maestri 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...
, Valery Gergiev
Valery Gergiev
Valery Abisalovich Gergiev is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.- Early life :Gergiev,...
, James Conlon
James Conlon
James Conlon is an American conductor and the current Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera.-Early years:Conlon grew up in a family of five children on Cherry Street in Douglaston, Queens, New York. His mother, Angeline L. Conlon, was a freelance writer. His father was an assistant to the New...
, David Robertson
David Robertson (conductor)
David Eric Robertson is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.-Early life:...
, Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...
, Joseph Colaneri
Joseph Colaneri
Joseph Colaneri is an American conductor. From 1987-1998 he was a conductor with the New York City Opera. He has been a member of the conducting staff at the Metropolitan Opera since 1998, and as of 2009 has conducted a total of 35 performances for the company. He is currently the Director of the...
, Charles Mackerras
Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
, Vincent LaSelva, Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene was an American conductor.Born in Berkeley, California, Keene studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Associated with the Spoleto Festival from 1968 , he was co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA, where he was Music Director from 1977 to 1980...
, Alfredo Silipigni
Alfredo Silipigni
Alfredo Silipigni was a conductor and specialist in lesser-known Italian operas who founded the New Jersey State Opera and ran it for four decades.-Early life:...
, Thomas Booth, Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...
, Nello Santi
Nello Santi
Nello Santi is an Italian conductor. He is often called "Papa Santi" by his fellow musicians to show their high respect for his work.-Biography:...
, and Eduardo Müller, and alongside singers Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
, Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
, Leo Nucci
Leo Nucci
Leo Nucci is an Italian operatic baritone, particularly suited to Verdi roles.Born at Castiglione dei Pepoli, near Bologna, he studied with Giuseppe Marchese and made his stage debut in Spoleto, as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, in 1967, he then joined the chorus of La Scala in Milan, and...
, James Morris, and Samuel Ramey
Samuel Ramey
Samuel Edward Ramey is an American operatic bass with a long, distinguished career.During his best years, he was greatly admired for his range and versatility, having possessed a sufficiently accomplished bel canto technique to enable him to sing the music of Handel, Mozart, Rossini, yet power...
- to name only a few.
Naldi's repertory comprises over 100 operatic roles in six languages, as well as an extensive song repertory in the American, English, French, German and Italian literature.
Naldi has sung 300 performances at 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...
since his debut there in 1983, including Ismaele in Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
, Tschekalinsky in The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (opera)
The Queen of Spades, Op. 68 is an opera in 3 acts by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on a short story of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The premiere took place in 1890 in St...
, and Vitek in the Met premiere of Leoš 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 Makropulos Case. The 2006-2007 season found him in multiple performances, most notably as Vogelgesang in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
and Bruno in I Puritani
I puritani
I puritani is an opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini. It was his last opera. Its libretto is by Count Carlo Pepoli, based on Têtes rondes et Cavaliers by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine, which is in turn based on Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality. It was first produced at...
, aside Anna Netrebko
Anna Netrebko
Anna Yuryevna Netrebko is an Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.-Biography:...
. In '07-'08, he sang in productions of Macbeth
Macbeth (opera)
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
, War and Peace
War and Peace (Prokofiev)
War and Peace is an opera in two parts , sometimes arranged as five acts, by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer and Mira Mendelson, based on the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy...
, Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
, and The Gambler
The Gambler (Prokofiev)
The Gambler is an opera in four acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on the story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky....
, as well as a Boston production of Les Troyens
Les Troyens
Les Troyens is a French opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself, based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid...
with 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...
and the BSO
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
. In his 16th consecutive season at the Met (2008-2009), he appeared in Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
, 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....
, Il Trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
, and 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....
.
Naldi has also appeared with the festivals of Spoleto
Festival dei Due Mondi
The Festival dei Due Mondi ' is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958...
(Italy), Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is the smallest of the three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, and is adjacent to the city of Kitchener....
, and Caramoor
Caramoor International Music Festival
The Caramoor International Music Festival is a summer music festival founded in 1945 that is held on the estate of the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts Inc., which includes a Mediterranean-style stucco villa and is located about north of New York City in Katonah, New York.The Caramoor...
, and toured China, Egypt, the Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka with the Ambassadors of Opera. He has performed with over 25 symphony orchestras and has an extensive repertory of more than 30 oratorios. With St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, he has sung over 200 performances of the chamber operas of Haydn, Mozart, Offenbach, Rieti, Bakst, Fioravanti, and Rossini.
He is a member of the Italian-American Hall of Fame, and the tenor soloist and artist-in-residence in Ocean Grove, New Jersey
Ocean Grove, New Jersey
Ocean Grove is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Neptune Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey. It had a population of 3,342 at the 2010 census. It is located on the Atlantic Ocean Jersey Shore, between Asbury Park to the north and Bradley Beach to the south...
, where he is completing his 38th consecutive season.
Education
Naldi studied voice at Indiana University (Bloomington) (earning his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in five years), and subsequently received a Fulbright scholarship to study in Rome. He has been a student of Charles KullmanCharles Kullman
Charles Kullman , originally Charles Kullmann, was an American tenor who enjoyed a wide-ranging career, both in Europe and America.- Life and career :...
, Margaret Harshaw
Margaret Harshaw
Margaret Harshaw was an American opera singer and voice teacher who sang for 22 consecutive seasons at the Metropolitan Opera from November 1942 to March 1964. She began her career as a mezzo-soprano in the early 1930s but then began performing roles from the soprano repertoire in 1951...
, Luciano Francardi, Luigi Ricci, Carol Bayard, and William Riley.
From 1966 to 1973, he was a professor of voice at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis
University of Memphis
The University of Memphis is an American public research university located in the Normal Station neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee and is the flagship public research university of the Tennessee Board of Regents system....
).
Discography
His most recent recordings, on Romeo Records, are entitled O Sole Mio (2003) and Torna a Surriento (2004). Each features NeapolitanMusic of Naples
Naples has played an important and vibrant role over the centuries not just in the music of Italy, but in the general history of western European musical traditions. This influence extends from the early music conservatories in the 16th century through the music of Alessandro Scarlatti during the...
and Italian songs with orchestrations by John Colaiacovo. The latter won a critics' choice award from Gramophone magazine.