Joyce DiDonato, Mezzo-Soprano, will present in Prague program titled Drama Queens features arias from Baroque operas sung by royal characters. The program includes the works by Handel, Monteverdi, Gluck, Orlandini, Cesti, Giacomelli, Hasse, and Porta.
As Vivien Schweitzer of The New York Times puts it, Joyce DiDonato possesses “an effortless combination of glamour, charisma, intelligence, grace, and remarkable talent.” But what really sets her apart is her rare ability to turn a recital into an intimate experience, to make the audience feel at home.
Grammy Award Winner Joyce DiDonato entrances audiences and critics alike across the globe. With a voice “nothing less than 24-carat gold” (The Times), she is among the world’s most enchanting performers and the winner of many honors including most recently the 2010 Gramophone Artist of the Year. DiDonato has soared to international prominence in operas by Rossini, Handel, and Mozart, as well as in high-profile world premieres. Her signature parts include Rossini’s La cenerentola and Il barbiere di Siviglia – her Rosina at the Metropolitan Opera won over audiences in New York and on cinema screens all over the world, and she was called “the best Rosina around” by the London Sunday Times for the portrayal.
DiDonato begins the 2010/11 season with her role debut as Adalgisa in Norma opposite Edita Gruberova for the Salzburg Festival, before returning to the Edinburgh Festival after her thrilling debut in 2009, singing Idamante in a concert performance of Idomeneo, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington. She also made her debut at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin singing Rosina Il Barbiere, she sang Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier inTeatro Real, Madrid. In the United States she will reprise her critically acclaimed portrayal of Sister Helen in Dead Man Walking at Houston Grand Opera and undertake a recital tour with David Zobel culminating in her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut. The Metropolitan Opera welcomes her back as L’Isolier Le Comte Ory and Komponist Ariadne auf Naxos. She concludes the season in on a tour through Europe.
Born and educated in Kansas, she was a member of the young artist programs of the San Francisco, Houston Grand, and Santa Fe Opera companies after graduate studies at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts. She appeared on the world’s major opera stages – in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Chicago, Geneva, London, Milan, Munich, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Vienna and Berlin – she has given recitals and concerts at Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall, and with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre National de Paris, St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. Ms. DiDonato has had important triumphs at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and in performances and recordings with Alan Curtis’s ensemble, Il complesso barocco and William Christie’s Arts Florissants.
Her growing discography has earned accolades far and wide. The Deepest Desire, her first solo disc, was awarded France’s Diapason d’or de l’année. It also includes a disc of Handel duets with soprano Patricia Ciofi, complete recordings of Rossini’s La cenerentola, Handel’s Radamisto, and Alcina Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and DVDs of Handel’s Hercules, La cenerentola and Il barbiere di Siviglia. She can be heard in a survey of Antonio Vivaldi’s sacred music, as well as on three solo CDs – The Deepest Desire, ¡Pasión!, and her debut recital from London’s Wigmore Hall which was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice.
