Joyce DiDonato; "Ombra mai fu"; SERSE; George Frideric Handel

This channel is the re-establishment of previous channels that have been sadly terminated.
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Joyce DiDonato--mezzo-soprano
Il Complesso Barocco
Alan Curtis--conductor
2013
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"Joyce DiDonato (née Flaherty; born February 13, 1969) is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano.[2] She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
She has performed with many of the world's leading opera companies and orchestras, and won multiple awards including the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo.
Joyce Flaherty was born in Prairie Village, Kansas in 1969, the sixth of seven children in an Irish-American family. Her father, Donald, was a self-employed architect who designed houses in the area. One of her sisters, Amy Hetherington, was a music teacher at St. Ann Catholic School, which Joyce and her siblings attended.[3] She later went to Bishop Miege High School where she sang in musicals.[3] She entered Wichita State University (WSU) in 1988 to study vocal music education, because she was initially more interested in teaching high school vocal music and musical theatre. She became interested in opera after seeing a PBS telecast of Don Giovanni,[3] and then, in her junior year, when she was cast in a school production of Die Fledermaus.
After graduating from WSU in spring 1992, DiDonato decided to pursue graduate studies in vocal performance at the Academy of Vocal Arts.[4] Following her studies in Philadelphia, she was accepted in the Santa Fe Opera's Apprentice Singer program for the summer 1995 festival season, where she appeared in several minor roles and understudied for larger parts in such operas as Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Richard Strauss' Salome, Kálmán's Gräfin Mariza and the 1994 world premiere of David Lang's Modern Painters. She was honored as one of several Outstanding Apprentice Artists by the Santa Fe Opera that year.[citation needed]
She became a part of Houston Grand Opera's young artist program in 1996; she sang there from autumn 1996 until spring 1998. During the summer of 1997, DiDonato participated in San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program.[5]
During her apprentice years, DiDonato competed in several vocal competitions. In 1996 she won second prize in the Eleanor McCollum Competition and was a district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. In 1997 she won a William Matheus Sullivan Award, while in 1998 she won second prize in the Operalia Competition, first place in the Stewart Awards, won the George London Competition, and received a Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation.[6]
Also at Houston Grand Opera, she performed the role of Meg in the world premiere during the 1999/2000 season of Mark Adamo's Little Women with Stephanie Novacek as Jo and Chad Shelton as Laurie. That season, she also sang the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro with the Santa Fe Opera and the role of Isabella in L'italiana in Algeri with the New Israeli Opera. She gave a recital at New York's Morgan Library under the auspices of the George London Foundation and featured as a soloist in the Seattle Symphony production of Handel's Messiah.[9]
DiDonato made her debut at La Scala as Angelina in Rossini's La Cenerentola in the 2000/01 season, returned to Houston Grand Opera as Dorabella in Così fan tutte, and sang the mezzo-soprano solos in Bach Mass in B minor with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and conductor John Nelson.[9]
The 2002/03 season saw debuts with the New York City Opera as Sister Helen in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in the title role of La Cenerentola, at the Royal Opera House as Zlatohřbítek the fox in Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and with the New National Theatre Tokyo as Rosina in The Barber of Seville. It also saw performances of the title role in Rossini's Adina at the Rossini Opera Festival and Cherubino at Opéra Bastille.
In early September 2014, she opened the Wigmore Hall's 2014/15 season with two concerts and with Antonio Pappano at the piano. The programme included works by Haydn, Rossini, Santoliquido and songs from the Great American Songbook. A live recording was released in 2015 as Joyce and Tony: Live at Wigmore Hall, which won Best Classical Vocal Solo Album in the 2016 Grammy Award.[24]
Personal life
Joyce Flaherty married Alex DiDonato, from whom she gained her surname, at 21. They divorced after being together for 14 years.[1] She met Italian conductor Leonardo Vordoni at the Rossini Opera Festival in 2003 and fell in love at first sight. They married in August 2006 at Las Vegas' Venetian Hotel in a gondola during performances of Cendrillon at the Santa Fe Opera and shared a home in Kansas City, Kansas.[40][2] Their marriage ended in 2013.[3]"; Wikipedia (edited)