Joyce DiDonato Speaks Out About Arts Being Slashed in Kansas

World opera star and Kansas native.

"With one, autonomous slash of the pen, every state penny for the arts in my home of Kansas has vanished, simultaneously obliterating all matching federal funds. This is the Sunflower State that I have proudly boasted about across the world, fearlessly defending it even in the face of harsh quizzical looks from the most skeptical of folks (“You live where?”). It’s the state of my first piano recital and choir concert. The home field of my artistic curiosity and education. The homeland that taught me to freely dream big and without limitation; one where the arts were once alive, vibrant and supported. I’ve welcomed the assumption of being an unsolicited but mightily proud artistic ambassador for Kansas to the great cities of the world. Now, for the first time, I feel shame. Eliminating a state arts commission is an ignorant, short-sighted, fearful and unspeakably damaging act to the spirit and soul of this great state. I’m not a politician or historian. I’m a humble opera singer, a home-grown product of an agricultural state that used to value the arts, like all great societies and cultures of the past. But my anger rivals a good ol’ western Kansas Category 5 tornado’s destructive force when I begin to think of where I’d be without an education fueled by the arts that informed my way of thinking. Or without a community theater, choir or art exhibit that gave me true solace and an emergency exit from some of the great crises in my life. Or without that musical outlet that helped me understand myself and the mystery of life a little better."

Read the full article at the Kansas City Star.

"Le Comte Ory" Sneak Preview Videos From the MET

Watch Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato and Diana Damrau in videos taken from the dress rehearsal of Rossini's Le Comte Ory that opens this Thursday, March 24 at 8PM EST at the Metropolitan Opera. Videos excerpts include Act I Duet, Act III Trio and more! Click here to view.

Virgin Classics Renews Joyce DiDonato Recording Contract

(Photo: Mary Umans/Virgin Classics)

At a time when major record labels seem to be dropping artists and recording fewer albums, good news comes from the EMI label Virgin Classics that they will be renewing their exclusive contract with Joyce DiDonato. A relationship that began in 2007, the mezzo-soprano has produced three solo albums for the company: Furore (Händel arias), Colbran, the Muse (Rossini arias) and Diva, Divo (opera arias by various composers). She has also appeared on an ensemble album Lamenti that features Baroque arias by 11 of today's top singers under conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, as well as recording the Vivaldi opera Ercole with Rolando Villazón, Diana Damrau, Vivica Genaux and Philippe Jaroussky. Her most recent release is the Rossini Stabat Mater with another all-star cast including Anna Netrebko, Lawrence Brownlee, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo under the direction of Antonio Pappano on the parent label EMI Classics. The next album to be released is a full opera recording of Händel's Ariodante in May which will also have an accompanying European tour with the star artist. Her next solo album will be released in October 2012, but no word on what the repertoire will be on the disc. Alain Lanceron, President of Virgin Classics, remarked, "I’m very happy with Joyce’s confidence in EMI/Virgin Classics and that the wonderful adventure we embarked upon some years ago will continue with many other remarkable projects." [Source, Source]

Five Winners Chosen in MET National Council Auditions

Finalists pre-concert (left to right): Joseph Lim, Joseph Barron, Deanna Breiwick, Ryan Speedo
Green, Philippe Sly, Sasha Djihanian, Michelle Johnson and Nicholas Masters (Photo: Gothamist)

Of the eight singers selected from 1,500 that participated in the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions, five were each named winners of a $15,000 prize yesterday. Curiously no mezzo-soprano or tenor voices were represented, except the emcee Joyce DiDonato and the entertainment for the day Lawrence Brownlee. The winners included Michelle Johnson, Joseph Barron, Ryan Speedo Green, Joseph Lim, Philippe Sly. The Sunday concert was conducted by Patrick Summers and the audience nearly filled the cavernous Metropolitan Opera.

How ever you want to describe it, not politically correct, tasteless or even uncouth, the writer Mike Silverman of the Associate Press ends his review thusly: "Brownlee is probably the closest thing there is to a black American superstar in opera these days, so it was especially heartening that two of the winners, Johnson and Green, also are black." [Source, Source]

Joyce DiDonato Oozes "Charisma" at Carnegie Hall Recital

"At 42, she is in her prime and sounded it on Sunday, gliding bejeweled onto the stage in a black gown with bustle and plunging straight into “Berenice, che fai,” Haydn’s turbulent concert aria. Ms. DiDonato shaded every word with meaning, conveying the bereaved Berenice’s anguish with a warm, silvery voice that slid between mezza-voce despair and full-throttle grief, her penetrating high notes and earthy lows equally alluring." [Source]

PROGRAM:
Haydn: Berenice, che fai, Hob. XXIVa: 10
Rossini: “L’invito”; “La partenza”; “Le dodo des enfants”; “Chanson de Zora”
Chaminade: “Viens! mon bien-aimé!”; “Villanelle”; “Aubade”; “L’été”
Rossini: “Assisa al piè d’un salice…Deh, calma,” from Otello
Jake Heggie: The Breaking Waves (world premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
Buzzi-Peccia: “Lolita” (serenata spagnola)
Leoncavallo: “Serenata francese”
Di Chiara: “La spagnola”