Diana Montague

Last updated

Diana Montague (born 8 April 1953) is an English mezzo-soprano, known for her performances in opera and as a concert singer. She is Married to the English Tenor David Rendall [1]

Contents

Biography

[2] [3] English mezzo-soprano, Diana Montague, studied at the Royal Manchester (Northern) College of Music with Ronald Stear, Frederic Cox and Rupert Bruce-Lockhard.

Diana Montague is firmly established in the opera house, on the concert platform and in the recording studio. She made her debut as Zerlina with Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1977. Since then she has appeared in the world’s leading opera houses and concert halls including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera New York, La Monnaie Brussels, the Paris Bastille, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires. Her festival appearances include Bayreuth, Salzburg, Glyndebourne and Edinburgh. She was a member of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London from 1978: tour of the Far East and appearance as the Fox in a new production of The Cunning Little Vixen in 1990. She made her Bayreuth Festival debut in 1983, as Wellgunde and Siegrune in Der Ring des Nibelungen. Her debut in Chicago was in 1984 in the Missa Solemnis conducted by Georg Solti, at Edinburgh Festival in 1985 as Mélisande, at Salzburg Festival in 1986 as Cherubino. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York in 1987 as Sextus in La Clemenza di Tito, returned to New York as Dorabella and as Nicklausse in Les Contes d'Hoffmann. Her German operatic debut was in 1987 as Dorabella in a new production of Così fan Tutte at the Frankfurt Opera. She appeared with Scottish Opera as Cherubino and Orlofsky and with English National Opera as Cherubino and Proserpina in Monteverdi's Orfeo; Promenade Concerts London in 1988 in Pelléas et Mélisande; Glyndebourne Opera in 1988 in Gluck's Orfeo. She sang The Fox in the Cunning Little Vixen at Covent Garden in 1990; Idamante in Idomeneo at the 1990 Salzburg Festival; Cherubino at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1990, and Lucio Silla in 1991; Glyndebourne in 1991 as Sextus in La Clemenza di Tito (also at the Promenade Concerts in London).

Diana Montague's repertoire includes the major roles for mezzo-sopranos in operas by Mozart, Gluck, Strauss, Rossini, Bellini and Berlioz. Opera engagements have included Benvenuto Cellini at Rome Opera; Iphigénie en Tauride in Buenos Aires, Madrid and with Welsh National Opera; Albert Herring, Le Nozze di Figaro, Andromaca in Rossini's Ermione and Ludmilla in The Bartered Bride at Glyndebourne Festival; Le Comte Ory in Lausanne, Rome and Glyndebourne; Proserpina in Monteverdi's Orfeo and Minerva in Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria with De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam and in Sydney; Sesto in La clemenza di Tito in Madrid and Athens; Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust in Geneva, Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos at Scottish Opera and in Lisbon, the title role in George Frideric Handel's Susannah with Andrew Davis and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Meg Page in Falstaff, The Bartered Bride and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Royal Opera Covent Garden, at the Edinburgh Festival and in London; Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier at the English National Opera, in Bilbao and in and at the Teatro Real in Madrid; Marguerite in Vienna; Idomeneo in Bilbao and Santiago de Compostela; Le Nozze di Figaro at La Monnaie Brussels and Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg. Her repertoire also includes such rarely performed works as Donizetti's Zoraide di Granata and Rosamonda d'Inghilterra and Meyerbeer's Il Crociato in Egitto (The Crusaders in Egypt).

Diana Montague's frequent concert engagements have included many performances with leading conductors including Georg Solti, James Levine, Riccardo Muti, John Eliot Gardiner, Seiji Ozawa, Jeffrey Tate, Neville Marriner and Andrew Davis and have included Mozart's C minor Mass at the Salzburg Festival, Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été in Athens and concerts in London and Vienna with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Ravel's Shéhérazade and Mozart's C minor Mass in Madrid and Edward Elgar's Sea Pictures in Antwerp and Ghent. Concert engagements have also included the Mozart Requiem, J.S. Bach's B minor Mass (BWV 232), Rossini's Stabat Mater and The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz.

Recent opera engagements include Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and English National Opera; Madame Larina in Eugene Onegin at Covent Garden and Venus in The Coronation of Poppea at the English National Opera. Future engagements include L.v. Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Danielle Gatti, Marcellina, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Annina in Der Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden.

Diana Montague's recordings include Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bruno Campanella/Nuova Era) and Clothilde in Norma (Richard Bonynge/Decca), Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (Richard Bonynge/Teldec), Franck's Les Béatitudes (Helmuth Rilling/Hänssler), Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride (John Eliot Gardiner/Phillips), G.F. Handel's Dixit Dominus and Nisi Dominus (Simon Preston/Deutsche Grammophon), Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen (Simon Rattle/EMI), Monteverdi's Orfeo (John Eliot Gardiner/DGG), Mozart's Idomeneo and The Marriage of Figaro (both Parry/Chandos), Mozart's C minor Mass (Philips), Rossini's Le Comte Ory (John Eliot Gardiner/Phillips), Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (Parry/Chandos), a solo CD of French repertory and a CD devoted to 19th Century bel canto rarities. For Opera Rara, she has recorded Donizetti’s Zoraida di Granata and Rosmonda d’Inghilterra and Meyerbeer’s Il Crociato in Egitto. Her versatility can also be experienced on the Opera Rara recital disc Diana Montague - Bella Immagin.



Recordings

Montague appears on several full-length opera recordings, including the rarities Rosmonda d'Inghilterra , Zoraida di Granata , and Il crociato in Egitto , all for Opera Rara. Her other opera recordings include:

See also

Related Research Articles

The English mezzo-soprano Carolyn Watkinson is a singer of baroque music. Her voice is alternately characterized as mezzo-soprano and contralto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Sofie von Otter</span> Swedish mezzo-soprano

Anne Sofie von Otter is a Swedish mezzo-soprano. Her repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and also rock and pop songs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breeches role</span> Theatre role in which an actress wears male clothing

A breeches role is one in which an actress appears in male clothing. Breeches, tight-fitting knee-length pants, were the standard male garment at the time these roles were introduced. The theatrical term travesti covers both this sort of cross-dressing and also that of male actors dressing as female characters. Both are part of the long history of cross-dressing in music and opera and later in film and television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claire Gibault</span> French conductor and politician (born 1945)

Claire Gibault is a French conductor and politician and a Member of the European Parliament for the south-east of France. She is a member of the Union for French Democracy, which is part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and Education and its Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrizia Ciofi</span> Italian opera singer

Patrizia Ciofi is an Italian operatic coloratura soprano.

Opera Rara is a London-based opera company and recording label which specialises in recording and performing forgotten operatic repertoire from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Founded in 1970 by bel canto enthusiasts Patric Schmid and Don White, Opera Rara's recordings are internationally distributed by Warner Classics. In September 2019, Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi succeeded Sir Mark Elder as Artistic Director.

Anna Justine Steiger is a British and American opera singer who has sung leading soprano and mezzo-soprano roles in British, European and North American opera houses. She has sung many recitals at festivals which have been broadcast live on the BBC, Radio France and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2010, she was invited to participate in the Australian Chamber Music Festival. She is still active as a recitalist and opera singer. She also has a year one Master in Food History from the University François Rabelais de Tours, France.

Michael Maniaci is an American opera singer. Possessing a male soprano voice, Maniaci is noted for his claim to be able to sing into the upper soprano range without resorting to falsetto, an otherwise common phonation for men who sing in high registers, such as countertenors. Although this was possible for castrati because of the hormonal imbalance following castration, Maniaci claims that, for some unknown reason, his larynx did not develop and lengthen completely during puberty, causing his voice not to "break" in the usual manner. Maniaci claims that this physical particularity has given him the ability to sing in the soprano register without sounding like a typical countertenor or a female singer. There are, however, critics who claim that Maniaci actually sings in falsetto.

Bruce Ford is an American operatic tenor, particularly associated with Mozart roles and the bel canto repertory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyce DiDonato</span> American mezzo-soprano

Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Caterina Antonacci</span> Italian soprano

Anna Caterina Antonacci is an Italian soprano known for roles in the bel canto and Baroque repertories. She performed as a mezzo-soprano for several years, particularly performing the Rossini canon.

Julia Hamari is a Hungarian mezzo-soprano and alto singer in opera and concert, appearing internationally. She is an academic voice teacher in Stuttgart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxim Mironov</span> Russian opera singer (born 1981)

Maxim Vyacheslavovich Mironov is a Russian tenor, best known for his interpretation of the bel canto repertoire. In 2001, he joined the Helikon Opera Theatre in Moscow, where he made his operatic debut in André Grétry's opera Pierre le Grand. Mironov won the 2nd Prize at the Neue Stimmen international singing competition in Germany in 2003. In Europe Mironov has performed in many opera houses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raquel Pierotti</span> Uruguayan mezzo-soprano opera singer

Raquel Pierotti is a mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in coloratura roles in the Rossini and Handel repertoire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katarina Karnéus</span> Swedish opera singer

Katarina Esmé Marie Karnéus is a Swedish mezzo-soprano opera singer, winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, active on many of the opera world's major stages such as the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opera, and named Hovsångerska by the King of Sweden in 2018.

Ugo Benelli is an Italian operatic tenor. Born in Genoa and trained at La Scala, Benelli had an international career singing leading tenore di grazia roles from the early 1960s through the 1980s. In his later years he sang character roles and began a career as a singing teacher. He retired from the stage in 2004.

Michael Spyres is an American operatic baritenor. He is particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire, especially the works of Rossini, and heroic roles in French grand opera.

Kangmin Justin Kim is a Korean-American countertenor specializing in the Baroque, Mozart and contemporary music repertoire.

Carmen Anhorn is a Swiss operatic soprano and mezzo-soprano.

Margarita Vitalievna Gritskova is a Russian mezzo-soprano in opera and lied singing. A member of the Vienna State Opera since 2012, she is focused on roles by Rossini such as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola, but has also performed in Baroque opera and contemporary works such as Tri sestri by Péter Eötvös.

References

  1. Sleeman, Elizabeth (ed.), "Montague, Diana", The International Who's Who 2004, Routledge, 2003, p. 1161. ISBN   1-85743-217-7
  2. Bach cantatas
  3. Intermusica

[1]

[2]

  1. Opera Rara
  2. Chandos