Diego Torre | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Diego Antonio Torre Villegas |
| Born | November 24, 1979 Mexico City |
| Occupation(s) | Sydney Opera House, Resident Singer |
| Instrument | Voice (tenor) |
| Years active | 2008–present |
| Website | www |
Diego Antonio Torre Villegas (Mexico City, November 24, 1979) is a Mexican and Australian opera singer. He is a resident singer in the Sydney Opera House (Australia).
Born in Vicente Guerrero colony at Iztapalapa, Torre began singing lessons after a music teacher at his elementary school "Instituto Andersen"] recommended to his parents that he should receive them. He studied at the "Academia Militarizada México" for high school, where he sang for the professors and the cloister at meals and events. He also belonged to La Estudiantina at the "La Salle del Pedregal" High School. [1] During that school time he sang Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Verdi's Requiem with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Acapulco Philharmonic.
Torre studied at the School of Music of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He applied by chance when he went with a friend to pick up some scores and saw that the application office was open. He studied Canto under the Chair of Maestro Rufino Montero. [1] At age 20, he debuted with the Compañía Nacional de Ópera in the Palacio de Bellas Artes while performing as Gaston in La Traviata and chose opera as a career from then on. [2]
During his training period (2003-2005) Torre won some opera prizes of Mexico and Latin America: Nicolás Urcelay National Song Competition of Mérida (Yucatán), XXIII Carlo Morelli National Singing Competition (2005) in third place, achieving the Instrumenta Prize, the Opera Bellas Artes Award, and the special FONCA prize; he also was first place at the Francisco Araiza Singing Contest. [3]
In 2004 and 2005, Torre trained through a summer program with the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera (EPCASO), while also receiving training in Italy with teachers Claudia Pinza, Enza Ferrari, Maurizio Arena and Maria Chiara. [4] In 2005 he received the support of the International Society of Mexican Art Values (SIVAM), [5] and was able to travel to Los Angeles to audition at Plácido Domingo Young Singers Program. [2] He auditioned with a solo accompanied by piano, and he was accepted and moved to Los Angeles in 2007. [2] On 6 December 2008, he made his international debut at the Los Angeles Opera as Don Jose in Bizet's Carmen. [6]
In 2007, at age 27, Torre won third place in the Neue Stimmen (New Voices) opera competition organized by the Bertelsmann Foundation in Gütersloh, Germany. He sang an aria from Un Ballo in Maschera (A masked ball) by Verdi. [7]
In 2009, Torre represented Rodolfo in La bohème at Filene Center of Wolf Trap (Virginia). The atmosphere in the internet cafes of the 21st century, with laptops and digital sets, gathered musicians from the National Symphony Orchestra, choirs of the Choral Arts Society and the Choir of Children of the Choral Society of Alexandria. The Washington Times review was: “As Rodolfo, tenor Diego Torre was simply smashing. Built like a beer-loving construction worker you’d see at a local watering hole, Mr. Torre hardly seemed a conventional romantic lead. Yet most guys in the audience could easily identify with this everyman. His passion was real, his heartbreak was immense, and his commanding, gloriously sculpted instrument makes him an up-and-coming talent to be watched.” [8] [9]
During the 2009/2010 season he performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, playing the Messenger in Aida and Federico in Stiffelio. And he continued his work as a tenor in other opera houses. He was the fisherman Masaniello in La muette de Portici (Dessau Opera), Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor (Opera Festival of Savonlinna, Finland), and was the cover of Plácido Domingo in the main role of Il Postino in Los Angeles Opera. [10] [11]
The 2009/10 season led him to the main world opera theatres, playing the most prominent roles of the classical repertoire and making himself known at the highest levels of the profession.
While Torre was in New York, Lyndon Terracini, the Director of the Australian Opera, offered him a 22 performance run of La Bohème at the Australian Opera. He accepted a position as a Resident Tenor there. On Australia Day 2016 (26 Jan), he sang the national anthem to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, during the official memorial ceremony. He was one of 27 people from 13 countries becoming an Australian citizen. [12] [13]
His performing abilities and voice power allowed him to be member of an exclusive club. He is one of the few tenors who can double and represent on the same night Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Canio in Pagliacci.
Among the experts Diego Torre is considered to have an operatic voice fitted with a solid technique, which allows him to range from a tenore lirico repertoire to a tenore lirico spinto, one from Donizetti to Verdi, from Puccini to Mascagni, from Leoncavallo to Zemlinsky. [14]
In 2012 he recorded Puccini's La bohème, with the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra conducted by Eivind Gullberg Jensen. This album is considered by the New York Times as one of the best albums of classical music. [15]
| Role | Opera | Composer |
|---|---|---|
| Pinkerton | Madama Butterfly | Giacomo Puccini |
| Rodolfo | La bohème | Giacomo Puccini |
| Radames | Aida | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Edgardo | Lucia di Lammermoor | Gaetano Donizetti |
| Cavaradossi | Tosca' | Giacomo Puccini |
| Tenor | Requiem | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Turiddu | Cavalleria Rusticana | Pietro Mascagni |
| Canio | Pagliacci | Ruggero Leoncavallo |
| Gabrielle Adorno | Simon Boccanegra | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Rodolfo | Luisa Miller | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Don Carlos | Don Carlos | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Duque de Mantua | Rigoletto | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Gustavus | Un ballo in maschera | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Corrado | Il Corsaro | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Calaf | Turandot | Giacomo Puccini |
| Manrico | Il Trovatore | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Don José | Carmen | Georges Bizet |
| Masaniello | La muette de Portici | Daniel-François Auber |
| Foresto | Attila | Giuseppe Verdi |
| Bacchus | Ariadne auf Naxos | Richard Strauss |
He has performed in the main Opera theaters of the world and with the main companies: Boston Lyric Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, all of them in the United States; Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Arts Center, and Queensland Performing Arts Center in Australia; Palacio de Bellas Artes and Peon Cotreras Theater in Mexico; Savonlinna Opera Festival, in Finland; Karlsruhe Staatstheater, Dessau Staatstheater, Darmstadt Staatstheater and Saarbrücken Staatstheater, in Germany; Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Carlo Felice Genova and Teatro Regio di Torino in Italy; The Norwegian Opera & Ballet in Norway, Grand-Théâtre de Genève in Geneva and the Xi'an Symphony Orchestra in China. [16]
Josep Maria Carreras Coll, better known as José Carreras, is a Catalan operatic tenor from Spain who is particularly known for his performances in the operas of Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini.
José Luis Victor Cura Gómez is an Argentine operatic tenor, conductor, director, scenographer and photographer known for intense and original interpretations of opera characters, notably Otello in Verdi’s Otello, Samson in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Canio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Stiffelio in Giuseppe Verdi's Stiffelio and many others.
Rolando Villazón Mauleón is a Mexican operatic tenor, stage director, author, radio and television personality and artistic director. He now lives in France, and in 2007 received his French citizenship.
Maria Antonietta Stella was an Italian operatic soprano, and one of the most prominent Italian spinto sopranos of the 1950s and 1960s. She made her debut in Spoleto in 1950, as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore, a year later at Rome Opera, as Leonora in La forza del destino, in 1954 at La Scala in Milan, as Desdemona in Otello, in 1955 at the Royal Opera House in London as Aida, and in 1956 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, in the same role.
Ramón Vargas is a Mexican operatic tenor. Since his debut in the early '90s, he has developed to become one of the most acclaimed tenors of the 21st century. Known for his most expressive and agile lyric tenor voice, he is especially successful in the bel canto repertoire.
José Francisco Araiza Andrade is a Mexican operatic tenor and lied singer who has sung as soloist in leading concert halls and in leading tenor operatic roles in the major opera houses of Europe and North America during the course of a lengthy career. Born in Mexico City, he studied singing at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música de México and later in Germany, with Mozartian tenor Richard Holm, and lieder interpretation with Erik Werba. He made his operatic debut in 1970 in Mexico City as First Prisoner in Beethoven's Fidelio. Araiza initially came to international prominence singing in Mozart and Rossini operas, but in the 1980s broadened his repertoire to include Italian and French lyric tenor roles and Wagnerian roles such as Lohengrin and Walther von Stolzing. He was made a Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera in 1988. Now retired from the opera stage, he teaches singing and serves on the juries of several international singing competitions.
Arturo Chacón Cruz is a Mexican American operatic tenor. A winner of the Operalia competition in 2005, he went on to sing leading roles at many North American opera theatres, including Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, San Francisco Opera, Carnegie Hall, and Houston Grand Opera. He has also appeared in many European opera houses, including the Teatro Real in Madrid, La Fenice in Venice, Bolshoi Theatre, Arena di Verona, Teatro alla Scala, the Theater an der Wien in Vienna and the Berlin State Opera.
Marcello Giordani was an Italian operatic tenor who sang leading roles of the Italian and French repertoire in opera houses throughout Europe and the United States. He had a distinguished association with the New York Metropolitan Opera, where he sang in over 240 performances from the time of his debut there in 1993. He founded the Marcello Giordani Foundation to help young opera singers.
Fernando del Valle is an American operatic tenor. He is the son of Edward King Skinner II, a Korean War veteran and Concha Marina Meléndez del Valle the cousin of George Melendez Wright. He is the grandson of Aranka Bischitz great-great-granddaughter of Baroness Johanna Bischitz von Heves and niece of Hungarian radiochemist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate George de Hevesy. He is the nephew of the Architect Manuel Roberto Meléndez Bischitz.
Rosario La Spina is an Australian operatic tenor who has had an active international career since the early 2000s. He has worked with many leading opera houses and orchestras, singing under such conductors as Renato Palumbo, Bruno Bartoletti, Gary Bertini, Daniele Callegari and Richard Hickox. Since 2005, he has been particularly active with Opera Australia.
Michael Fabiano is an American operatic tenor. Born in Montclair, New Jersey, he has performed in leading opera houses throughout the world, including the San Francisco Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opera, Sydney Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Canadian Opera Company, The Royal Opera, and Teatro Real de Madrid among many others. Fabiano is the 2014 Richard Tucker Award winner and the 2014 Beverly Sills Artist Award winner, making him the first singer to win both awards in the same year.
Nino Machaidze is a Georgian operatic soprano. She performs in 19th-century Romantic repertoire, primarily in operas by Rossini and Verdi as well as French operas. Beginning her career at La Scala, she gained international attention after being cast as Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the 2008 Salzburg Festival, after which she earned the nickname "Angelina Jolie of Opera" from the Austrian press.
Saimir Pirgu is an Albanian international opera singer (tenor). In 2014 he was awarded the Italian citizenship by the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano.
Amelia Sierra is a soprano and mezzo-soprano opera singer from Mexico. Sierra was born in Mexico City and completed her musical studies with the Escuela Superior de Música of the INBA. She has studied under Maritza Alemán, James Demster, Mario Alberto Hernández and Ricardo Sánchez as well as Magda Olivero, Montserrat Caballé, Ramón Vargas, Francisco Araiza, Carmo Barbosa, Dalton Baldwin, Dolores Aldea, Lara Pasquinelli, Joan Dornemann, Tito Capobianco and Susan Young. While in training, she received recognition with Best Performance at the FONCA-OCJM in 1995, third place in the Carlo Morelli National Singing Contest and first place the OSUG Competition, both in 1996. She also received recognition by the National Coordination of Music and Opera in 1996. She has received various grants for performing from the Education for Art Program at the University of Guanajuato and SIVAM. She continues to study informally in various workshops in New York City.
Ricardo Bernal is a Mexican lyric tenor.
Ștefan Pop is a Romanian operatic tenor. He is considered among today's leading lyric tenors and he is best known for bel canto repertoire. He has won several prizes including, in 2010, Plácido Domingo's Operalia competition and the Seoul International Music Competition.
Maria Katzarava is an opera singer from Mexico who achieved international fame by winning first place in the Operalia competition in the opera and zarzuela categories. Prior to this, she came to the attention of notable Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, who helped her get a scholarship, and then won Mexico's Carlo Morelli national singing competition in 2005, which earned her a debut at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Since winning the Operalia competition, Katzarava has performed in Europe, where she currently lives, Asia and the Americas. She currently trains with soprano Mirella Freni.
Gaston Rivero is an Uruguayan-US American operatic tenor.
Nicole Car is an Australian operatic soprano. She has performed leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Opéra national de Paris, The Dallas Opera, and Opera Australia. Car is particularly associated with the roles of Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Mimì in La bohème, Marguerite in Faust, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Micaëla in Carmen, and has also given noted performances as Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlos, and the title roles in Luisa Miller and Thaïs.
Dragana Radakovic is an operatic soprano, conductor and academic. With a flexible voice, she is able to sing bel canto as well as dramatic soprano roles. She has appeared at major opera houses in title and leading roles, including Bellini's Norma, Verdi's Aida, and Puccini's Turandot.
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
