James Maddalena (born 1954) is an American baritone who is chiefly associated with contemporary American opera. He gained international recognition in 1987 when he originated the role of Richard Nixon at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China at Houston. [1] He has since reprised the role on many occasions, and recorded it for the Nonesuch Records release of the opera in 1987. [2] In addition to Maddelena's role as Nixon, he has originated two other Adams characters: the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic . [3] He has also performed roles in the premieres of operas by Paul Moravec and Stewart Wallace among other American composers.
In addition to American opera, Maddalena has sung a broad operatic repertoire which ranges from Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, and Verdi to modern composers like Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett. He is also a concert artist whose regular performances include works by Bach, Handel and Schubert as well as those by modern composers. [1]
Maddalena was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1954. He was trained at the New England Conservatory (NEC), and while a student there made his professional singing debut with the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1974. [4] He became a member of Emmanuel Music while an NEC student, with whom he performed all of Bach's cantatas under conductor Craig Smith. [5] In 1976 he co-founded the Liederkreis Ensemble, whose members included a quartet of vocalists with Smith as pianist. The ensemble was dedicated to performing lieder, particularly rarely heard works, [6] and was awarded the Naumburg Award in 1980. [7] He also actively performed with other music ensembles in New England during the 1970s, including singing in the world premiere of Robert Schumann's Requiem with the New Hampshire Sinfonietta (1975) [8] and performances of Harrison Birtwistle's Down by the Greenwood Side with Boston Musica Viva (1978). [9]
Maddalena made his first forray into opera as Mr. Gedge in a student production of Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring at the NEC in March 1975. [10] In the summers of 1975, 1976, and 1977 he performed with the Wolf Trap Opera Company, a prestigious program for young opera singers at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. His professional opera debut was made in February 1977 with the Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) during that company's first season as Allazim in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Zaide . [11] He later returned to the BLO several more times during his career, performing such roles as John Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul (1981), [12] Albert (1981) in Jules Massenet's Werther , [13] the Music Master in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos (1982), [14] Somarone in Hector Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict (1993), [15] Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte (2004), [16] and Baron Duphol in La traviata (2006). [17] In 1979 he starred in a production of George Frideric Handel's Atalanta at the American Repertory Theater under conductor Herbert von Karajan. [18]
In 1980 Maddalena created the title role in Tony Schemmer's pop opera Phaust at Harvard University's Sanders Theater under the baton of Philip Morehead. [19] That same year he portrayed the role of Death in Gustav Holst's Savitri with Boston Cecilia. [20] He sang as a soloist in several other performances with Boston Cecilia, including in concerts of Handel's Athalia (1982, Abner) [21] and Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B minor (1983). [22] In 1983 he performed the role of Abramane in the United States premiere of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Zoroastre with Boston Baroque (then known as Banchetto Musicale) at the Sanders Theater under conductor Martin Pearlman. [23] He performed with the ensemble again in December 1984 as a soloist in Handel's Messiah for performances in both Boston and at New York City's Carnegie Hall. [24]
In September 1980 Maddalena portrayed the title role in a controversial production of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, New Hampshire with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra for the Monadnock Music Festival (MMF). The production used a modernized staging which was conceived by director Peter Sellars, just 23 years old at the time. It was the first professional opera directed by Sellars. While Opera News dubbed the production as "an act of artistic vandalism", The New York Times was more positive in its review, with critic Peter G. Davis hailing the staging as "remarkably stimulating and provocative" and stating that "Maddalena was an appropriately loathsome Don, and he sang the part with a fine, firmly modulated baritone." [25]
The 1980 production of Don Giovanni marked the beginning of a long and fruitful artistic partnership between Sellars and Maddalena which continues to this day. [4] In 1981 he sang the role of Idreno in the United States premiere of Joseph Haydn's Armida at the MMF in which Sellars staged the opera during the Vietnam War. [26] Other roles Maddalena performed in Sellars productions included Guglielmo in Così fan tutte (1984, Castle Hill Festival [27] and 1986, Pepsico Summerfare [28] ), Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro (1984, MMF [29] and 1988, Pepsico Summerfare [30] ), and Achilla in Handel's Giulio Cesare (1987). [31]
In 1987 Maddalena entered the annals of opera history when he created the role of President Richard Nixon at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China at the Houston Grand Opera. Directed and initially conceived by Sellars, the opera was belittled by many critics at its premiere. However, the opera's enduring popularity has since changed critical evaluation of the work, and it is now considered a classic. [32] Maddalena, who physically resembles Nixon, has become closely associated with the part he created in the premiere. Soon after the Houston premiere, he performed the role at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, De Nederlandse Opera and the Washington National Opera. [33] He has subsequently performed the role at the Edinburgh International Festival (1988), [34] the Los Angeles Opera (1990), [35] the Maison de la Culture di Bobigny, Paris (1991), [36] the Frankfurt Opera (1992), the Adelaide Festival (1992), the English National Opera (2000 and 2006), [37] and the Greek National Opera (2007) among others. [38] He sang Nixon for his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 2011, [39] and most recently performed the role with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in March 2012. [40]
Maddalena teamed up with Sellars again for performances in two more world premieres of operas by composer John Adams: creating the parts of the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer (1991, La Monnaie) [41] and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic (2005, San Francisco Opera). [42] He subsequently recorded the role of the Captain and sang that role in productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Opéra National de Lyon, the San Francisco Opera, and at the Vienna Festival.
Maddalena has created roles in several other world premieres, including Hobson in David Carlson's The Midnight Angel (1993, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis), a variety of roles in Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk (1995, Houston Grand Opera), Art Kamen in Wallace's The Bonesetter's Daughter (2008, San Francisco Opera), the title role in Kirke Mechem’s John Brown (2008, Lyric Opera of Kansas City), Howard Joyce in Paul Moravec's The Letter (2009, Santa Fe Opera), and Clotaldo in Lewis Spratlan’s Life is a Dream (2010, Santa Fe Opera). In 2001 he performed the role of Gideon March in Mark Adamo's Little Women in Houston, a performance which was broadcast live on PBS's Great Performances . In October 2010 he sang the role of Simon Powers in the premiere of Tod Machover's science fiction opera Death and the Powers at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. [43]
In 1995 Maddalena sang in the premiere of Elliot Goldenthal's Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio and also recorded that work with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
John Coolidge Adams is an American composer and conductor whose music is rooted in minimalism. Among the most regularly performed composers of contemporary classical music, he is particularly noted for his operas, which are often centered around recent historical events. Apart from opera, his oeuvre includes orchestral, concertante, vocal, choral, chamber, electroacoustic and piano music.
Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with choreography by Mark Morris. When Sellars approached Adams with the idea for the opera in 1983, Adams was initially reluctant, but eventually decided that the work could be a study in how myths come to be, and accepted the project. Goodman's libretto was the result of considerable research into Nixon's visit, though she disregarded most sources published after the 1972 trip.
Adele Addison is an American lyric soprano who was a figure in the classical music world during the 1950s and 1960s. Although she did appear in several operas, Addison spent most of her career performing in recital and concert. Her performances spanned a wide array of literature from the Baroque period to contemporary compositions. She is best remembered today as the singing voice for Bess in the 1959 movie, Porgy and Bess. Known for her polished and fluent tone, Addison made a desirable Baroque vocal artist. She can be heard on numerous recordings, of which her Baroque performances are perhaps her best work. Many of her recordings were made with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at UCLA, where he teaches Art as Social Action and Art as Moral Action. He is widely regarded as one of the key figures of theatre and opera of the last 50 years.
Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent, remembered as "one of the defining singers of her generation". Her voice, "a paradoxical voice — larger than life yet intensely human, brilliant yet warm, lyric yet dramatic" — "was the kind you recognize after one bar, and never forget", wrote Cori Ellison in Opera News.
John M. McCollum was an American tenor who had an active singing career in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1950s through the 1970s. As an opera singer he performed with companies throughout North America, mostly working with second tier opera houses. He was much more successful as a singer of oratorios and other works from the concert repertoire, and enjoyed a particularly productive and lengthy relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a concert singer he sang a wide repertoire but drew particular acclaim for his performances in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.
Amanda Forsythe is an American light lyric soprano who is particularly admired for her interpretations of baroque music and the works of Rossini. Forsythe has received continued critical acclaim from many publications including Opera News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.
D'Anna Fortunato is a noted American mezzo-soprano. She has long been an admired favorite on the American orchestral-concert scene, while establishing herself as a respected operatic artist as well. Of her New York City Opera debut in Handel's Alcina, the New Yorker called her "a Handelian of crisp accomplishment".
Jessica Rivera is an American soprano of Peruvian-American ancestry.
Beverly Wolff was an American mezzo-soprano who had an active career in concerts and operas from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. She performed a broad repertoire which encompassed operatic and concert works in many languages and from a variety of musical periods. She was a champion of new works, notably premiering compositions by Leonard Bernstein, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, and Ned Rorem among other American composers. She also performed in a number of rarely heard baroque operas by George Frideric Handel with the New York City Opera (NYCO), the Handel Society of New York, and at the Kennedy Center Handel Festivals.
Susan Larson is an American soprano opera singer and author. Larson was born in New Rochelle, New York and she graduated with a Bachelor of Music from Indiana University in 1965. She received a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory in 1969.
Gregory Reinhart is an American bass opera singer. He is noted for an extremely wide repertory which ranges from early music to the world premieres of several contemporary operas including Lowell Liebermann's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Philippe Manoury's K..., and Pascal Dusapin's Perelà, uomo di fumo. He has been praised in The Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera for his performance in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea as one of the finest Senecas on record with "a magnificent bass voice: firm and clear throughout its wide range".
Richard Troxell is an American operatic tenor who has sung leading roles in the opera houses of North America, Europe, and Asia since his professional debut in 1993. His signature roles include Lt. Pinkerton, which he sang in Frédéric Mitterrand's 1995 film Madame Butterfly presented by Martin Scorsese, and Don José in Carmen which he has sung at the Sydney Opera House, the Teatro Petruzzelli in Italy, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing
Sanford Sylvan was an American baritone.
Kate Lindsey is a mezzo-soprano opera singer from the United States. She is married to the documentary filmmaker Olly Lambert.
Mac Morgan was an American bass-baritone who had an active performance career in concerts and operas from the early 1940s until the mid-1970s. The Boston Globe described him as a singer "known for his rich tone and enviable diction". After retiring from the stage, he embarked on a second successful career as a voice teacher.
Myrna Docia Sharlow was an American soprano who had an active performance career in operas and concerts during the 1910s through the 1930s. She began her career in 1912 with the Boston Opera Company and became one of Chicago's more active sopranos from 1915–1920, and again in 1923–1924 and 1926–1927. She sang with several other important American opera companies during her career, including one season at the Metropolitan Opera. She made only a handful of opera appearances in Europe during her career, most notably singing in the English premiere of Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini at Covent Garden in 1914. Her repertoire spanned a wide range from leading dramatic soprano roles to lighter lyric soprano fair and comprimario parts. She even performed a few roles traditionally sung by mezzo-sopranos or contraltos.
Pamela Dellal is an American mezzo-soprano in opera and concert, a musicologist and academic teacher. She has performed classical music from the medieval Hildegard von Bingen to contemporary. She is on the faculty of the Boston Conservatory, Brandeis University, and the Longy School of Music of Bard College. She is known for having translated all texts that Johann Sebastian Bach set to music.
Kathleen Kim is a Korean-American operatic coloratura soprano. Her repertoire includes roles in operas by Handel, Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi and Offenbach, among others, as well as in oratorios such as the Messiah and sacred works such as Mozart's Great Mass in C minor.
Kathryn Day is an American opera singer who has had an active international career spanning five decades. She began her career as a leading soprano under the name Kathryn Bouleyn in the 1970s and 1980s with companies like the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Opera Theater of Saint Louis. With the latter institution she created the role of Cora in the world premiere of Stephen Paulus' The Postman Always Rings Twice (1982).
|url=
(help)