The Teatro Colón is a historic opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is considered one of the ten best opera houses in the world by National Geographic. According to a survey carried out by the acoustics expert Leo Beranek among leading international opera and orchestra directors, the Teatro Colón has the room with the best acoustics for opera and the second best for concerts in the world.
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded eleven studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set Shakespeare's sonnets to music for a theatre piece by Robert Wilson.
Hariclea Darclée was a celebrated Romanian operatic spinto soprano of Greek descent who had a three-decade-long career.
Roberto Abbado is an Italian opera and symphonic music conductor. Currently he is an Artistic Partner of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In 2015 he has been appointed music director of Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain. From 2018 he's Music Director of the Festival Verdi in Parma. Previously he held the position of Chief Conductor of Münchner Rundfunkorchester.
Jacqueline Lisa Dark was an Australian operatic mezzo-soprano who appeared mainly with Australian companies, for a while as a member of Opera Australia. She was known for her voice in leading roles, including world premieres, but also for her stage presence and "a unique sense of comic timing".
Prima donna, Italian for "first lady", is a term used in opera.
Prima Donna is an opera in two acts with music by Rufus Wainwright to a French language libretto by Wainwright and Bernadette Colomine. The opera premiered at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, on 10 July 2009 at the Manchester International Festival.
Alessandro Siciliani is an Italian conductor of opera and symphonic music. He is also a composer of symphonic music. Siciliani was born in Florence, Italy, the son of Ambra and Francesco Siciliani, the celebrated opera impresario. Siciliani currently resides in Columbus, Ohio, where he was the music director of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra from 1992 to 2004.
All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu is the sixth studio album by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, first released in Canada through Decca Records on March 23, 2010. The album was produced by Wainwright, and mixed by Marchand, who produced Wainwright's second album, Poses (2001).
James Valenti is an American operatic tenor with an active international career specializing in leading roles in the Italian and French repertoire. Born and raised in New Jersey, in the United States, he attended St. Helena School and North Hunterdon High School before becoming a graduate of West Virginia University and the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Valenti also holds a Master of Voice Pedagogy degree from Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Valenti made his professional debut in 2003 as Rodolfo in La bohème at the Rome Opera, and was the 2010 winner of the Richard Tucker Award.
House of Rufus is a collection of six studio albums, two live albums, four additional albums of previously unreleased material, and six DVDs recorded by Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, reissued as a 19-disc box set in the United Kingdom on July 18, 2011. Wainwright's official site claimed that the collection "spans Rufus' entire career and represents the most complete collection of Rufus Wainwright recordings to date."
Bernadette Eileen Cullen is an Australian dramatic mezzo-soprano.
Marina Rebeka is a Latvian soprano, active on both opera and concert stages. Associated with Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, she performs primarily in the 19th-century Italian and French repertoire, most notably works by Gioachino Rossini, in addition to Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni, another frequent role.
Hadrian is an opera composed by American-Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, with a libretto by Daniel MacIvor, based on the life of Hadrian, Roman emperor from 117 to 138. First staged by the Canadian Opera Company, the opera premiered October 13, 2018, at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto, directed by Peter Hinton.
If I Loved You: Gentlemen Prefer Broadway — An Evening of Love Duets is a show conceived and directed by American-Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, which premiered on June 14, 2014 during Luminato in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The concert featured men singing classic love songs to one another, and included a full orchestra and performances by Wainwright and special guests Boy George, David Byrne, Josh Groban and Steven Page. Countertenor Brennan Hall, Brent Carver, Glen Hansard, Ezra Koenig and Andrew Rannells also appeared. The program featured songs written by gay men, including Noël Coward, Lorenz Hart, Jerry Herman and Cole Porter.
Jörn Weisbrodt is a German-American arts administrator, singer, and former artistic director of the Luminato Festival, Toronto's annual Festival of Arts and Creativity. He is currently the artistic director of ALL ARTS, a streaming platform and broadcast channel from WNET.
Prima Donna is a double album recording of Rufus Wainwright's 2009 opera of the same name, released internationally by the German classical record label Deutsche Grammophon on September 11, 2015 and on October 2, 2015 in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The recording features performances by Janis Kelly, Kathryn Guthrie, Antonio Figueroa, Richard Morrison, and Jayce Ogren conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The album's release coincided with Prima Donna: A Symphonic Visual Concert.
Andréa Guiot was a French operatic soprano. A long-term member of the Paris opera houses, she was known internationally for leading roles especially in the French repertoire, such as Gounod's Mireille and Marguerite, Massenet's Manon and Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen. She appeared as Micaëla when Carmen was first performed at the Opéra de Paris in 1959, and as Mireille in the 1000th performance of the opera at the Opéra-Comique. She performed in the world premiere of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires in 1965. Among her many recordings, the 1964 Carmen conducted by Georges Prêtre, with Maria Callas in the title role and Nicolai Gedda as her lover, brought her lasting fame. She appeared at major opera house in France, Europe, and the Americas. After retiring from the stage, she was a voice teacher at the Conservatoire de Paris, succeeding Janine Micheau, her own former instructor.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Sheiko is a Ukrainian conductor, Honored Artist of Ukraine, People's Artist of Ukraine, the director of the Association "Music," and the chief conductor of the Ukrainian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Gianluca Martinenghi is an Italian opera and symphonic music conductor. From 2016 to 2018 he was the Music director of Macedonian National Theatre. Currently he is the Artistic Secretary of Teatro Reggio in Turin, Italy,
