Project Category: Singer

Winner of the “Toti dal Monte” Competition in Treviso in 1984 and the “Opera Company of Philadelphia – Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition” (1985), he started his career with the role of Marcello in La Bohème with Luciano Pavarotti at the Teatro Regio in Torino. He performed the same role in a tour in Peking, Philadelphia and Geneva. In 1986 he sang in Don Carlo at the Salzburg Österfestspiele conducted by Herbert von Karajan. This was followed by an intensive collaboration with prestigious Opera Houses in Italy and abroad. At the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome he sang Don Carlo, Poliuto, Zelmira, Ifigenia in Tauride, La Bohème (with Mirella Freni, conducted by Daniel Oren ) Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Lucia di Lammermoor, Macbeth, Iris/Kyoto, and Maria Stuarda/Lord Cecil. At the Teatro Regio in Torino where he sang Don Carlo, Lucia di Lammermoor I Puritani, Samson et Dalilah, the title role of Evgenij Onegin with Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov. Roberto has taken part in a number of Opera Rara recordings, including two volumes in the Il Salotto series, Mercadante’s Emma d’Antiochia and Donizetti’s Pia de’ Tolomei.

Born in Calgary, Sardinia, Ms Scano obtained a Music Conservatory diploma specialising in flute under M° Saddi. She began her cantorial studies with her father and later perfected her vocal skills under the guidance of Renata Scotto, Leyla Gencer and Regina Resnick. In 1992 she made her debut in the operatic field, assuming the role of “Adina” in L’Elisir d’Amore at the Verdi Theatre at Sassari and the following year as “Lucia” in Lucia de Lammermoor at the same theatre. Miss Scano has recorded La Bohème (“Musetta”), Rossini Cantatas vol. 2, Le Nozze di Teti e Peleo, and Verdi’s Messa Solenne directed by M° Chailly for Decca Records; Donizetti’s La Romanzesca e l’uomo nero and La Prigione di Edimburgo for Opera Rara; Charpentier’s Te Deum directed by M° Chung for Deutsche Grammophone and Bach’s Cantate with M° Alessandrini for Opus 111; Soliva’s Elena e Malvina and Giulia e Sesto Pompeo with RSI.

Born in Liverpool, Kathryn completed her studies at the RNCM with Susan Roper in 2011. She was an ENO Young Artist , a YCAT artist (2010 – 2013) and is a BBC New Generation artist (a commitment which will run until December 2017). She has won numerous prizes and awards including MBF Sybil Tutton Award, Susan Chilcott Scholarship. Kathryn is a Samling Scholar. Featured as The Times Rising Star of Classical Music 2012, Kathryn made her debuts to critical acclaim with Cherubino/ENO and Sesto/Opera North. Concert engagements include performances with the RLPO, Philharmonia, Manchester Camerata and with conductors Carl Davis, Paul Daniel, Vasily Petrenko and John Wilson. She has given recitals at Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, the Brighton, City of London and Cheltenham Festivals. Recent and future operatic engagements include Cherubino with Glyndebourne Touring Opera, a return to Opera North for Annio /La Clemenza di Tito and Hermia A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dorabella (Cosi fan tutte) for Garsington and Rosina (Barber of Seville) for ENO. Concert engagements include the world premiere of Michael Nyman’s Hillsborough Symphony, concerts with the RLPO to celebrate the orchestra’s 175th anniversary, Mozart Requiem for Raymond Gubbay, Messiah for Huddersfield Choral Society and recordings and concerts with Opera Rara.

Joan Rodgers’ operatic engagements have included the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and Glyndebourne in Britain, and international appearances in Paris, Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam and Vienna, and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. She has appeared in Poulenc’s La voix humaine for Opera North and Gianni Schicchi for Covent Garden with Richard Jones and Antonio Pappano. She appears in recital throughout Europe and the US, and in concert with conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Sir Simon Rattle. She is a regular guest at the BBC Proms and was awarded the CBE in the 2001 New Year’s Honours List. Rodgers has recorded widely, including Mozart’s da Ponte trilogy with Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic, solo discs of Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Wolf, and Rachmaninov songs with Howard Shelley. She can be heard on Opera Rara’s recording of Ambroise Thomas’s La Cour de Célimène and Jean-Baptiste Wekerlin’s La Laitière de Trianon.

The Australian bass Dean Robinson studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He has sung widely at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Ariadne auf Naxos), English National Opera (Orfeo, Salome, La Bohème), Welsh National Opera (Billy Budd, La Bohème) and Scottish Opera (Rigoletto, The Magic Flute). Further afield, he has sung with Netherlands Opera (Orfeo) and as Don Profondo in Il viaggio a Reims at Pesaro. On the concert platform, engagements include the St John Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Ariadne auf Naxos and Béatrice et Bénédict with the LSO under Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Colin Davis respectively. His work with Opera Rara includes the recordings of Pacini’s Alessandro nel’Indie, Ricci’s La Prigione di Edimburgo and La Partenza in the Il Salotto series.

Irish baritone Gavan Ring studied at the Schola Cantorum at St. Finian’s College in Mullingar before reading Education and Music at St. Patrick’s College in Dublin. Following post-graduate studies to doctorate level at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Gavan trained at the National Opera Studio in London. Winner of second prize at the 2013 Wigmore Hall Kohn Foundation International Song Competition, Gavan is also a previous winner of the National Concert Hall Bernadette Greevy Bursary, the Cuisine de France John Count McCormack Bursary and the Peter Hulsen & Southbank Sinfonia Award for Orchestral Song. In 2010, Gavan was awarded the Briscoe Cup for Outstanding Student of the Year at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. Concert and recital engagements include appearances at the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre, Oxford Lieder Festival and the National Concert Hall with orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Sir Mark Elder, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Irish Baroque Orchestra and the Southbank Sinfonia. A Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2012 and an alumnus Young Associate Artist with Opera Theatre Company, Gavan has performed with Wexford Festival Opera, Opera North, Scottish Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, Wide Open Opera, Opera Ireland, Lyric Opera Productions, Lismore Music Festival and Bampton Classical Opera. Operatic credits include Phoebus (The Fairy Queen), Colas (Bastien and Bastienna), Simone (La Finta Semplice), Nardo (La Finta Giardiniera), Il Conte Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Guglielmo (Cosi Fan Tutte), Speaker (The Magic Flute), Pluto (Orpheus in the Underworld), Hartmann (Fantasio), Dancaire (Carmen), Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus), Der Steuermann (Tristan und Isolde), Benoit/Alcindoro (La bohème), Marcello (La bohème), Schaunard (La bohème), Yamadori (Madama Butterfly), Jake Wallace (La Fanciulla del West), Cascada (The Merry Widow) and Gideon March (Little Women). Fantasio is Gavan’s first recording with Opera Rara.

American soprano Brenda Rae is already establishing herself as an exceptional artist in the world of opera. She has performed major roles with numerous internationally recognized companies including Oper Frankfurt, of which she has been a member since 2008/9, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Opéra National de Paris, Glyndebourne Festival, L’Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Hamburgische Staatsoper, Santa Fe Opera, and Carnegie Hall. Brenda has an artistic diploma from the Juilliard Opera Center, a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, and a Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was awarded first prize by the Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation in 2007. In Frankfurt, Brenda performed the title role in Maria Stuarda in concert and shortly thereafter, Cleopatra in a new production of Giulio Cesare, both to enormous success. Outside of Frankfurt, Brenda made house debuts with the Opéra National de Paris (Anne Trulove in the The Rake’s Progress) and the Hamburgische Staatsoper (Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos). She also sang Polissena in Radamisto with The English Concert (conducted by Harry Bicket) in a concert tour that included London, Birmingham, Paris, Ann Arbor, and Carnegie Hall. Fantasio is Brenda’s first recording with Opera Rara.

Born in Switzerland, bass-baritone Bruno Praticò studied at the opera school of La Scala, singing Rossini’s Mustafa and Bartolo there under Claudio Abbado. Since 1993 he has been a regular at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, at which he was awarded the Rossini d’Oro prize in 1998 for his Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola. He has performed at many of the world’s major opera houses, among them the New York Met, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Vienna Staatsoper and the Teatro Real in Madrid. His discography includes Il barbiere di Siviglia (Bartolo) for EMI, and Donizetti’s La Romanzesca e l’uomo nero for Opera Rara.