Born in Sydney, Yvonne Kenny made her operatic debut in London as Donizetti’s Rosmonda d’Inghilterra in 1975. She then joined the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from there going on to appearances in Paris, Milan, Vienna and Berlin. She appears regularly in concert throughout Europe and the US, with festival appearances including Edinburgh, Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence. She won acclaim for her Handel and Strauss heroines. She has made several recordings for Opera Rara: Donizetti’s Emila di Liverpool and Ugo Conte di Parigi; Mayr’s Medea in Corinto and Il Crociato in Egitto; and Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoe. Yvonne Kenny – 19th century Heroines showcases her acclaimed bel canto abilities and she can also be heard on Mercadante – Les Soirées Italiennes.
A native New Yorker, tenor Paul Austin Kelly is celebrated for his prowess in the Rossini repertoire. Mr. Kelly has performed his signature role of Count Almaviva in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville for his debuts with the Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden. He has also sung Oreste in Ermione(Glyndebourne), Rodrigo in Otelloand Ilo in Zelmira (Pesaro), and Narciso in Il turco in Italia (La Scala). He made his La Scala debut as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte. No stranger to Donizetti, he has sung Tonio in La Fille du Régiment(Milan, Monte Carlo and Rome) and Ernesto in Don Pasquale (Bologna), and is featured on several Opera Rara recordings: Rossini – Three Tenors, Donizetti’s Zoraida di Granata and La romanzesca e l’uomo nero, Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon, highlights from Meyerbeer’s L’Esule di Granata and Volume 8 in the Opera Rara series Il Salotto. An artist of diverse talents and influences, Paul Austin Kelly is also the founder and principal recording artist with Walking Oliver, the UK-based children’s music label.
Born in Stockholm, Katarina Karnéus studied at Trinity College of Music in London, and at the National Opera Studio. In 1995 she won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
Since then she has appeared throughout the world in opera, concert and recital and worked with many leading conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Roger Norrington, Antonio Pappano, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Franz Welser-Möst and Ivor Bolton.
Opera engagements have included The Metropolitan Opera New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, the Netherlands Opera Amsterdam, La Monnaie Brussels, the Geneva Opera and the Frankfurt Opera. Her repertoire includes the great mezzo roles of Händel, Mozart, Rossini, Bizet, Wagner and Strauss and highlights of recent seasons have included Brangaene in Glyndebourne, the title role in Ariane et Barbe-bleu in Frankfurt, Elisabetta/Maria Stuarda in Berlin, Der Komponist in Geneva, and the title role in Xerxes in her native Stockholm.
In concert, Katarina Karnéus has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic (Szymanowski’s Love Songs of Hafizwith Rattle and the title role in Hänsel und Gretel with Elder), the Cleveland Orchestra (Der Rosenkavalier with Welser-Möst), the NDR Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony and at the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh Festival and the Salzburg Festival.
Mezzo-soprano Della Jones’s wide repertoire ranges from early music to contemporary. She was born in Neath, South Wales and studied at the Royal College of Music, where she won many prizes including the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship. She has performed with all the major British opera companies, with engagements throughout Europe and the US, Russia and Japan. She is a regular broadcaster on radio and TV and in 1993 made an acclaimed appearance at the Last Night of the Proms. An extensive recording career has included frequent work for Opera Rara: Donizetti’s L’Assedio di Calais, Maria Padillaand Ugo Conte di Parigi; Meyerbeer’s Il Crociato in Egittoand Dinorah; Rossini’s Ricciardo e Zoraide; the recital disc Della Jones Sings Donizetti; and all three volumes of A Hundred Years of Italian Opera
One of the most sought-after sopranos in Europe, Judith Howarth has consolidated a strong public following and critical appraisal for her work. She first came to public attention when she joined the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as a Principal. During nine seasons there she sang many roles including Oscar Un Ballo in Maschera, Musetta La Bohème, Liu Turandot, Gilda Rigoletto, Morgana Alcina, Norina Don Pasquale, Cressida Troilus and Cressida and Marguerite Les Huguenots.
Subsequent engagements worldwide include Ellen Orford Peter Grimes in Oviedo, Toulouse and Santiago de Chile, Christine Intermezzo in Santa Fe and all four soprano roles in Les Contes d’Hoffmann for Florida Grand Opera, Violetta La Traviata for the Minnesota Opera, ENO and Glyndebourne and Liu at the Staatsoper, Berlin, Marie La fille du régiment in Geneva and Madame Mao Nixon in China for ENO. Further engagements have included title role in Madama Butterflyin Helsinki and title role Maria Stuarda in Minnesota.
Recordings include Berta in Mercadante’s I Normanni A Parigi with Philharmonia Orchestra and the title role in Mercadante’s Maria Stuarda, Regina di Scozia for Opera Rara.
Bass-baritone Matthew Hargreaves was born in London and studied with Rudolph Piernay at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His operatic appearances have included English Touring Opera, Opera Atelier in Toronto, Welsh National Opera and the Academy of Ancient Music. He has sung The Messiah with the English Concert in Germany, Israel, Italy and France and has appeared at the Covent Garden Festival and BBC Proms. Roles include Ping in Turandot for WNO and Christus in Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the City of London Sinfonia at the Barbican. He can be heard on the Opera Rara recordings of Maria de Rudenz and Zoraida di Granata.
Aled Hall studied music at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, the London Royal Schools’ Faculty Opera School, and at the National Opera Studio, London. Previous performance highlights both in the UK and abroad have included Don Curzio Le nozze di Figaro (Aix-en-Provence, Tokyo, Baden Baden), Mr. Upfold Albert Herring at the (Salzburger Landestheater), Ippia Saffo, Danilowitz L’Etoile du Nord (Wexford Festival Opera/both recorded on the Marco Polo label), Don Basilio/Don Curzio Le nozze di Figaro, Monostatos Die Zauberflöte, Scaramuccio Ariadne auf Naxos, Remendado Carmen and the title role in Krasa’s Brundibar (Welsh National Opera), Goro Madama Butterfly, Spoletta Tosca and Remendado Carmen (Royal Albert Hall/Raymond Gubbay), Don Basilio Le nozze di Figaro, Bardolpho Falstaff and Frisellino Le Pescatrici (Garsington Opera), Goro in Madama Butterfly for (Lyric Opera, Dublin), the Priest in Lefanu’s The Green Children (Buxton Festival) and Arturo Lucia di Lammermoor, Gastone La Traviata, Flaminio L’amore dei tre Re, Chekalinsky The Queen of Spades, Borsa Rigoletto, Don Basilio/Don Curzio Le nozze di Figaro, Isèpo La Gioconda, Almeric Iolanta, Lord Cecil Roberto Devereux, Trabuco La Forza del destino, L’Abate Andrea Chenier and Ser Toldo Berardengo Francesca da Rimini (Opera Holland Park). Aled is a member of the popular trio The Three Welsh Tenors Aled has performed in concerts and festivals across the UK. For Opera Rara he has record Bellini’s La Straniera and Mercadante’s I Normanni a Parigi.
Making his debut in Don Pasquale at the Teatro Colon Buenos Aires in 1980, the Argentinian tenor sang throughout South America before making his first European appearance at Wexford in 1984 in Cimarosa’s Le astuzie femminili. A natural in Rossini roles, he has sung at Pesaro in Il signor Bruschino and at Aix-en-Provence in 1988 in Armida. He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1990 as Almaviva and in 1993 at La Scala in Tancredi. Among his recordings are arias by Mozart, Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, several Rossini operas, and – for Opera Rara – Mayr’s Medea in Corinto.
Born in Avellino in southern Italy, Carmen Giannattasio studied singing at the Conservatorio Cimarosa in her hometown, with further studies at the Accademia di Perfezionamento at La Scala from 1999 to 2001. Among the roles she has sung are Adelia in Ugo conte di Parigi and Micaela in Carmen (both at La Scala), Desdemona in a semi-staged Otello with Roberto Alagna and Plácido Domingo at Los Angeles Opera, and the title role in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Berlin Staatsoper and La Monnaie in Brussels. More recently she has given well-received performances as Leonora in Il trovatore at several Italian theatres, and as Elena in Rossini’s La donna del lago at the Edinburgh Festival – a performance recorded live and available on Opera Rara. For Opera Rara she also appears on Donizetti’s Parisina and Rossini’s Ermione (which won the Gramophone Award in 2011), Bellini’s Il pirata and Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro. She performs regularly in concert and in productions throughout the world.
Since his Metropolitan Opera debut as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor in October 2007, American baritone Stephen Gaertner has emerged as an artist to watch in the operatic world. His other roles at the Met have included Melot in Tristan und Isolde, Paolo Albiani in Simon Boccanegra, Iago in Otello and Chorèbe in Berlioz’s Les Troyens. He made his European debut in December 2010 with Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège as Escamillo in Carmen. Recent career highlights have included appearances as Macbeth with the Savonlinna Opera Festival and with Opernfestspiele Heidenheim, Amonasro in Aida with Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Iago in Otello with Teatro de la Ópera in San Juan, Rigoletto with Opera Grand Rapids, Riccardo in I Puritani with Teatro Verdi di Trieste, and Nabucco with Sarasota Opera.
Mr. Gaertner has also been a frequent performer of opera in concert. He appeared with Teatro Grattacielo at New York City’s Alice Tully Hall as Cristiano in Zandonai’s I Cavalieri di Ekebù and as Cascart in Leoncavallo’s Zazà (the latter under the baton of the late Alfredo Silipigni). He also made several appearances with Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall: as Sonora in La Fanciulla del West, Abayaldos in Donizetti’s Dom Sébastien, and Frank in Puccini’s Edgar, all under the baton of founder and music director Eve Queler. He has also sung Macbeth in concert with the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz and Carlo in La Forza del Destino in concert with New Amsterdam Opera in New York City. He made his U.K. debut in 2015 at London’s Barbican Hall as Cascart in Zazà in concert with Opera Rara and Maurizio Benini conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Gaertner has performed extensively across North America in such diverse roles as Riccardo in I Puritani, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, Conte di Luna in Il Trovatore, Germont in La traviata, Escamillo in Carmen, Iago in Otello, Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana, Tonio and Silvio in Pagliacci, Marcello in La Bohème, Scarpia in Tosca, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Lanciotto in Rachmaninoff’s Francesca da Rimini, Gianni Schicchi, and Balstrode in Peter Grimes. His other concert appearances have included Britten’s War Requiem at Catholic University in Washington, DC and Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem at Carnegie Hall with the New England Symphonic Ensemble. He has also been the recipient of awards from the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, Opera Index Inc. and the Oratorio Society of New York.
Stephen Gaertner features on Opera Rara recording of Leoncavallo’s Zazà.
