Project Category: Singer

Born in Lancashire, Graham Clark began his operatic career with Scottish Opera in 1975 and was a Company Principal at ENO (1978-85). He has performed with all of the leading UK, European and North American opera houses and in particular at the Bayreuth Festival, where he has performed over a hundred times and at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. He is especially associated with the works of Wagner and has performed Loge and Mime/ Der Ring des Nibelungen over 275 times. His extensive repertoire includes Mephistopheles / Busoni’s Doktor Faust, for which he won an Olivier Award. Recent and future operatic engagements include Wozzeck, Metanoia, Lulu and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Berlin Staatsoper, Reimann’s Lear and Makropoulos Case/OperFrankfurt, Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber/De Nederlandse Opera, Der Traum ein Leben/Theater Bonn, Capriccio for Paris Opera, Hänsel und Gretel/Northern Ireland Opera, Falstaff/Glyndebourne, La Fanciulla del West/English National Opera and Capriccio and Tristan und Isolde for Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Concert engagements include a concert performance of Melot / Tristan und Isolde with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Seville and Falstaff with the CBSO. He has recorded for all the major record companies and has received three nominations for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Opera. Graham appears on Opera Rara’s recording, Maria Padilla.

Patrizia Ciofi was born in Casole d’Elsa, Siena and studied at the Accademia Chigiana in Fiesole. She sang in La traviata under Riccardo Muti’s baton at La Scala, where she later returned for L’elisir d’amore and Lucia di Lammermoor. At the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, she sang in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail and in Le nozze di Figaro, both conducted by Zubin Mehta. She debuted at the Festival Rossini of Pesaro in 2001, in Le nozze di Teti e Peleo and later returned there to sing in Il Turco in Italia and in Tancredi. She sang in Paris, at the Opéra Bastille in Falstaff, at the Châtelet in Mitridate, Re di Ponto and at the Théatre des Champs-Elysèes in Le nozze di Figaro and L’Incoronzione di Poppea. For Opera Rara she has recorded Bellini’s La straniera(ORC38).

Charles Castronovo was born in New York City. Since the start of his professional career, he has sung with many of the world’s important opera companies and symphonic organizations. His first professional engagements were with the Los Angeles Opera (as a resident artist) where he gained experience performing over a hundred times in various supporting roles. Upon leaving Los Angeles, he was accepted into the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, where he made his debut singing the role of Beppe in I Pagliacci with Placido Domingo on the opening night of the 1999-2000 season. Mr. Castronovo later recorded the same role with Decca on the 2000 release of I Pagliacci with Jose Cura, conducted by Riccardo Chailly. From there, he went on to make a series of important role debuts as Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) and Ernesto (Don Pasquale) with the Boston Lyric Opera, and Fenton (Falstaff) with the Pittsburgh Opera. He appears on Opera Rara’s recording of Mercadante’s Virginia (ORC39).

Nicole Cabell, the 2005 Winner of the BBC Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff and Decca recording artist, is fast becoming one of the most sought-after lyric sopranos of today. Her solo debut album, “Soprano” was named “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone and has received critical acclaim and several prestigious awards: the 2007 Georg Solti Orphée d’Or from the French Académie du Disque Lyrique and an Echo Klassik Award in Germany. Engagements include Musetta in La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera and for Miss Cabell’s debut at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires as well as Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore and the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She also made debuts with the New Orleans Opera as Juliette in Romeo et Juliette and with the Atlanta Opera as Pamina.

Lawrence Brownlee is one of the most consistently sought-after tenors on the international scene. He is lauded continually for the beauty of his voice, his seemingly effortless technical agility, and his dynamic and engaging dramatic skills. His schedule regularly comprises a varied array of debuts and return engagements at renowned music centres for appearances with the world’s leading opera companies, orchestras and presenting organizations. His professional stage debut took place in 2002 as Almaviva in Barbiere with Virginia Opera, a role he subsequently performed in: Vienna, Milan, Madrid, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Baden-Baden, Hamburg, Tokyo, New York, San Diego and Boston. Lawrence appears on Rossini Songs for Opera Rara (ORR247).

Tenor José Bros was born in Barcelona and studied at the city’s Conservatory under Jaime Francisco Puig. An unexpected debut in 1992 at the Gran Teatro del Liceo of Barcelona in Anna Bolena with Edita Gruberova was greeted by both public and critics, leading to appearances at La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Teatro Real in Madrid, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Teatro San Carlo, Naples, and Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. He has taken roles in more than 25 operas, including Lucia di Lammermoor, La Sonnambula, I Puritani, L’elisir d’amore, Rigoletto, Anna Bolena, Don Pasquale, Così fan tutte, La Fille du Régiment, Don Giovanni, La traviata and The Magic Flute. His concert and oratorio work has seen him sing regularly at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, Santa Cecilia in Rome and New York’s Carnegie Hall among others. His many discs include Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux for Opera Rara (ORC24) recorded live at Covent Garden, Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan and the May 2012 release of Bellini’s Il pirata.

Graeme Broadbent was born in Halifax and studied at the Royal College of Music with Lyndon Vanderpump. He also studied in Moscow with Yevgeny Nesterenko and was awarded the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire Postgraduate Diploma in 1991. He has sung with English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North, the English Bach Festival and Glyndebourne Festival Opera and abroad with Opera Comique in Paris, Lyon, Montpellier, Nimes, Tourcoing, Caen, Monte Carlo and the Lugano, Granada, Athens, Peralada and Spoleto Festivals. His many roles as a member of the Royal Opera included Colline (“La Boheme”), Angelotti, Timur (“Turandot”), Dr Grenvil (“La Traviata”), Nightwatchman (“Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”), Leone (“Attila”) King Marke (“Tristan und Isolde”), the King (“Aida”) and “La Gioconda”. He has also established close links with Opera North, where he has appeared in new productions of Zemlinsky’s “Der Zwerg”, Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins, de Falla’s “La Vida Breve” and Jonathan Dove’s Pinocchio, as well as singing Caronte in Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” and Angelotti in “Tosca”. He sang Mother in “Seven Deadly Sins” for the Theatre des Champs- Elysees.

Canadian baritone Russell Braun has excelled on the international stages in concert, opera and recital. He has made appearances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, the Lyric Opera in Chicago, the Los Angeles Opera, La Scala, Salzburg and Glyndebourne Festivals with his powerful voice and commanding presence in roles such as Billy Budd, Prince Andrei, Figaro, Papageno, Count Almaviva, Don Giovanni, Pelléas, and Eugene Onegin. Equally in demand on the concert platform, Russell has performed Britten’s War Requiem with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the City of London Festival at St Paul’s Cathedral, a concert performance of Jaufré Rudel in Saariaho’s l’Amour de loin with Norwegian National Opera, in Carmina Burana with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, in Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Washington National Symphony, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Smithsonian Chamber Players in Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Calgary Philharmonic, A Sea Symphony with the Colorado Symphony, and in recital with pianist Carolyn Maule in High River, Alberta. His extensive discography includes the GRAMMY-nominated Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Dorian, his highly acclaimed and JUNO-nominated recording of Schubert’s Winterreise with pianist Carolyn Maule and the 2007 JUNO-award-winning recording of Mozart arias with tenor Michael Schade and soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, both on the CBC Records label. His highly acclaimed Salzburg Festival appearance as Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette was released on DVD. Fantasio is Russell’s first recording with Opera Rara.

Rebecca Bottone is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music. She has sung Blonde in Die Entfürung aus dem Serail for the Aix-en-Provence Festival conducted by Minkowski, Casilda in The Gondoliers for English National Opera, Hansel and Gretel for Scottish Touring Opera, Paisiello’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia for Bampton Classical Opera and Nanetta in Falstaf for English Touring Opera. She was an Associate Artist of the Classical Opera Company, with she sang Despina in Cosi Fan Tutte, Melia in Apollo and Hyacinthusand Elisa in Il Re Pastore. In Paris, she has sung Charmeuse in Thais under Eschenbach at the Châtelet and Ades Five Eliot Landscapes at Radio France with the composer. At the Edinburgh Festival she has sung Adelaide di Borgogna with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Giuliano Carella, which was recorded for Opera Rara (ORC32). She also appears on Opera Rara’s studio recording of Rossini’s Ermione (ORC42).

Born in Plattsburgh, New York, Rockwell Blake won the first Richard Tucker Award in 1978 and made his debut the following year at the New York City Opera in Le Comte Ory. His first appearance at the New York Met followed in 1981, as Lindoro in L’Italiana in Algeri. Blake has sung widely in the USA and Europe, his repertory including some 30 roles, and since 1983 has appeared regularly at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro. For Opera Rara, Blake has recorded Donizetti: Scenes & Overtures (ORR207).