Ileana Cotrubas

Ileana Cotrubaș is a romanian soprano. Her career developed between 1960-1990. She was admired for her beautiful light voice, for her dramatic talent and for her adaptation of singing in a lot of languages.  She was born on 9 June 1939 in Romania in a family where the traditions of music already existed, so she […]

Sir Colin Davis

Colin Rex Davis was born on September 25th, 1927, in Weybridge, Surrey, England, and was known for his exceptional interpretations of a wide range of classical and contemporary repertoire. His early exposure to music was through the clarinet, which he started playing at a young age. His interest in conducting developed during his time at […]

Stephen Grady Gould

As a prolific heldentenor, Stephen Gould was a frequent artist on the Bayreuth Festival stage, appearing in almost 100 performances over a period of 18 years. Stephen Grady Gould was born on January 24th, 1962 in Roanoke, Virginia. He is the son of Loren and Annie Gould. He studied at the New England Conservatory of […]

Karl Böhm

Karl Böhm was born on August 28th, 1894, in Graz, Austria. He displayed a strong interest in music from a young age and began his musical education with piano lessons. He also studied violin, which gave him a solid foundation in instrumental technique. Böhm’s formal education in music continued when he enrolled at the Vienna […]

Renata Scotto

Internationally acclaimed for her sense of style and musicality, but also for remarkable acting skills, Renata Scotto is considered by the public and the critics one of the most preeminent singers of her generation. Born in Savona, Italy on February 24th, 1934, Renata Scotto made her operatic debut at the age of 18, in her […]

Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti’s career started in 1967, when he won the Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition in Milan and, immediately after, in 1968, he became the principal conductor of Maggio Musical Fiorentino, a position he held until 1980. Certainly, Muti”s career is full of highlights that couldn’t be all not mentioned in a single article and one […]

Tito Gobbi

Tito Gobbi was born on October 24th, 1913, in Bassano del Grappa, a town in the Veneto region of Italy. He grew up in a musically-inclined family, and his parents recognized his early talents and interest in singing. As a child, he received encouragement and support from his family to pursue his passion for music. […]

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan, whose birth name was Heribert Ritter von Karajan, was born on April 5th, 1908, in Salzburg, Austria. As a child, Karajan showed exceptional musical talent and began piano lessons at the age of four. He demonstrated remarkable progress, and by the age of six, he was already performing in public concerts. His […]

Grace Bumbry

“To strive for excellence, that’s the answer. If you strive for excellence, that means that you are determined. You will find a way to get to your goal, even if it means having to turn down some really great offers. You have to live with that, as you have to live with yourself.” (Grace Bumbry) […]

Franco Zeffirelli

Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli was an Italian film director, producer, screenwriter, and stage director. He was born on February 12th, 1923, in Florence, Italy, and passed away on June 15th, 2019 in Rome, at the age of 96. His mother died when he was just six years old, and he grew up under the auspices […]

Alice Lechner

Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.

Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.

Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Oana Zamfir

Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.

She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.

Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.

Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.

Alexandru Suciu

Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.

His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.

During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.

He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.

Cristina Fieraru

Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.

She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.

She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.

Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.

BIANCA L. NICA

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