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INTRODUCTION
Bolivian-Albanian soprano Carolina López Moreno, born and raised in Germany, has won international acclaim for her versatility and powerful stage presence. From Puccini to Verdi, she has performed leading roles at venues like Carnegie Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, and the Puccini Festival Torre del Lago. In this interview with Alice Lechner, she shares insights into her multicultural roots, artistic journey, and the passion that drives her to bring opera to life.
BIOGRAPHY
Bolivian-Albanian soprano Carolina López Moreno, born and raised in Germany, is a versatile, award-winning artist who has performed internationally as the leading soprano in roles including Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann(Antonia), Pietro Mascagni’s Zanetto (Silvia), Umberto Giordano’s Mese Mariano (Carmela), Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore (Leonora), Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot (Liù) and Suor Angelica (Suor Angelica), Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (Nedda), Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata (Violetta), Saverio Mercadante’s I due Figaro (Susanna), Nino Rota’s I due timidi (Mariuccia), Street Scene (Rose Maurrant), Dialogues des Carmélites (Blanche), and Die Zauberflöte (Pamina). She has also performed as a soloist in major works such as Bizet’s Te Deum and Orff’s Carmina Burana, and given recitals at prestigious venues including the Puccini Festival Torre del Lago, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Club, the Berliner Philharmonie, Jugendstil-Festhalle Landau, Cambridge University, and various concert halls in Italy.
Ms. López is the winner of the 8th Elizabeth Connell Prize International Singing Competition and received First Prize at the 18th International Festival of Operatic Singers “Marie Kraja” at the National Theater of Opera in Tirana, Albania. In 2021, she was awarded the Rapallo Opera Festival Prize at the 7th Concorso Lirico Portofino and was a finalist in the 58th Concurso Internacional Tenor Viñas at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. She also won the Gerda Lissner Foundation Prize in 2019 and was the New York District Finals Winner of the 2018/19 Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition. In 2018, she received a Special Prize at the German TV production SWR Young Opera Stars and released her debut recital album Il bel sogno with the acclaimed pianist Doriana Tchakarova under ARS Production Records.
She is also the recipient of numerous prestigious scholarships and holds a bachelor’s degree with honors from the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, Germany, where she also pursued a Master’s in Opera at the Opernschule under Professor Ulrike Sonntag and Ks. Prof. Francisco Araiza. She then continued her graduate studies in New York City at the Manhattan School of Music. Since 2020, she has further refined her technique through the DaltroCanto method with the Italian soprano Donata D’Annunzio Lombardi.
Recent engagements include her role debut as Santuzza in a world-premiere version of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden under Thomas Hengelbrock; Olga in Giordano’s Fedora at the Opera Las Palmas de Gran Canaria under Francesco Ivan Ciampa; the title role of Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège; her debut in La Bohème staged by Emma Dante under Francesco Lanzillotta at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, followed by performances in Lima, Menorca, and Torre del Lago; her debut in Madama Butterfly staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi under Francesco Cilluffo at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago and in Florence; her debut as Magda in La Rondine at the Teatro Regio in Turin; Rossini’s Stabat Mater at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; La Bohème in Cagliari; a special Puccini Gala alongside Charles Castronovo with the Rundfunkorchester in Munich; and Falstaff at Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège.
Season 2024/2025 highlights include Suor Angelica under M° Pappano at the Proms and the Edinburgh Festival; La Rondine with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Antonio Pappano; Faust at the Royal Opera House in London; Ein deutsches Requiem at Teatro dell’Opera in Rome under M° Mariotti; La traviata at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa and Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Madama Butterfly at the Liceu in Barcelona and Opéra Lyon; Messa da Requiemat Seoul Arts Center Concert Hall; and Turandot at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago.
This season, her engagements include Manon Lescaut at Oper Köln; La Bohème at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Teatro dell’Opera in Rome; Falstaff at Teatro Real in Madrid; La traviata at the New National Theatre Tokyo; Turandot at Palau de les Arts in Valencia and Palau de la Música in Barcelona; and Aleko and Pagliacci at Teatro Massimo in Palermo. She will also perform alongside Jonathan Tetelman in several gala concerts.
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INTERVIEW
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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 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 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 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.
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