Author:
INTRODUCTION
Some people fall in love with someone, and other people fall in love with something they can’t live without and that thing, in this case, is called opera. To be more precise, as you will read in this interview, every opera singer has some characters they tend to favor. It is wonderful to see how much an artist can give to the audience if she/he merges with their character. In this interview, Chiara Isotton talks with Alice Lechner about her favorite characters and how she organizes her study when approaching a new role. She tends to choose Verdi’s and Puccini’s music over any other composers and Alice was curious what the criteria were. Last year she took part of the incredible cast of Macbeth alongside Anna Netrebko. How does she deal with all that pressure? How is it to step on a stage with such a legacy? It is hard to know how it feels like to sing on a stage unless you do it yourself, but we think it can be very helpful to have a little piece of advice from the ones that have already experienced that. Chiara approaches many interesting topics that we are sure you will love to read about. Enjoy!
BIOGRAPHY
Soprano Chiara Isotton was born in Belluno, where she began studying at the Antonio Miari School of Music. Later, she completed her course of study at the B. Marcello Conservatory in Venice where she graduated with high marks in 2007. Following her education, she continued her formation under the guidance of William Matteuzzi, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Regina Resnik, Raina Kabaivanska, Renato Bruson, and Paolo De Napoli. She won several important national and international competitions, including being among the winners of the “European Community” Competition for Young Opera Singers by the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto in 2013 where she debuted her role as Tosca. Isotton debuted at Teatro alla Scala in 2015 as Gran Sacerdotessa in Aida conducted by Zubin Mehta. Also at Teatro alla Scala she interpreted Alisa in Lucia di Lammermoor (Ranzani/Zimmermann), Giovanna in Rigoletto (Luisotti/Deflo), Pisana in I due Foscari (Mariotti/Hermanis), Flora in La Traviata (Santi, Chung, Armiliato/Cavani), Cintia in La cena delle beffe (Rizzi/Martone), and Gertud in Hänsel and Gretel (Albrecht/Bechtolf). In 2015 she played Mimì in La Bohème in Spoleto and later on tour in Japan. She returned to Japan in 2018 as Tosca (Yoshida/Maestrini) in Nagoya. In 2019, she made her debut at La Fenice Opera House in Venice as Tosca (Rustioni/Senigallia). She performed Leonora from Il Trovatore at the Ente Concerti “Marialisa De Carolis” in Sassari. Recently she performed Tosca at the New National Theater in Tokyo (Callegari/Madau-Diaz), in the form of a concert at the Municipal Theater of Treviso (Lanzillotta) and in Piacenza (Quatrini/Guerra), receiving accolades from the public and critics. Her future commitments include participation in the inauguration of Teatro alla Scala’s upcoming season in the role of the Dama in Lady Macbeth (Chailly/Livermore) and in her debut as Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo in Marseille (Arrivabeni/Roubaud).
Read more
INTERVIEW
RELATED POSTS
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.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur
