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INTRODUCTION
I'm (not) every woman is the title of the musical Lilian has performed in Amsterdam - an ode to the women whose voice is too seldom heard that gets a different, more powerful meaning when performed in this historical moment that OPERA Charm Magazine desired to support firmly throughout this issue. The Dutch-Iranian soprano Lilian Farahani talks with Alice Lechner about the people in Iran, the movement led by Iranian women and supported by people worldwide: Woman.Life.Freedom. Speaking of women's rights, what about women in the opera industry, the patriarchal society and the balance between a successful career and motherhood? Lilian talks about her experiences and opinions on these serious matters, but also about her upcoming debut at the Royal Opera House performing The Bride in Kaija Saariaho's opera Innocence, a role she could already be listened to interpreting at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in 2021, and about her special connection with contemporary music. Alice Lechner led a conversation with the person and artist Lilian Farahani that is worth reading.
BIOGRAPHY
Dutch-Iranian soprano Lilian Farahani graduated cum laude with distinction from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and the Dutch National Opera Academy in Amsterdam.
In the 2022/2023 season, she will make her Royal Opera House debut in London, where she will once again play the role of The Bride in Kaija Saariaho’s opera ‘Innocence’; a role in which she could already be heard at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2021. Another debut in autumn 2022 is a collaboration with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda. In the 2021/2022 season, she sang Zerlina (‘Don Giovanni’) with Dutch National Opera, Elvira (‘L’italiana in Algeri’) with the NTR ZaterdagMatinee, and she could be heard in Aalto-Musiktheater Essen in the role of Lauretta (‘Gianni Schicchi’).
In recent years, Lilian has sung on the major Dutch stages with companies such as Dutch National Opera, Opera Zuid and Dutch Touring Opera, but also in the opera houses of Nancy, Bern, Essen, the Festival d’Aix-en- Provence and the International Maifestspiele Wiesbaden. Her repertoire includes Mozart roles such as Pamina (‘Zauberflöte’), Despina (‘Così fan tutte), Zerlina (‘Don Giovanni) and Susanna (‘Le nozze di Figaro’), but also Gretel (‘Hänsel und Gretel’), Carolina (‘Il matrimonio segreto’), Musetta (‘La bohème’) and Frasquita (‘Carmen’).
Lilian worked with stage directors such as Simon McBurney, Lotte de Beer, Monique Wagemakers, Laurent Pelly, Simon Stone and Theu Boermans, with conductors such as Raphaël Pichon, Antony Hermus, Ed Spanjaard, Patrick Fournillier, Kenneth Montgomery, Antonello Manacorda, Sacha Goetzel and Susanna Mälkki, with orchestras like The Hague Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Ensemble Pygmalion, London Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, The Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Essener Philharmoniker, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and members of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Besides opera, operetta and the classical repertoire of Lieder, Lilian feels at home singing contemporary works. Besides Saariaho’s ‘Innocence’, she sang leading roles in ‘Anne and Zef’ by Monique Krüs, ‘Death Knocks’ (Christian Jost) and ‘The infernal comedy’ by Michael Sturminger with the Dutch National Theater. In the spring of 2019, her debut CD ‘Woman - the making of...’ with works of Jake Heggie was released, along with pianist Maurice Lammerts van Bueren.
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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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