IN NEW YORK FESTIVAL VERDI DAY AND IFFV SPRING GALA

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by Opera Charm Team

May 28, 2024

Two days dedicated to Giuseppe Verdi, Parma and its excellences, organised by the Teatro Regio di Parma together with ENIT, Italian Cultural Institute of New York, International Friends of Festival Verdi, Emilia-Romagna Region, APT Servizi Regione Emilia-Romagna, UNESCO Foundation Parma Creative City of Gastronomy, Parma Food Valley, Parma Quality Restaurants.

New objectives and increasingly strong relations
with overseas institutions and supporters.

29, 30 May 2024

Two days dedicated to Giuseppe Verdi, Parma and its excellence, organised by the Teatro Regio di Parma together with ENIT USA, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, International Friends of Festival Verdi, the Emilia-Romagna Region, APT Servizi Regione Emilia-Romagna, the UNESCO Foundation Parma Creative City of Gastronomy, Parma Food Valley and Parma Quality Restaurants.

Festival Verdi Day and the IFFV Spring Gala on 29 and 30 May in New York mark new goals and increasingly strong relations with Italian institutions and supporters, who have already confirmed their presence at Festival Verdi 2024, and with whom the path re-launched last year continues, which aims to deepen and enrich opportunities to get to know the Maestro and promote the cultural and economic assets of the city of Parma in New York and the United States.

FESTIVAL VERDI DAY

The Italian Cultural Institute of New York dedicates the day of Wednesday 29 May to Festival Verdi, opening its halls to three events with free admission, enriched by a toast with Parma’s delicacies. Festival Verdi Day opens at 5.00 p.m. with the Lecture by Francesco Izzo, followed at 6.00 p.m. by the Presentation of Festival Verdi and Verdi Off 2024 with Luciano Messi, Alessio Vlad, Barbara Minghetti. At 7.30 p.m. Cocktail reception proposed by Lusardi’s, with the PDO products of Parma and its territory. In the evening at 8.30 p.m. soprano Mary Dunleavy and baritone Troy Cook, accompanied at the piano by Grant Loehnig, will be the protagonists of the Verdi recital, performed by IFFV, which will conclude the day in music.

IFFV SPRING GALA

At Lincoln Center Plaza, in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse Samuel B. & David Rose Building, on Thursday 30 May from 6 pm. 30 over 180 guests, personalities from the worlds of finance, publishing and business in the United States – including some of the most important New York correspondents from Corriera della Sera, la Repubblica, Rai, Sky and Ansa – will attend the fundraising evening organised by the International Friends of Festival Verdi with the support of Strategic Claims Services, Huntington, Young Law Group, CIU Travel, Miller Shah, Oinoe, during which they will be able to taste the menu designed and prepared by Enrico Bergonzi and Antonio Gianquinto, Chef Ambassadors of Parma Quality Restaurants.

During the course of the evening, the Fortunino Award will be presented, the first edition of the prize that the IFFV dedicates to young talents at the Verdi Festival and that this year will be awarded to tenor Antonio Poli, who will perform a recital accompanied by Francesco Izzo.

The eagerly awaited silent auction will feature not only experiences and items provided by the IFFV, but also precious and exclusive artefacts, created by the theatre’s tailoring workshops, which for scenic inspiration or material derivation have intended to preview the productions scheduled for the XXIV Verdi Festival.

THE INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS OF FESTIVAL VERDE

IFFV is the nonprofit association, founded right in the United States in 2017, which in 2019 obtained 501 © (3) status from the IRS and is among the few similar ones Italian cultural institutions have. It is made up of around a hundred members and since its foundation has contributed more than € 2 MLN to support the Teatro Regio di Parma for the Verdi Festival to stimulate and share new research and reflections on the music of Giuseppe Verdi, promoting and passing on the Maestro’s music around the world in his birthplaces and undertaking specific actions to support the spectacular forms and educational and outreach programmes.

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE A L'OPÉRA DE PARIS

October 2024

OPERA CHARM TEAM

PREMIERE OF ‘DON CARLO’ AT WIENER STAATSOPER

September 2024

Opera Charm Team

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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