TCBO: OKSANA LYNIV AND STEFAN MILENKOVICH OPEN THE 2023 SYMPHONIC SEASON

Wednesday, February 8th, 8.30 p.m. Auditorium Manzoni

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by OPERA Charm Team

February 3, 2023

A contemporary composition in its world premiere performance, one of the most famous and virtuosic pages for violin and orchestra in the Romantic repertoire and a famous late-Romantic symphony linked to our country. These are the “ingredients” of the opening concert of the 2023 Symphonic Season of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, scheduled for Wednesday, February 8th at 8.30 p.m. in the Auditorium Manzoni, featuring violinist Stefan Milenkovich as soloist with the Orchestra of Teatro Comunale di Bologna and it musical director Oksana Lyniv, fresh from the opera opening with Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer.
The evening kicks off to the notes of the Passacaglia in Yellow-Blue by Russian-German composer Vladimir Genin, written in 2022 and presented here for the first time. To explain the reason for the name ‘Yellow-Blue’, Genin says that ‘at the same time there is a touch of blues melancholy in the rhythm and melody of the piece (Passacaglia in Blue). The title also refers to the colours of the Ukrainian flag, blue as the sky and yellow as the wheat, because the sentiment of this work is deeply connected to the horror and sadness that constantly accompany my life since the Russian aggression of Ukraine began in 2014.”
A former enfant-prodige of the violin with close ties to Italy, where he has been performing since he was a child, a virtuoso engaged on stages such as New York’s Carnegie Hall or London’s Cadogan Hall, named Serbian artist of the century and also committed to humanitarian causes, receiving the accolade of ‘Most Human Person’ in Belgrade, Stefan Milenkovich returns to play for the Comunale audience. And he does so with one of the most challenging and spectacular pieces of the Russian repertoire: the Concert for Violin and Orchestra in D major op. 35 by Pyotr Il’ič Tchaikovsky. Composed in 1877 and dedicated to the well-known Hungarian soloist Leopold Auer, the Concerto was “declared absolutely unplayable by various Russian violin authorities” and was panned by the most influential music critic of the time, Eduard Hanslick, but this did not halt the fame it achieved.
The first symphonic concert in Bologna of the season closes with Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Symphony No. 4 in A major ‘Italiana’, and its characteristic Saltarello del Finale, a work that arose from the journey from Venice to Rome that the German composer – 21 years old at the time – made in Italy between 1830 and 1831 in the wake of his compatriots Goethe and Heine.
The concert is made possible thanks to Intesa Sanpaolo, Main Partner of the 2023 Symphonic Season of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

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OPERA CHARM TEAM

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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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