Laura Alonso (soprano)
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Laura Alonso Padín (born 2 January 1976) is a Spanish operatic soprano. She began her career in 1999 when she became a member of the Aalto Theatre in Essen, Germany; a position currently maintains. She has also appeared as a guest artist with major theatres and musical ensembles internationally.
Early life and education
Born in Vilagarcía de Arousa, Alonso earned university diplomas in both singing and the violin in her native country before pursuing further studies in Germany. A scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enabled her to study voice under Aldo Baldin, Anna Reynolds and Jean Cox and lied with Hartmut Höll at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe. She has gone on to win several singing awards at international competitions, including first prize in the last Alfredo Kraus Competition as well as the Franco Corelli, Verviers or Jaume Aragall Competitions.
Career
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In 1999, at just 23 years of age, Alonso became a member of the Aalto Theatre in Essen, Germany. Over the past deacade she has sung numerous roles with that opera house, including Blanche in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites, Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, Mimí in Puccini's La bohème, Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and Zdenka in Richard Strauss' Arabella among others. She is the recipient of the Aalto Theatre's Best Artist Award and is scheduled to perform at the theatre for the 2010 European City of Culture festivities.[needs update]
As a guest artist, Alonso has made appearances at numerous concert venues and theatres internationally.In Europe she has sung at leading theatres in Pisa, Düsseldorf, Mannheim, Leipzig, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Nancy, Braunschweig, Poissy, Freiburg, Lübeck, Barcelona, and Breno. Her performance credits also include appearances at the Auditorium in Rishon Le Zion (Israel), Teatro Bellas Artes in Mexico, Teatro de Guanajuato, Philharmonie de Cologne, Musikhalle in Hamburg, Konzerthaus and Philharmonie in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Dortmund and Essen, Kuppel Saal in Hannover (Germany), Herodes Aticus in Athens, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Los Angeles Auditorium, Palau de Valencia and Barcelona, among others. She has performed under severl important conductors, including Frühbeck de Burgos, Heiko Matthias Förster, Philipp Jordan, Carlos Kalmar, Jiri Kôut, Ion Marin, Víctor Pablo Pérez, Zoltan Peszko, and Stefan Soltesz. Some of the other opera roles in her repertoire include Antonia, Zerbinetta, Susanna, Oscar, Lucia, Lulu, Giulia, Nannetta, Sophie, Elvira, Amina, and Violetta in La traviata.
She has collaborated with stage directors as A. Pilavachi, De Tomasi, Johannes Schaaf, Pontiggia, Berndt, Schlingensief o Hilsdorf at the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Tenerife Festivals, at the Festival in Royaumont, Bregenzer Festspiele, Maestranza in Sevilla, at the Expo in Hannover, Innsbrucker Festwochen, Ille de France Festival, Santander Festival, at the Autumn Festival in Madrid and the Opera Week in Berlin, among other musical events.
Among her most recent roles, we can highlight Giulia in La scala di seta, performed during a tour with the Freiburger Barockorchester under the baton of Attilio Cremonesi. Furthermore, she excelled at the Berlin Staatsoper with Ariadne auf Naxos. With her debut at the Innsbruck Festival (Austria) in the role of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare in Egitto by Antonio Sartorio, she won the Diapason D'or, awarded by the French critics, and the CD obtained a great success.
Other special achievements include her role as Magda in La rondine, which she performed recently in Utrecht (Netherlands) with the T.R.O.S. and Gómez Martínez as conductor, as well as her Salzburg performance in the role of Sandrina, in La finta giardiniera, on the occasion of the Mozart Year 2006 with Doris Dörrie as stage manager.
Other recent performances have taken place in Santander and La Coruña with the Opera Carmen and also in La Coruña the Spanish premiere of The Rescue of Penelope, by Britten.
She has performed in some of the most important auditoriums and theatres in Spain, and at the end of 2007, she sang belcanto repertoire in the Opera Hall at Valladolid Auditorium, with the conductor Alejandro Posada and Canarian tenor Celso Albelo with duets and arias from Lakmé, Rigoletto, Elisir d'amore and Semiramide, alongside the Symphony Orchestra of Castilla y León.
She devotes most of the year to giving recitals and concerts. Next music key events[needs update] are a Liederabend at the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, and another one at the Auditorio Conde Duque with the conductor Manuel Burgueras, as well as several Spanish music concerts in the United States.
Her most ambitious recording project was the belcanto arias album Col sorriso d'innocenza, in collaboration with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Malaga, which was published in December 2006, obtaining excellent reviews among the opera specialised international press.
The record label Columna Musica has recently released her CD collection of Galician songs Lúa descolorida, and another one will be released shortly with Spanish repertoire.[needs update]
Among her next performances are Brahms' Requiem, Handel's Messiah, Mahler's Fourth Symphony, Haydn's Creation, and a Spanish songs concert alongside the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.
She has played the leading role as Rosario in her debut of the work Goyescas by Enrique Granados this year.[when?]
She has recently toured the main cities in Germany alongside the Chilean tenor Felipe Rojas, accompanied by the prestigious orchestra Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, singing exclusively Spanish zarzuelas.
Soon she will sing alongside the Orchestra da camera di Firenze works by Vivaldi under the direction of the Turkish Master Guven Yaslicam, and El retablo de maese Pedro by Manuel de Falla in Tel Aviv, as well as playing the role of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in Chile, under the direction of Donato Cabrera, among other commitments.[needs update]
She will make her debut in the prestigious Alice Tully Hall in New York in November with the opera Las horas vacías (The Empty Hours) by Ricardo Llorca.[needs update]
A record is to be released shortly including the most beautiful songs composed by Pauline Viardot, accompanied at the piano by the prestigious Manuel Burgueras.[needs update]
In 2011, Alonso will perform at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires as Lulu in Alban Berg's opera, conducted by the American music director Stefan Lano and stage master Alfredo Arias.[needs update]
Alonso currently lives in Berlin and continues her musical training with Anna Reynolds and Irmgaard Hartmann.[1]
Discography
- Col sorriso d'innocenza Belcanto Arias by Laura Alonso. Conductor: Alexander Livenson. Orquesta Filarmónica de Malaga. Composers: i.a. Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti. Label: Columna Musica, Spain.
- Lua Descolorida Music from Galicia with Laura Alonso, soprano. Juan Manuel Varela, piano. Songs by Osvaldo Golijov and Antón García Abril. Label: Columna Musica, Spain.
- Antoloxía Vol. 1 A canción de Concerto: Antoloxía Vol. 1. Laura Alonso, soprano. Manuel Burgueras, piano. Cancións sobre textos literarios galegos. Edicións Xerais de Galicia.
- Tutto Verdi from the Aalto Theater in Essen. Charity event for the reconstruction of La Fenice in Venice.
- Na Boca Das Camelias Laura Alonso, soprano. Juan Manuel Varela, piano. Music from Galicia by various composers.
- Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Antonio Sartorio. Conductor: Attilio Cremonesi. Innsbrucker Barockfestspiele. Laura Alonso as Cleopatra. Label: ORF, Austria
References
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