The Broad Stage will present Global superstar and Metropolitan Opera favorite Diana Damrau, returning alongside famed bass Nicolas Testé for a fun and lively program of opera, operetta, lieder, and songs on Sunday, April 24 at 7:30p. They are accompanied by Maciej Pikulski, piano. Tickets are available at thebroadstage.org.
Damrau has been performing on the world's leading opera and concert stages for two decades. Her vast repertoire spans both lyric soprano and coloratura roles including the title roles in Lucia di Lammermoor (La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House), Manon (Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera) and La Traviata (La Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Opéra national de Paris and Bavarian State Opera) as well as Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute (Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Bavarian State Opera).
The Metropolitan Opera has been a house in which the soprano has performed her signature roles, been broadcast in HD to cinemas globally and made seven role debuts since her own debut there as Zerbinetta in 2005. Highlights have included new productions of Rigoletto (Gilda), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rosina), Le comte Ory (Adèle) and Les pêcheurs des perles (Leïla). Further engagements have included the title roles in La Sonnambula and La Fille du Régiment and Romeo et Juliette.
She was also the first singer in Metropolitan Opera history to perform the roles of Pamina and Queen of the Night in different performances of the same run of Mozart's The Magic Flute.
The soprano has also performed contemporary works for the opera stage in roles written especially for her, most notably as the title role in Iain Bell's operatic adaptation of Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress (Theater an der Wien 2013) and as Drunken Woman/Gym Instructress in
Lorin Maazel's Opera 1984 (Royal Opera House 2005).
Nicolas Testé regularly performs in many renowned opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera New York, Staatsoper Munich,
Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra National de Paris, Teatro San Carlo Naples, Grand Théâtre Geneva, Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Teatro La Fenice as well as at the Glyndebourne Festival and Chorégies d'Orange.
His extensive repertoire includes roles in Iphigénie en Aulide (Agamemnon), Roméo et Juliette (Frère Laurent), Manon (Des Grieux), Hamlet (Claudius), Il Trovatore (Ferrando), The Magic Flute (Sarastro), Castor and Pollux (Jupiter), Faust (Mephisto), The Tales of Hoffmann (The Four Villains) and The Barber of Seville (Basilio).
Testé studied piano, bassoon and music history in Paris before embarking on a career as a singer. He studied at the Opéra National de Paris and Centre de Formation Lyrique. In 1998 he was awarded with the Second Prize at the "Voix Nouvelles" competition.
About Maciel Pikulski
Soloist, chamber musician and accompanist, Maciej Pikulski has performed in over 300 concert halls on 5 continents. A pupil of Dominique Merlet and Clive Britton, Pikulski performed as soloist at the Música em Trancoso Festival Brazil, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and Sala São Paulo among others and as a piano recitalist.
Parallel to his work as a soloist, he has developed a busy career as accompanist to some of the world's most celebrated singers : José van Dam, Renée Fleming
Thomas Hampson,
Natalie Dessay, Dame
Felicity Lott,
Luca Pisaroni, Maria Bayo, Sumi Jo, Anna-Caterina Antonacci,
Laurent Naouri,
Joseph Calleja, Patricia Petibon, Angelika Kirchschlager among others including at
Carnegie Hall, La Scala, the Concertgebouw, the Barbican and the Musikverein Vienna.
Pikulski has recorded 16 CDs and DVDs and given masterclasses all over the world. He holds a professorship with tenure at the Centro Superior de Música, San Sebastian, Spain.
The press acclaimed Pikulski for his "poetic sensitivity" (Globe and Mail, Toronto) and "powerful technique" (New York Times), praising him as a "magnificent musician" (Le Figaro), "great pianist" (Corriere de la Serra) and "el mage del piano" (Ritmo). He received his diploma in piano, chamber music and vocal accompaniment at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, Paris and was prize-winner of the France Telecom Foundation.
More about Diana Damrau and Nicolas Testé
Diana Damrau has established herself as one of today's most sought-after interpreters of song, regularly performing at most worldwide renowned venues. She enjoys a close artistic partnership with pianist Helmut Deutsch and with harpist Xavier de Maistre.
Recording exclusively for Warner/Erato
Diana Damrau made her recording debut with Arie di Bravura - a collection of Mozart and Salieri arias. Subsequent solo releases were awarded amongst others the ECHO and the OPUS Klassik prize. Damrau also features on various complete opera recordings on both CD and DVD.
In February 2018,
Diana Damrau performed in the most renowned concert halls in Europe interpreting together with tenor
Jonas Kaufmann and pianist Helmut Deutsch Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. The according live album was released by Warner/Erato.
In addition,
Diana Damrau made her debut in 2018 in title role in Maria Stuarda at the Opernhaus Zurich and she performed in the title role in a new production of La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera, sang the role of Ophélie at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in Hamlet. In the 2019/20 season
Diana Damrau performed the New Year's Eve concerts together with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Kirill Petrenko.
A close cooperation connects
Diana Damrau with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Besides their „Artist in Residence" at the
Barbican Centre London in 2019 they made guest appearances at
Carnegie Hall New York, among others. In January 2020 the recording of Strauss' Four Last Songs under the baton of Mariss Jansons was released.
In the season 2021/22 she will make her debut in the title role of Anna Bolena at the Zurich Opernhaus and the Vienna State Opera as well as her debut in Capriccio at the Bavarian State Opera. At her concert tours she will perform selected Strauss songs with Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under the baton of Jérémie Rhorer and present a programme of Love songs by Brahms and Schumann together with
Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch in major European cities.
Diana Damrau is Kammersängerin of the Bavarian State Opera (2007), holder of the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art (2010) and the cross of Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2021).
In previous seasons Nicolas Testé performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper in La Bohème (Colline) at the Metropolitan Opera in Carmen (Zuniga), at the Opéra de Paris in Samson and Dalila (Abimelech) as well as at the
Los Angeles Opera in the role of the Four Villains in The Tales of Hoffmann.
Further performances include Nicolas Testé's return to the Bayerische Staatsoper in the production of Lucia di Lammermoor (Raimondo). Furthermore, he performed at the Opernhaus Zurich in Maria Stuarda (Giorgio Talbot) and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the same role. Further productions at the Deutsche Oper Berlin include Faust (Mephisto) and La Gioconda (Alvise Badoero). In January 2018 he performed at the Opéra National de Paris in The Barber of Seville (Basilio).
In October 2018 Nicolas Testé returned to the Opéra Bastille to sing in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots in the role of the servant Marcel followed by an engagement at the MET performing in Les Pêcheurs de perles (Nourabad).
In spring 2019 Nicolas Testé made a celebrated role debut singing the Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute at Paris' Opéra Bastille as well as a role debut as Claudius in concert version performances of Hamlet in Barcelona and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In autumn 2019 Testé returned as Sir Giorgio in Bellini´s I Puritani at the Opéra Bastille.
In the season 2021/22 he will be on stage as Compte des Grieux in Manon at the Opera of Lyon, as Ramfis in Aida in a production with
Anna Netrebko at the Teatro San Carlo Naples, in Norma as Oroveso at the Gran Teatre des Liceu Barcelona and as Colline in La Bohème at the MET.
Besides numerous opera productions Nicolas Testé regularly performs with internationally renowned symphony orchestras. In November 2017 he embarked on an Asia Tour together with the renowned soprano
Diana Damrau performing opera gala and recital programmes with concerts in Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei and Beijing. In the frame of the tour VERDIssimo he gave concerts in Europe's major concert halls in May and June 2018.
In the upcoming seasons Nicolas Testé tours again Europe and Asia together with soprano
Diana Damrau presenting their new programme „Kings and Queens of Opera" and can be heard with the Orchestre National de France in the Requiem of Camille Saint-Saëns.
Photo credit: Jiyang Chen
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