LATROBE, PA – The Saint Vincent College Concert Series returns this semester with mezzo soprano Marianne Cornetti and Susanna Lemberskaya on piano. The event will take place on Wednesday, November 9, at 7:30 PM in the Robert S. Carey Performing Arts Center. The performance will include operatic and American music. The concert will be free to all students, faculty, and staff. Freewill offerings will be taken.
Marianne Cornetti
Marianne Cornetti* is an internationally renowned Verdi mezzo-soprano who has appeared as Amneris in “Aida,” Azucena in “Il Trovatore,” Lady Macbeth in “Macbeth,” and Princess Eboli in “Don Carlos” at prestigious opera houses across the world, garnering rave reviews and winning the hearts of audiences globally. Opera magazine claims, “If her timbre did not sear itself into the memory, her vocal command of this redoubtable role was complete,” and Seen and Heard International raves, “[Her] voice is a miracle of power and flexibility from top to bottom. It is the emotion which she imparts into her singing, however, that makes her Azucena so memorable…Cornetti imbues each [role] with an emotional force all its own… The cheers and applause that rained down upon her at the end were well deserved.”
Cornetti opened her 2022-23 season with performances as Ježibaba in “Rusalka” with Pittsburgh Opera, where she was last seen as The Witch in Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel.” Later this season she can be seen with the company in her signature role of Azucena in “Il Trovatore.” She will also join the Metropolitan Opera to cover the role of Madame de Croissy in “Dialogues des Carmélites.”
Her previous season began with a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Orchestra Miami. In early spring, she was seen in the role of Leokadja Begbick in Kurt Weill’s “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” at the Teatro Regio Parma Italy and subsequently at the Teatro Emilia-Romagna. She closed the season in Orange, France, singing the role of La Cieca in Ponchielli’s Gioconda with the Choregies d’Orange, where she delivered “an impeccable ‘Voce di donna o d'angelo’” and her performance was deemed “a total success” (Premiere Loge).
Cornetti has performed to great acclaim the iconic leading Verdi roles of Azucena in “Il Trovatore” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Metropolitan Opera, Arena di Verona, Bregenz Festival, Teatro Comunale in Florence, National Theatre of China in Beijing, Teatro Municipal in Sao Paulo, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, La Coruña in Spain, Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, Teatro Regio in Parma, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and in the Teatro Comunale di Bologna’s tour in Japan and Amneris in “Aida” at the Teatro alla Scala, Hamburg State Opera, Vienna State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, New National Theatre Foundation in Tokyo, Theatre Royale de La Monnaie in Brussels, Israeli Opera at Masada, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Auditorio de Tenerife, Opera Naples, the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Belgium and Choregies D’Orange. Cornetti’s appearance as Amneris for Pittsburgh Opera in 2020 was rescheduled for their 2023 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Highlights of Cornetti’s recent engagements include her debut as Princess Eboli in Verdi’s “Don Carlos” in Tokyo as well as performances in Parma, Bilbao, Rome, Vienna, and London; Ulrica in “Un ballo in Maschera” at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and at the Bolshoi Theatre; performances of “Gianni Schicchi” and “L’enfant e les Sortiléges” with the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy Opera Project in Kyoto, Tokyo, and Nagoya, Japan; her debut as Dame Quickly in “Falstaff” at the Palacio de la Ópera in La Coruña, Spain, followed by a reprisal of the role at the San Diego Opera; Fidès in “Le prophete” at the Aalto-Musiktheater Essen; Ježibaba in “Rusalka” and The Witch in “Hansel and Gretel” at the Minnesota Opera; Lady Macbeth in “Macbeth” and Laura in “La Gioconda” with the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Preziosilla in “La Forza del Destino” at Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, La Monnaie in Brussels, and at Carnegie Hall in New York City; as the title role in La Gioconda at the Rome Opera and Romanian National Opera; and Abigaille in “Nabucco” at the New National Theatre Foundation in Tokyo, La Monnaie in Brussels, and at the Metropolitan Opera.
In 2005, Cornetti sang her first Wagnerian role, appearing as Ortrud in “Lohengrin” at the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste. She continued her excursion into this repertoire with her debut as Brangäne in “Tristan und Isolde” at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and has since sung the role of Ortrud in Amsterdam, Paris, Sao Paolo, and Palermo, and has appeared as Brangäne in Genoa. Cornetti’s verismo repertoire includes Santuzza in Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana,” which she performed at Teatro alla Scala; Princess de Bouillon in “Adriana Lecouvreur” at the Teatro Massimo of Palermo, Teatro di San Carlo, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro Regio in Turin, Opera di Firenze, and Dutch National Opera; and Rosa in Cilea’s “L’Arlesiana,” which she sang to great acclaim at the L’Opera de Montpellier and at Carnegie Hall with the Opera Orchestra of New York.
She appears frequently in concert in such works as Verdi’s “Requiem,” Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony,” Rossini’s “Stabat Mater,” Elgar’s “Sea Picture” and De Falla’s “El Amor Brujo.” She has recorded Cilea’s L’Arlesiana and Puccini’s “Edgar” opposite Plácido Domingo and was recently featured on a Teatro Regio di Parma recording of Verdi’s “Don Carlo” released in 2017 on the Dynamic record label.
-Madison Kozera, English major, of Abingdon, MD