Nelly Miricioiu

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Nelly Miricioiu is one of the major opera singers of our time. She was invited to the most of prestigious opera Houses around the world (Paris Opera, Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, San Francisco, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Roma, Wien, Hamburg, Barcelona, München to name a few).

[edit] Early Life and Career

Born in Adjud, Romania, on March 31, 1952, she is now a British citizen and lives in London since the early 80s. A child prodigy, she sang at a very early age on television, studied piano and singing in her hometown where she debuted as the Queen of the Night, at 18 years old. Later she was hired by the Brasov Opera for several years, singing roles like Mimi, Micaela, Rosalinde. At the same time she was a contestant to numerous Opera competitions, winning prizes in Barcelona, Paris, s'Hertengebosch, Oostende, Athens. These prizes opened her the doors to sing outside Romania and start an international career.

She was first engaged to sing "Traviata", "Manon Lescaut" and "Tosca" with the Scottish Opera, from 1981 to 1983. The success of those performances led to a sensational debut at Covent Garden early 1982 as Nedda in "Paggliacci" in a cast that included Jon Vickers, Piero Cappucilli, Thomas Allen. The next steps of success went during the 1982-1983 Season with debuts at the Paris Opera first singing the four Heroines of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" with Neil Shicoff, then Violetta of "La Traviata" to a great critic and public acclaim, while debuting at La Scala with "Lucia di Lammermoor" with a tremendous success.

[edit] Repertory

Nelly Miricioiu is renowed for her formidable acting skills and is considered as one of the most accomplished singing actress in a very large range of roles.

She is one of the best Violetta of her generation, a role she sang more than 300 times in most opera Houses in the world (Paris Opéra-Comique and Palais Garnier, Frankfurt opposite Alfredo Kraus, Wien Staatsoper, San Francisco, Sydney, Torino, both Covent Garden and English National Opera in London, Washington, San Diego, Dallas, Hamburg, Arena di Verona, Ravenna, Tokyo, Monte Carlo with Roberto Alagna among many others theaters)

She is an outstanding Puccini singer: "La Bohème" (Mimi from 1984 in Frankfurt, New York for her Met debut in October 1989, Teatro dell'Opera Roma with Francesco Araiza, Madrid with Placido Domingo, San Francisco but also Musetta at Covent Garden London, 1985), "Manon Lescaut" (Scottish Opera and Edimburg Festival 1982, Philadelphia, Frankfurt, Wien Staatsoper, Hamburg), "La Rondine" (role of Magda, first in Monte-Carlo 1991, then in Torino, at the Flanders Opera, in Stuttgart), "Madame Butterfly" (Hamburg 1998) and above all "Tosca" (since 1982: Scottish Opera, Frankfurt with José Carreras, Berlin both Opera Houses, Welsh National Opera, Paris Opéra Bastille, Covent Garden London, Chorégies d'Orange 2000, San Diego, Amsterdam conducted by Riccardo Chailly, Oslo, Liceu Barcelona 2003 in the Robert Carsen Production, Leipzig, La Monnaie Brussels, Grand Théâtre Geneva, Tel-Aviv ...)

She is even more acclaimed as a romantic bel canto singer, considered by many critics as one of her best specialist of this repertory in the modern times. Her technique allows her to color her voice very tastefully, to use the legato as few singer can and respond to the coloraturas demands of many of those roles. After her Scala triumph as "Lucia di Lammermoor" in 1983, she has been invited to sing the role of Lucia on many stages: Roma, Toronto, Wien. A Donizetti specialist, she sings the title role of "Lucrezia Borgia" in Montpellier (1987), Washington (1990), Amsterdam (1991), Sydney (1995) and Marseille (2002), of "Anna Bolena" in Amsterdam (1989), Washington (1992), Bruxelles (1993), London (2002), the role of Elizabeth in "Roberto Devereux" (Amsterdam 1994, Santiago Chili 2001, London Covent Garden 2003).

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