Italian Passions: An Evening of Bel Canto
Get tickets. Concessions: Students with valid ID; Over 65s; Unwaged; MU Alumni.
More about the festival including the full programme
Irish National Opera returns to Arts and Minds with a concert that celebrates the timeless beauty of bel canto singing. Expect soaring arias and heartfelt expressions of operatic masters such as Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini from singers Anna Devin, César Cortés, and Gianluca Margheri, accompanied on piano by Brenda Hurley.
Duration: 90 minutes
Venue: Aula Maxima (#29 on this map)
Widely admired for her “vocal control, artistry and musico-dramatic intelligence” (Opera News) Irish soprano Anna Devin has gained recognition for her interpretations of baroque and classical repertoire. Previous Irish National Opera roles include Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Elisabetta in Rossini’s Willian Tell, Musetta in a concert performance of Puccini’s La bohème, Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
Anna’s 2024-25 season comprises of a full calendar of concert work, she will join Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra to sing Haydn’s Paukenmesse and will sing Handel’s Messiah in Benjamin Appl’s conducting debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Anna continues her affinity for the baroque with a new programme with the Academy of Ancient Music under Bojan Čičić in London and Cambridge. She will also sing Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under David Hill, Haydn’s Creation at the National Concert Hall under Peter Whelan and Bach’s Mass in B minor with Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra under Marios Papadopoulos.
Recordings include Puccini’s La bohème for Signum with Irish National Opera; Handel’s Arminio and Faramondo for Accent from the International Händel Festspiele Gottingen; Mozart’s Il re Pastore and Mitridate, re di Ponto with Classical Opera for Signum Classics; and Arias for Benucci with Arcangelo for Hyperion.
Anna is an alumna of the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artist program, the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the National Opera Studio.
The Colombian tenor César Cortés completed his master degree in 2019 with Marta Mathéu at the Liceu Conservatory in Barcelona. He has won prizes in various competitions: the Colombian National Singing Competition with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá in 2016 and the Concurs de Cant Josep Palet in 2017. In 2019 he was awarded the International BelCanto Prize as best emerging voice at the Rossini Festival in Wildbad. He made his operatic debut at Ópera de Colombia in Rossini’s La cambiale di matrimonio. Since moving to Spain he performed at Teatro de Sarrià in Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino and L’inganno felice; Òpera de Sabadell in Mozart Così fan tutte, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore; in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (which he studied with Teresa Berganza), and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Palau de la Musica (which he studied with Francisco Araiza). Other international engagements include: Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia in Reggio Emilia, Bologna and Mannheim; La Cenerentola in Stockholm and Bonn; Bellini’s La sonnambula, Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Donizetti’s Don Pasquale in Oldenburg; Don Pasquale in Trieste; Auber’s La muette de Portici, Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Mozart’s La finta giardiniera and Die Zauberflöte in Kiel; and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Liceu in Barcelona. He made his Irish National Opera in Der Rosenkavalier.
Gianluca Margheri - Bass-baritone
Born in Florence, Gianluca Margheri began to study music dramaturgy before studying singing at the Cherubini Conservatory of Music in Florence. In 2009 he won the Toti dal Monte International Competition in Treviso, and debuted as Villotto in Haydn’s La vera costanza under Jesús López-Cobos at Teatro Real Madrid, at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège and the theatres of Saint-Étienne, Rouen and Reggio Emilia. Recent highlights include his debut in the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Hungarian State Opera), Rossini’s Stabat Mater (Opera Firenze), Alidoro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Teatro Massimo, Palermo), Purcell’s The Fairy Queen (Hungarian State Opera), the title role in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Theater St Gallen), Asdrubale in Rossini’s La pietra del paragone and the Count in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari), and Talbot in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda in Riga. He sang Asdrubale under Daniele Rustioni for his Rossini Opera Festival Pesaro debut, and Garibaldo in Handel’s Rodelinda for his Gran Teatre del Liceu debut in Barcelona. He made his INO debut in the title role of Vivaldi’s Bajazet and the production’s run at the Royal Opera House in London was nominated for two Olivier awards and won one. He is an enthusiastic concert singer with a repertoire encompassing works by Charpentier, Handel, Mozart, Fauré and Brahms. Conductors he has collaborated with include James Conlon, Zubin Mehta, Marco Armiliato, Friedrich Haider, Riccardo Frizza, Andrea Battistoni, Roland Böer, Alan Curtis, Jonathan Webb and Gabriele Ferro.
Brenda Hurley - Pianist
Brenda Hurley is Professor of Opera Mentoring at the Royal Academy of Music in London and is regarded as one of the leading vocal coaches of her generation.
In the course of a long international career, she has worked with many of the world’s leading conductors, directors and singers. From 2012-20 she was the Director of the International Opera Studio in Zurich and from 2020-24 she was the Head of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music in London. As pianist and vocal coach she has worked at the Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Wexford Opera Festival, Scottish Opera, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Opera North, the Dutch National Opera, English National Opera , Opera Bastille ,the Ruhr Triennale, Opera Zuid and Glyndebourne Festival, where she received the Janni Strasser Award for the best repetiteur.
As a passionate advocate of young singers, Brenda coaches for training programmes at Salzburg Festival’s prestigious Young Singers Project , the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, The National Opera Studio, the Young Artists Training Programme, Tokyo, Jerwood Young Artists Programme, Glyndebourne Festival, the Semperoper, Dresden, the Opera Academy Teatr Wielki in Polish National Opera and the Opera Studio of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. She is Vocal Consultant for the Irish National Opera Studio and is a member of the vocal staff of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. She is a regular jury member of international singing competitions, including the Moniuszko International Singing Competition, Warsaw and the International Opera Awards.