Tuesday, April 1, 2008
7:30 p.m.
Mahaney Center for the Arts, Concert Hall
Kate Royal, soprano
Roger Vignoles, piano
Soprano Kate Royal is in the early stages of what seems likely to be a brilliant career. Winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artists’ award, she has sung with Sir Simon Rattle at the BBC Proms, at Glyndebourne, The Royal Opera House, and the Teatro Real in Madrid. Of part of her 2007 Wigmore Hall recital, Hilary Finch wrote in The Times of London: “Within the first seconds of Liszt’s setting of Heine’s Die Lorelei, Royal had brought a world of sorrow to the two words traurig bin—withdrawing breath from the second so we felt acutely the melancholy pastness of the misery. Then the evening sun radiated through the full glow of her soprano, before the horror of the fatally enchanted boatman gripped the throat, and it was all over.” Sponsored by the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series.
Tickets: $15/12/5
http://go.middlebury.edu/tickets or 802-443-MIDD (6433).
Program:
RODRIGO Cuatro Madrigales Amatorios
Con que la Lavare?
Vos Me Matesteis
De Donde Venis, Amore?
De los Alamos Vengo, Madre
GRANADOS Quejas, o la maja y el ruisenor (Goyescas)
DEBUSSY From Cinq Poèmes de Baudelaire
Le Balcon
Le Jet d’Eau
La morts des Amants
DEBUSSY From L’enfant prodigue
Air de Lia
Intermission
CANTELOUBE Lou Boussu
La Delaissado
Malorous qu’o Uno Fenno
Berceuse (Brezairola)
Uno Jionto Posturo
STRAUSS Mädchenblümen op.22
Kornblumen
Mohnblumen
Epheu
Wasserrose
STRAUSS Einerlei
Ich Wollt ein Sträusslein Binden
Als Mir dein Lied Erklang
For additional program notes, please contact Events and Residency Manager Allison Coyne Carroll at carroll@middlebury.edu
Artist Biographies:
Kate Royal, Soprano
Born in London, Kate Royal studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio. Her many awards include the 2004 Kathleen Ferrier Award, the 2004 John Christie Award, and the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award.
Concert performances include Wagner’s Das Rheingold with Sir Simon Rattle (BBC Proms and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden), Mendelssohn’s Der Onkel aus Boston with the Bach Akademie Stuttgart under Helmut Rilling (also recorded), Mozart’s Zaide under Sir Charles Mackerras at the Edinburgh Festival and she made her U.S. debut with the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington) under Helmuth Rilling (Bach’s St. Matthew Passion). She appears in recital in London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Cologne, and at the BBC Proms.
She has recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Manchester Camerata and Schumann’s Liederkreis (for Hyperion) with Graham Johnson. In October 2006, Kate Royal signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics.
In opera, she has sung ‘Pamina’ (Die Zauberflöte) for the Glyndebourne Festival, ‘Countess’ (Le Nozze di Figaro) and ‘Governess’(The Turn of the Screw) for Glyndebourne on Tour and Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) for both the Teatro Real, Madrid and the Glyndebourne Festival.
Future concert engagements include the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic and Christie. Her future operatic engagements include ‘Micaela’ (Carmen) for the Glyndebourne Festival, ‘Countess Almaviva’ in new productions for both the Aix-en-Provence Festival and La Monnaie Brussels, the title-role in The Coronation of Poppea for English National Opera, Handel’s L’Allegro for the Paris Opera and both ‘Miranda’ (Ades’ The Tempest) and ‘Pamina’ for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden.
Roger Vignoles, piano
Roger Vignoles is one of the foremost piano accompanists of our time. In a distinguished worldwide career he has partnered a long list of eminent artists, from Thomas Allen and Arleen Auger to Sarah Walker, Felicity Lott, and Frederica von Stade. Among his first partners was the Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström, and he has also toured Europe, the U.S. and the Far East many times with Dame Kiri te Kanawa. With Sarah Walker he has recorded a wide range of repertoire from lieder by Schubert and Schumann to cabaret songs by Britten, Gershwin, and others. His many other recordings include the Britten Canticles with Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Michael Chance; Mozart songs with John Mark Ainsley and Joan Rodgers; Tchaikovsky songs with Joan Rodgers; a Beethoven disc with Stephan Genz; a debut disc with Katarina Karnéus on EMI; a French disc with Veronique Gens; and many recordings for Hyperion Records, including Wolf discs with Joan Rodgers, Stephan Genz, and Bernarda Fink. He has just embarked on a Hyperion project to record the complete songs of Richard Strauss, with the recent release of the first CD, with Christine Brewer.
Artist Websites:
http://www.askonasholt.co.uk/green/green/home.nsf/ArtistDetails/Kate%20Royal
http://www.emiclassics.com/artistdiscography.php?aid=110
Press Quotes:
“There’s a significant newcomer in Kate Royal’s alluringly sung Miranda (The Tempest), a welcome Covent Garden debut.”—John Allison, The Sunday Telegraph, March 18 2007
“The work climaxes with a quintet of reconciliation, as if to remind us that this story also hinges on the lovers Ferdinand and Miranda, winsomely portrayed by Toby Spence and Kate Royal.”—Amanda Holden, The Observer, March 18 2007
“Excellent performance from Kate Royal, who glows with humanity.”—Anna Prichard, The Independent, March 18 2007
“Kate Royal’s warm, unblemished tone and refined, shapely phrasing are a highlight of this world premiere recording.”--Richard Wigmore, The Gramophone, January 2006
“Kate Royal is well on her way to establishing herself as one of the finest sopranos to have emerged in Britain for some years.”—The Guardian, October 2005