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Davinia Rodríguez, double debut in Los Angeles with Roberto Devereux


– The Spanish soprano will take the role of the English Queen Elizabeth I in this Donizetti opera and will be singing it for the first time in the Californian opera house
 

January 2020

The Canary Island soprano Davinia Rodríguez, one of the most internationally renowned Spanish opera singers, continues to gain new ground in her acclaimed artistic career.  After her recent triumphs in Verdi and Mozart operas, the Spanish singer returns to Romantic bel-canto for her debut as the female lead in the Donizetti opera Roberto Devereux. Rodríguez will be adding this role to her repertoire alongside the tenor Ramón Vargas as Devereux, and both will be making their debut at Los Angeles Opera (USA).  They will be conducted by Eun Sun Kim in a Stephen Lawless production with Quinn Kelsey as the Duke of Nottingham.

With this debut, Davinia Rodríguez is returning to repertoire that fits her like a glove, as she explains: “My voice adapts comfortably to the bel-canto line, as when I first started out I performed a lot of roles in this style.  Bel-canto repertoire is as difficult as it gets, as it demands virtuosity in the high register and great control over fiato, but there is also deep psychological work to be done in serious roles such as Elisabetta.  The character has great dramatic strength as she weaves her way between political power and love, and this has to be expressed in the singing.  Performing this role is a milestone for any soprano.”

After her debut in Los Angeles, the Spanish soprano will travel to Italy to take the same role once again in April and May in Roberto Devereux at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

Outstanding dates among Rodriguez’s upcoming engagements include her debuts at the Bergamo Donizetti Festival and at the La Monnaie / De Munt opera house in Brussels, as well as her return to the Verdi Festival in Parma.

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Davinia Rodríguez takes her Luisa Fernanda to Oviedo

-The Spanish soprano will once again take the title role in the zarzuela Luisa Fernanda in the closing performance at the Spanish Lyrical Theatre Festival in Oviedo before beginning her 2019-20 season, in which she will continue to conquer great theatres in Spain, Italy and the United States.

May 2019

The Canary Island soprano Davinia Rodríguez makes her debut at the Teatro Campoamor in Oviedo this June in the closing performance of the Spanish Lyrical Theatre Festival in the Asturian capital.   She will take a role she knows very well: Luisa Fernanda, the leading lady in the famous zarzuela of the same name, by Federico Moreno Torroba with a libretto by Federico Romero and Guillermo Fernández-Shaw. “The score of this zarzuela is as well-written as any opera”, the Spanish singer explains, having made her debut in the role at the Palau de Les Arts de Valencia in 2014 with Plácido Domingo. “The melodies are incredible, and I have a couple of really beautiful duets to sing.   In Oviedo, as well as making my debut in this beautiful city, it will be in the Emilio Sagi production, which I already performed in Valencia, it is luxuriously elegant and full of great theatrical ideas,” she explains.

The production, which began its life in Milan at La Scala in 2003 and which was performed the year after at Washington Opera, is one of Sagi´s most acclaimed pieces.   Emilio Sagi is legendary in the world of Spanish musical theatre, and “collaborating with Emilio means being in the presence of enormous cultural heritage,” Davinia Rodríguez enthuses. “He always knows how to resolve a scene, with the greatest respect for the writers and the performers.”

Highlights among Rodriguez´s upcoming engagements include her return to the Teatro Real de Madrid with Bellini’s Il Pirata and her debut as Elisabetta in Donizetti´s Roberto Devereux at Los Angeles alongside Plácido Domingo.

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Davinia Rodríguez to make her debut at Los Angeles opera

-The Spanish soprano will take the role of Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux for the first time, alongside Plácido Domingo who will make his debut as Duke of Nottingham in February 2020

January 2019
Next season new opera house is due be added to the roster of international venues where Canary Island soprano Davinia Rodríguez has performed – Los Angeles Opera (USA). She will make her debut there in the role of Elizabeth I, female lead of the Donizetti opera Roberto Devereux, one of the greatest examples of Romantic bel-canto. The singer will travel to LA to participate in a Stephen Lawless production, with performances on the 22nd and 27th February and the 1st, 5th, 8th and 14th March 2020. She will be sharing the stage with the legendary Plácido Domingo, who will also be making his debut in the role of the Duke of Nottingham. The renowned Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas will take the role of Devereux. Los Angeles Opera has just announced its 2019-2020 season, which includes this production.
Davinia Rodríguez is one of the most successful young Spanish singers on the international circuit, In recent months she has performed a wide range of characters as, varied as they are complex, from Donna Elvira (in Mozart´s Don Giovanni at the China NCPA in Beijing) to Lady Macbeth (Verdi´s Macbeth at the Verdi Festival in Parma), as well as Liù (in Puccini´s Turandot at the Macerata Festival and at Las Palmas Opera in Gran Canaria), Marguerite (in Gounod´s Faust in Modena, Reggio Emilia and Piacenza), Thaïs (Thaïs by Massenet at the China NCPA in Beijing), Nedda (in Leoncavallo´s Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House of Muscat, Oman). She has also performed Verdi’s Requiem (at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona), been the star of a gala of opera arias with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra in Adeje (Tenerife) as well as participating, this January, in an opera gala in Honduras, once again alongside the great Plácido Domingo.

Info: https://www.laopera.org/season/2019-20/roberto-devereux/

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Davinia Rodríguez will be Donna Elvira in Beijing

-The Spanish soprano will return to the NCPA in the Chinese capital in November with Don Giovanni

October 2018
Davinia Rodríguez’s artistic engagements continue to consolidate her place on the international opera circuit. After having made her debut at the China National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing last February, in the lead role of Massenet’s opera Thaïs, the Canary Island diva will return to the same venue this November, this time to take on the role of Donna Elvira, one of the women taken in by Don Juan, the erotic Spanish myth that inspired Mozart to write his masterpiece Don Giovanni. “I have a fantastic memory of my debut in this impressive theatre in the capital of China”, the singer explains, “where the attentiveness and warmth of Chinese opera-goers really caught my attention. Now I am returning with another character that I adore and that I already performed in the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto (Italy).”
The Spanish singer knows the opera very well, as she also has Don Juan´s other big dupe, Donna Anna, which she has sung in Bilbao, in her repertoire. “They are two characters that complement each other, and each of them have wonderful moments in this great masterpiece in the history of opera, which is Don Giovanni”. To conclude, she adds “what they say about returning to Mozart from time to time being very healthy for the voice is absolutely true, as it helps a singer to keep in condition, even more so if I have just been singing more demanding roles such as those in Verdi operas, in which you have to sing above orchestras much larger than those in a Mozart production.”
Davinia Rodríguez has just triumphed at the Parma Verdi Festival, the most important event dedicated to the Italian composer’s work. In Parma she performed the extremely challenging role of Lady Macbeth, no less, in which she made her debut in Vienna in 2016. Now, in this revisiting of Mozart repertoire, she will perform in Beijing on the 27th and 29th November and the 1st December. Later, on the 28th and 29th December, she will be singing in two New Year concerts alongside the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Symphony Orchestra at the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in the Grand Canary capital.

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Davinia Rodríguez will be Lady Macbeth at the Parma Verdi Festival

-The Spanish soprano will return to Italy with Verdi’s Macbeth

September 2018

Once again the Canary Island soprano Davinia Rodríguez has agreed to take on one of the great challenges in the career of any singer of her register: the role of Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth, one of the most complex and difficult roles in the soprano repertoire. What’s more, she will be doing it at the most important event dedicated to the Italian composer, the Parma Verdi Festival.  Rodríguez made her debut in the role in 2016 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna alongside Plácido Domingo as Macbeth.

These performances will take place after a season full of new characters and music, highlights of these include her performances of Liù in Turandot (Macerata Festival, Las Palmas Opera in Gran Canaria), Marguerite in Faust (Modena, Reggio Emilia and Piacenza in Italy), Thaïs (China National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing), Verdi’s Requiem  (Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona), Nedda in Pagliacci (Royal Opera House of Muscat, Oman) and a concert of opera arias with the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra in Adeje (Tenerife).

“With Lady Macbeth you have to give it all you’ve got,” the Spanish diva explains, “as with any other role, but the truth is that this one demands absolute commitment on a dramatic level as well as on a technical and vocal level. That is why it is so fascinating. With this character Verdi created one of the greatest roles in our repertoire and that is why I am happy to be able to perform it in Parma, a city which has some of the most expert and knowledgeable audiences when it comes to Verdi operas.”

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Summer concert with Davinia Rodríguez and the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra

– The Canary Island soprano will change islands after her triumphant Liù at the Ópera de Las Palmas

June 2018
After charming both public and critics alike as Liù in Turandot (Puccini) in the Canary Islands Friends of the Opera Alfredo Kraus season in Las Palmas, Grand Canary, the soprano from Moya, Davinia Rodríguez, will travel to Tenerife to give an open-air concert alongside the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, an event which will be conducted by the maestro Jader Bignamini – musical director of the Milan La Verdi Symphony Orchestra. The programme will include arias from the Spanish diva´s wide repertoire and, of course, music by her most-loved composer, Giuseppe Verdi, will be well represented.

This concert marks the acclaimed soprano´s return to Tenerife after having begun this season with a gala in La Laguna alongside the tenor from Tenerife, Celso Albelo. The date is on the 13th July at the Costa Adeje Golf Club in the south of the island, and the concert is oriented towards people in the locality of Adeje and the many tourists who flock to the area, which is promoting the council´s Adeje Happy Streets cultural project.

When summer is over, the recently named “Adoptive daughter of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria” will begin the 2018-19 season at the Verdi Festival in Parma (Italy), where she will once again take the difficult role Verdi role of Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) which she sang for the first time last season at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna alongside Plácido Domingo as Macbeth. This is one of the most complex and demanding roles in the entire repertoire for soprano, a character which Davinia Rodríguez has mastered comfortably and for which she has great admiration and respect.

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Davinia Rodríguez will be Liù in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

-The Canary Island diva returns to her home turf to sing the role of Liù in Turandot which will mark the end of the Ópera de Las Palmas season.

May 2018
Davinia Rodríguez’s international career continues without stopping. Highlights of this season include her performance in the Macerata Festival as Liù in Turandot, her debut as Marguerite in Faust in the cities of Modena, Reggio Emilia and Piacenza (Italy), her recent triumph in the title role of Massenet’s Thaïs at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in China, her first Verdi Requiem at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona and her debut at the Royal Opera House Muscat (Sultanate of Oman) as Nedda in Pagliacci. Now the Spanish soprano is finally returning to the island of her birth, Grand Canary, this time to take a role which she is especially fond of, and with which she won the hearts of opera-goers in Bilbao some seasons ago: that of Liù in Turandot. “This is a character I adore”, explains the singer, “and which has always given me great satisfaction; she has a vocal register that I feel very comfortable with and I could feel her under my skin from the first time I sang the role at ABAO-OLBE in Bilbao. Singing in Las Palmas is obviously really exciting for me; it is marvellous to be able to sing for my home town”, Davinia Rodríguez concludes. The Turandot which can be seen in Las Palmas is a Les Soirées Lyriques de Sanxay Festival Production conducted by the Spanish conductor José Miguel Pérez-Sierra. Performances will take place on the 12th, 14th and 16th June at the Teatro Pérez Galdós in Las Palmas.

Upcoming engagements will take Davinia Rodríguez to the Verdi Festival at the Teatro Regio in Parma to sing the complicated role of Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth once again, a role which brought Rodríguez great success in Vienna in November 2016.

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Davinia Rodríguez is Thaïs in Beijing and will sing Verdi’s “Requiem” in Barcelona

-After her triumph as Marguerite in Faust in Italy, the Spanish diva will travel to China for her debut in Beijing in the title role of Thaïs, before returning to Barcelona with her first Verdi Requiem.

January 2018
With an ever-growing repertoire, and with successful appearances at an increasing number of theatres, the Spanish soprano Davinia Rodríguez’s career continues to go from strength to strength. She has just sung her first Marguerite in Faust (Gounod) in various cities around Italy, to great success, and is beginning the new year by preparing two new parts. Firstly she will be travelling to China at the end of January with another French opera, Thaïs, by Massenet, in which she will take the title role for her debut at National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing. She will then return to Spain for something very different, Verdi’s Requiem Mass, alongside the Gran Teatre del Liceu Symphony Orchestra and Choir. “I am very excited because, although I have not stopped studying new characters over the last two years, it has all been worth it as I have gained the satisfaction of a job well done,” explains the Canary Island singer. “The warm reception from audiences in Italy for the performances of Faust was really amazing, and the fact that I was able to give various performances in different cities allowed me to fall completely in love with the role. Marguerite is very close to my heart, and I hope to be able to sing the role again soon.”
Over the next few weeks Rodríguez will be taking on these two parts in two new venues for her. “My debut in Beijing marks an important step in my career, as does singing such a fascinating role as Thaïs for the first time, one of the most interesting and complex characters in French repertoire. I have been studying it conscientiously and I am truly excited to take the role on stage, as it allows me to exercise all the expressivity of the voice. Just days later I will make my debut at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona with my first Verdi Requiem, one of the Italian composer’s masterpieces which I have always dreamed of singing, and I am delighted that fate has decreed that it shall be in Spain,” explains the singer.
In China, Davinia Rodríguez will be conducted by the expert in French repertoire, Patrick Fournillier, in a Hugo de Ana production (3rd and 6th February), while in Barcelona her debut in the Verdi Requiem will be with the Gran Teatre del Liceu Symphony Orchestra and Choir, conducted by the musical director of the Barcelona opera house, Josep Pons (20th February).
Upcoming engagements include performances at the Royal Opera House Muscat (Sultanate of Oman), where she will take the role of Nedda in Pagliacci, and in the Canary Island Friends of the Opera Season in Las Palmas in Grand Canary, where she will return to sing the role of Liù in Turandot again.

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Davinia Rodríguez sings her first Marguerite in Italy

– The diva from Grand Canary is incorporating role of the lead female in Gounod´s opera Faust into her repertoire

 November 2017

After opening the season at the historical Teatro San Carlo in Naples with one of the Verdi roles she has sung the most, Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra, the Spanish soprano Davinia Rodríguez will remain in the country to continue to enchant the demanding Italian opera-goers. Next December she will embark on a tour of Italy which will give her the opportunity of singing the role of Marguerite, in the opera Faust, by Gounod. “Portraying this emblematic role represents a great responsibility, as this is one of the leading roles in Goethe´s legend, Faust, which has such relevance within Western culture,” the singer affirms. “Her character is pure and innocent, but also contradictory. After she has been captivated by Faust´s love-making, she falls madly in love with him while he is under Mephistopholes´ influence. Finally, she becomes a victim, regretting the relationship and going insane.” According to Rodríguez “Gounod knew exactly how to reflect each of the subtleties that the character needs with a completely lyrical vocal line, which is very demanding in the high register.  In this way the composer has made sure that the music and the interpretation of the role are one and the same thing,” she concludes. 

 Faust will visit the three theatres that are coproducing the opera on its tour:  the  Teatro Comunale in Modena (1st and 3rd December),  the Teatro Municipale Valli in Reggio Emilia (7th and 10th December) and the Teatro Municipale de Piacenza (15th and 17th December. It will be directed by Simone Derai and Davinia Rodríguiez will be joined on stage by Francesco Demuro (Faust), Ramaz Chikviladze (Mephistopheles) and Simone Piazzola and Benjamin Cho (alternating in the role of Valentin); Jean-Luc Tingaud will be conducting the Orchestra dell’Opera Italiana and the Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena Choir.

In 2018 the soprano will make her debut at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing (China) with her first Thaïs; she will perform her first Verdi  Requiem at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona alongside the Liceu Symphony and Choir. She will also sing her aclaimed Nedda in Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House in Muscat, in the Sultanate of Oman. 

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Davinia Rodríguez starts the new season at the San Carlo in Naples

– The Canary Island soprano will once again take on the role of Amelia Grimaldi in Simon Boccanegra in Naples after an opera gala in Tenerife and before performances in Modena, Reggio Emilia, Piacenza, Barcelona and Muscat.

August 2017
The Spanish soprano Davinia Rodríguez’s career continues to develop and be consolidated on the international circuit. Over this last year she has taken her talent to theatres in Barcelona, Spoleto, Naples, Vienna, Turin, Bilbao and Lisbon, among others. This summer she has returned to the Festival dei due Mondi in Spoleto to make her debut in the role of Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. She will also perform in the emblematic Sferisterio Macerata Opera Festival where she will once again take the role of Liù in Puccini’s Turandot, a role which she already took in 2014 at the ABAO-OLBE in Bilbao and which she has programmed in upcoming seasons in various European opera houses. On the 1st September she will travel to La Laguna (Tenerife) to perform in a concert alongside the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Frizza, and she will share the stage on this occasion with the tenors Celso Albelo and Badel Albelo, who are also from the Canary Islands. Later, Davinia Rodríguez will return to Italy to take the role of Amelia Grimaldi once again, in Simon Boccanegra at the historic Teatro San Carlo in Naples; it was with this Verdi opera that she made her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona last year, alongside Plácido Domingo, having also sung the role in Modena and Piacenza. She will give three performances in Naples on the 8th, 11th and 13th October in a Turin Teatro Regio production conducted by Stefano Ranzani and directed by Sylvano Bussotti.
Upcoming engagements in 2017-18 will include her debut in the role of Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust on a tour of Italy which will visit the Teatro Comunale in Modena, the Teatro Municipale Valli in Reggio Emilia and the Teatro Municipale in Piacenza, as well as a debut at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona with her first Verdi Requiem and at the Royal Opera House Muscat, in the Sultanate of Oman, with her acclaimed Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.