Artosphere Festival Orchestra
Verdi’s Requiem
Corrado Rovaris Music Director
PROGRAM:
- Giuseppe Verdi | Messa da Requiem (90 min)
Featured Soloists:
- Soprano: Tiffany Townsend
- Mezzo-Soprano: Allyson McHardy
- Tenor: Matthew Plenk
- Bass: Adam Lau
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 8pm
LOCATION: Baum Walker Hall at Walton Arts Center
ABOUT:
Joined by 120 voices from the Tulsa Opera Chorus led by 2024 Artosphere Chorus Director Lyndon Meyer, members of the University of Arkansas' premier choral ensemble Schola Cantorum led by Dr. Stephen Caldwell and Opera Theater Students led by Jonathan Stinson, and members of Symphony of Northwest Arkansas’ SoNA Singers led by Director Terry Hicks.
Recognized as an important musical voice by American Public Media’s “Performance Today” – the nation’s most popular classical music radio program – this dynamic ensemble of more than 90 young and talented musicians from around the world come “home” to Northwest Arkansas.
The 90-member Artosphere Festival Orchestra will converge in Northwest Arkansas for its twelfth season. Under the baton of internationally acclaimed Maestro Corrado Rovaris, the AFO features premier musicians from major symphonies, prestigious ensembles and distinguished programs across the globe performing both classic and new works by leading composers. Don’t miss your chance to see this world-class orchestra for their final performances.
MUSIC DIRECTOR BIO:
Corrado Rovaris is the Music Director of the Opera Philadelphia and Music Director of the Artosphere Festival Orchestra, founded in 2011 by the Walton Arts Center. Celebrated for his vibrant and expressive performances, especially in the bel canto and verismo repertoire, as well as his artistry in bringing new and contemporary works to life, Rovaris engages with his warm presence on the podium.
Maestro Rovaris opened Opera Philadelphia’s 2022/2023 season with Rossini’s Otello followed Verdi’s Falstaff at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Teatro Regio di Parma, and will finish the Opera Philadelphia season with Puccini’s La boheme before returning to lead the Artosphere Festival Orchestra in Northwest Arkansas. Rovaris’ 2023/2024 season will include Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ The Anonymous Lover, and Puccini’s Madame Butterfly with Opera Philadelphia, and Donizetti’s Alfredo il Grande at the Teatro Donizetti, in Bergamo Italy and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Born in Bergamo, Italy, Corrado Rovaris graduated from the Conservatory of Milan with degrees in composition, organ, and harpsichord. From 1992 through 1996 he was the Assistant Chorus Master of the Teatro alla Scala and made his debut on the podium with Il filosofo di campagna by Galuppi in a production by Associazione Lirica e Concertistica Italiana. He was subsequently invited to conduct at the Teatro Comunale in Florence and at the Rossini Opera Festival. Soon after, he began appearing as a regular guest in many of the major Italian opera houses such as La Scala, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro La Fenice, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Internationally he has led productions for the Opéra de Lyon, Opera Monte Carlo, Théâtre Municipal de Lausanne, Oper Köln, Oper Frankfurt, the Garsington Opera Festival, and the Japan Opera Foundation in Tokyo, among others. In symphonic repertoire, he regularly conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Danish Radio Sinfonietta, the Orchestra de Theatre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), and Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi (Milan).
In 1999 Rovaris made his U.S. debut with Opera Philadelphia conducting Il Nozze di Figaro. His subsequent collaborations with the company led to his eventual appointment as Opera Philadelphia’s first ever music director in the 2004/05 season, a position he has served in since. Elsewhere in North America, maestro Rovaris has conducted Anna Bolena and Roberto Devereux at the Canadian Opera Company and has frequently led productions at the Santa Fe Opera including Simon Boccanegra, La bohème, L’elisir d’amore, Don Pasquale, and Lucia di Lammermoor. Most recently, Maestro Rovaris returned to the Santa Fe Opera in summer 2018 to conduct L’italiana in Algeri. Other collaborators have included the St. Louis Opera and the Glimmerglass Opera. In October 2008 he conducted the Tucker Gala with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, featuring among other guest soloists Susan Graham and Bryn Terfel. He has established a close connection with the Curtis Institute of Music, and since 2009 has led several joint Curtis-Opera Philadelphia productions, including the 2018 production of Bernstein’s A Quiet Place.
Maestro Rovaris was awarded knighthood by the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2015 and was honored in 2016 with the Franco Abbiati Prize.