Deborah Voigt Sings Her First Performance in Title Role of Gluck’s Rarely-Performed Alceste in Concert with New York’s Collegiate Chorale on May 26

Other Upcoming Engagements for Star Soprano Include Concerts in Reykjavik, Copenhagen, London, Berlin, and Paris; and Tours with Berlin’s Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Featuring Signature Wagner and Strauss Selections

Deborah Voigt, internationally renowned for her performances in operas by Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, and Strauss, gives her first performance of Gluck’s seldom-performed Alceste on May 26, in concert with the New York City Opera Orchestra and the Collegiate Chorale at the Rose Theater. A great classic role, the title part in Christoph Gluck’s second “reform” opera was a Metropolitan Opera specialty of Kirsten Flagstad and Eileen Farrell, who made her company debut in the opera.

Deborah Voigt comments: “I am very much looking forward to another concert with the Collegiate Chorale and the opportunity to sing this rarely-performed piece.”

While Voigt gives her role debut as Alceste with the Collegiate Chorale, she has previously sung concert performances of Beethoven’s Fidelio and two of his rare cantatas with the group. The May 26 concert will be the second version of the opera, as first performed in Paris in 1776. The growing international Gluck revival – of which last season’s Met production of Iphigénie en Aulide was a prime example – is receiving another local boost with this singular performance. After the sudden death last year of Robert Bass, artistic director of the Collegiate Chorale, it’s fitting that Voigt is returning to sing an important new role with the group.

Except for this concert in New York, Voigt’s spring schedule calls for a lot of travel: she is currently finishing a run of performances as Amelia – one of her signature roles – in Verdi’s Ballo at Paris’s Opéra Bastille (through May 13). Late May and early June give Deborah Voigt a chance to look at the “midnight sun”, with a recital in Reykjavik and an orchestral concert in Copenhagen. In concert with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, she sings some of her most popular pieces – arias by Beethoven, Wagner, and Strauss – including the final scene from Salome. She goes to Germany for a series of concerts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester under Ingo Metzmacher, starting at the Berlin Philharmonie (June 19); and continuing to nearby Cottbus for the Brandenburg Summer Concerts (June 20); then Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the Richard Strauss Festival (honoring the 60^th anniversary of the composer’s death with his valedictory work on June 23); and finally Paris, where the tour concludes at the historic Salle Pleyel (June 24). At each of these four concerts with the DSO, Voigt sings both the “Liebestod” from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Strauss’s Four Last Songs.

In July, Voigt returns to Covent Garden for a series of Tosca performances, and she’ll open Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 55^th season with that same opera on September 26.

Voigt was recently profiled on the NY-1 television interview program One on 1 with Budd Mishkin. That video can be viewed at the following link: www.ny1.com.

A list of Deborah Voigt’s upcoming engagements follows.

Deborah Voigt: Spring 2009 engagements

May 26: New York, NY
Gluck: Alceste (title role)
Rose Theater at Lincoln Center
Collegiate Chorale / George Manahan

May 31: Reykjavik, Iceland
Recital with Brian Zeger, piano
Háskólabíó Concert Hall

June 5: Copenhagen, Denmark
Beethoven: "Abscheulicher" from Fidelio; Strauss: Salome (final scene)
Tivoli Concert Hall
Tivoli Symphony Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko

June 12: London, England
Wagner: "Dich, teure Halle" (Tannhäuser), "Du bist der Lenz" (Die Walküre); Strauss: "Zweite Brautnacht" (The Egyptian Helen), "Ich kann nicht sitzen" (Elektra); Beethoven: "Abscheulicher" (Fidelio); Strauss: Salome (final scene)
London Symphony Orchestra / Asher Fisch
Barbican Hall

June 19-24
Wagner: "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde; Strauss: Four Last Songs
Tour with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Ingo Metzmacher
June 19: Berlin - Philharmonie
June 20: Cottbus, Germany - Brandenburg Summer Concerts
June 23: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany - Richard Strauss Festival
June 24: Paris - Salle Pleyel

April 28, 2009

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