I’m back. Con­duct­ing duties have begun. Hav­ing a great time in the pit! Fan­tas­tic cast, won­der­fully inter­est­ing pro­duc­tion and just great peo­ple.
More to come as today is the big first day with orches­tra, 29 Sep­tem­ber.
Ciaoooooo!

Greet­ings again!
Last night’s per­for­mance of Gemma was an incred­i­ble suc­cess!
Con­grat­u­la­tions to every­one involved espe­cially my col­leagues Maria Agresta, Mario Cassi, Leonardo Gale­assi, Dario Russo and Mae­stro Roberto Rizzi Brig­noli. Two days off now! Woo-hoo! Wednesday…Maria begins… Ciaooooo!

Berg­amo is great! Gemma de Vergy was a huge suc­cess last night. Jim Yarbrough and I are enjoy­ing time out at the Cafe Berg­amo. Look­ing for­ward to tomorrow’s per­for­mance and then a cou­ple of days off before Maria di Rohan starts on Wednes­day. Ciaoooooo!

Hello every­one!

It’s been almost 3 weeks since my last per­for­mance of Vespri in Torino and more than a month since my last post.  I’ve been quite busy since then. On April 3rd, we had a very emo­tional per­for­mance of Bellini’s Norma in Cata­nia which was a ben­e­fit for a won­der­ful char­ity that raises money for fam­i­lies that have chil­dren with blood dis­eases. These funds are used to help the fam­i­lies with the expenses they incur while their loved one under­goes treat­ment in-hospital. The per­for­mance was an huge suc­cess as well as the fundrais­ing!  God Bless Ros­alba and her won­der­ful team!

I was then able to be home for 10 days to spend some much needed time with my fam­ily and to have a cou­ple of rehearsals with the Gre­gory Kunde Chorale. I’m happy to report that all is well on both fronts.

I’m in Lima, Peru now to per­form the Verdi Requiem on Wednes­day and Fri­day evening. It is a beau­ti­ful city with a great the­atre (Teatro Munic­i­pal de Lima) that we will actu­ally re-inaugurate with these per­for­mances. The the­atre burned down in 1998 and it has taken a while to restore. Let me say that the recon­struc­tion has been a fan­tas­tic suc­cess! They have a bit more work to do, but all in all, the city should once again be very proud of this mag­nif­i­cent struc­ture. I look for­ward to Wednes­day evening.

I’m off for home on Sat­ur­day of this week and then back to Naples, Italy for Verdi’s Les Vepres Sicili­enne on Tuesday.

I hope you have a chance to look at the sched­ule on the web­site.  There are quite a few addi­tions since the last post.  Most notably next April a return to Brus­sels for con­certs of Rossini’s Otello with Anna Cate­rina Antonacci as Des­de­mona and in June a return to Torino for Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. Also another excit­ing thing…this Sep­tem­ber, I return to Berg­amo to sing in Gemma di Vergy with Maria Agresta (my Elena in last months Torino Vespri) as Gemma and then in Octo­ber to make my Euro­pean con­duct­ing debut (!!!) in Maria di Rohan with Majella Cul­lagh as Maria.  Cool, eh?

I’m still learn­ing how to do the photo thing so, as soon as I’m capa­ble we’ll have some new pho­tos. Keep watching!

Greg

Hi Every­one:

Please for­give me for the self-promotion as it’s really not intended that way.  I just wanted to post a clip of last Friday’s broad­cast for those of you who were not able to receive the stream on the inter­net.  This is the aria “Giorno di Pianto” from the begin­ning of the 4th act of Verdi’s I Vespri Sicil­iani.  Sorry, the recita­tive before was left off of the clip.  Hope­fully in a few more days, my friend, COLORATURAFAN will be post­ing more things.  For now, here’s 5 min­utes of the 4 hour opera.  Click on the link below.

Enjoy!

Greg

Gre­gory Kunde, tenor

Orches­tra del Teatro Regio Torino, Italy

Gianan­drea Noseda, conductor

RAI Sto­ria broad­cast of 18 March, 2011