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Sondra Radvanovsky

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Sondra Radvanovsky
Radvanovsky in 2022
Born(1969-04-11)11 April 1969
Berwyn, Illinois, U.S.
CitizenshipUnited States
Canada (since 2016)
Education
OccupationOperatic soprano
Years active1995–present
Spouse
Duncan Lear
​
​
(m. 2001; div. 2022)​

Sondra Dee Radvanovsky[1] (born 11 April 1969) is an American and Canadian soprano. Specializing in 19th-century Italian opera, Radvanovsky is widely regarded as a leading interpreter of bel canto, verismo, and works by Giuseppe Verdi. Her repertoire includes the title roles in Médée, Norma, Tosca, and Rusalka, Leonora in Il trovatore, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, and Donizetti's "Tudor Queens": the title roles in Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Elizabeth I in Roberto Devereux.

Early life and studies

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Radvanovsky was born in Berwyn, Illinois, to a Czech father and Danish mother.[2] At age 11, she moved to Richmond, Indiana. She studied at Pleasant View School and Richmond High School and then Mission Viejo High School. She sang her first full-length opera, Mimi in Puccini's La bohème, in Richmond at age 21.[3] She studied voice at the University of Southern California for two years and drama at the University of California, Los Angeles for two years, after which she studied privately.[4] She also received training at the Tanglewood Music Center and the University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music.[5]

In 1995 Radvanovsky won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions[6] and first prize in the Loren L. Zachary Society Competition.[7] In 1997 she won the George London Foundation Competition. Her teachers have included Martial Singher, Ruth Falcon,[1] and Anthony Manoli, who is also her accompanist.[8]

Career

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After the National Council Auditions, Radvanovsky enrolled in the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.[8] In 1996, she appeared in Rigoletto as Countess Ceprano.[9] After performances in smaller roles there, she came to attention as Antonia in Les contes d'Hoffmann.

She became a regular soloist at the Met, performing in Verdi's Stiffelio, Bizet's Carmen, Verdi's Il trovatore, La bohème, and Verdi's La traviata. In May 1999, she appeared at Houston Grand Opera as Elena in Boito's Mefistofele.[10] In 2000, she performed in Verdi's Luisa Miller at the Spoleto Festival USA.[11] In October 2002, she appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in the title role of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah.[12]

In 2006, she made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London in Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac, opposite Plácido Domingo in the title role.[13]

Sondra Radvanovsky in 2008

In 2010, she opened the Canadian Opera Company's season in the title role of Verdi's Aida. She was successful as Leonora, notably in David McVicar's production of Il trovatore at the Metropolitan Opera.[14] In 2011, she hosted the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD, which was broadcast in film theaters around the world.[15] In addition to her specialty in Verdi heroines, she has also sung the title roles of Puccini's Suor Angelica, Puccini's Tosca, and Dvorak's Rusalka, among others.[16]

During the 2014/15 season, Radvanovsky sang the title role in Bellini's Norma, which she called a "perfect role vocally and temperamentally" in an interview with The New York Times,[8] at the San Francisco Opera. She made her Norma debut at the Teatro Campoamor with Ópera de Oviedo in the 2011/12 season and received critical and popular acclaim in the role during the 2013/14 season at the Metropolitan Opera.[17] In the Metropolitan Opera's 2015/16 season, Radvanovsky performed all three queens in Donizetti's "Tudor" operas, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Queen Elizabeth I in Roberto Devereux.[18]

At the Paris Opera, Radvanovsky appeared in the title role of Aida in 2016.[19] Other roles there included Marguerite in Gounod's Faust, Hélène in Verdi's Les vêpres siciliennes and Élisabeth in Verdi's Don Carlos.[20]

At the Liceu Opera, Barcelona, she appeared in the opera Andrea Chénier on 24 March 2018; after a prolonged ovation for her aria La mamma morta, the conductor granted her an encore, a practice which is now rare.[21] On 4 July 2018, she repeated the aria D'amor sull'ali rosee during a performance of Il trovatore at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the first woman - and only the third singer - to sing an encore since the house's opening in 1989. For the 2022-2023 season at the Metropolitan Opera, Radvanovsky sang the title role in the company's first-ever new production of Cherubini's Médée.[22]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Radvanovsky and fellow soprano Keri Alkema launched a podcast series entitled Screaming Divas with the first episode aired on 24 April 2020.[23][24]

Personal life

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Radvanovsky was introduced to Duncan Lear by tenor Michael Schade.[25] They married in December 2001[1] and Lear assumed the role as her business manager. She lived in New York while her husband was in Toronto during the first year of marriage, after which they lived together in the suburbs of Greater Toronto, first in Oakville, and then in Caledon, Ontario.[26][27] She acquired Canadian citizenship in February 2016.[28] In 2022, Radvanovsky and Lear divorced.[29]

Awards and recognition

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Radvanovsky won Outstanding Female Performances in Roberto Devereux with the Canadian Opera Company in 2014 Dora Award, while the production itself was awarded the best production.[30] She also won the Female Singer category in the 2nd Annual Excellence in Opera Awards for the same production.[31] She was a recipient of 2015 Opera News Award.[32] On 12 October 2016 she was honored in the annual Opera Canada Awards.[33] She won "Sustained Excellence in Performance" in the 4th Annual Excellence in Opera Awards for the Tudor trilogy at the Met.[34] She won "Outstanding Female Performance" in the 2017 Dora Award for Norma with Canadian Opera Company.[35] She was named the 2018 Vocalist of the Year by magazine Musical America.[36] In June 2018 she was named an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music.[37]

Discography

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CD

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DVD

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Citron, Paula (22 September 2003). "Sondra Radvanovsky". Opera Canada – via thefreelibrary.com.
  2. ^ Driscoll, F. Paul (November 2013). "Sweet Sound of Success". Opera News. Vol. 78, no. 4.
  3. ^ Wasserman, Adam (February 2009). "Chanson Triste". Opera News. Vol. 73, no. 8.
  4. ^ mj Buell (29 April 2011). "We are all Music's Child - May 2011". The WholeNote.
  5. ^ "Sondra Radvanovsky - Artist bio". San Francisco Opera. Archived from the original on 18 September 2010.
  6. ^ "Metropolitan Opera National Council Winners" (PDF). Metropolitan Opera. p. 5. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  7. ^ "Winners and Finalists 1995". Loren L. Zachary Society. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  8. ^ a b c Schweitzer, Vivien (19 April 2011). "At the Met, a Soprano Ascendant". The New York Times.
  9. ^ Hampton, Wilborn (21 September 2017). "Met Opera Season to Showcase Radvanovsky, Yoncheva, McVicar". HuffPost. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  10. ^ "MEFISTOFELE". Houston Theatre. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  11. ^ "Vast, inventive Spoleto is arts feast". The Christian Science Monitor. 2 June 2000.
  12. ^ von Rhein, John (3 October 2002). "Lyric gives McCarthyistic 'Susannah' a ringing revival". Chicago Tribune.
  13. ^ Fairman, Richard (10 May 2006). "Cyrano de Bergerac, Royal Opera House, London". Financial Times.
  14. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (18 February 2009). "Verdi's Foundlings, Nobles and Gypsies, Transported to the Age of Goya". The New York Times.
  15. ^ Taylor, James C. (8 January 2011). "Dispatch from New York: A soprano's second debut". Los Angeles Times.
  16. ^ Smith, Steve (11 January 2011). "Tosca, With Tinkering, Cooler Tempers and a Fill-In Tenor". The New York Times.
  17. ^ Schweitzer, Vivien (2 October 2013). "Praying to the Moon, While Lashing Out at Fate". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  18. ^ Michael Cooper (28 January 2016). "Sondra Radvanovsky, Opera Royalty, Takes On Donizetti's Triple Crown". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  19. ^ Rizoud, Christophe (13 June 2016). "De mal en Py". Forumopera.com (in French). Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  20. ^ "Sondra Radvanovsky". operadeparis.fr. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  21. ^ Salazar, Francisco (27 March 2018). "Sondra Radvanovsky Encores Barcelona Audiences". operawire.com. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  22. ^ Zachary Woolfe (28 September 2022). "Review: In the Met Opera's Medea, a Soprano Stands Alone". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  23. ^ "Sondra Radvanovsky & Keri Alkema Launch 'Screaming Divas'". OperaWire. 25 April 2020.
  24. ^ Rowat, Robert (5 May 2020). "Favourite Spaces: Sondra Radvanovsky guides us through her rural refuge". CBC Music. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  25. ^ Margles, Pamela (26 February 2010). "The Point of Lovely". The WholeNote.
  26. ^ Eatock, Colin (1 October 2010). "Sondra Radvanovsky, Aida and the Caledon Hills". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
  27. ^ Littler, William (22 November 2015). "Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky keeps her house in order". thestar.com.
  28. ^ Rowat, Robert (25 February 2016). "Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky becomes a Canadian citizen". CBC Music.
  29. ^ Javier C. Hernández (21 October 2022). "How to Be Medea? Summon Your Anger and Despair, and Hit the Gym". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  30. ^ Kaplan, Jon (24 June 2014). "The Dora Mavor Moore Awards, 2014". Now.
  31. ^ Plotkin, Fred (20 December 2014). "The Second Annual Excellence in Opera ('Freddie') Awards". WQXR.
  32. ^ Svokos, Alexandra (21 April 2015). "Here's What Opera's Biggest Stars Have To Say About The Future Of Their Art Form". HuffPost. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  33. ^ So, Joseph (24 October 2016). "Opera Canada Awards Honour Three Outstanding Canadians". Ludwig Van.
  34. ^ Plotkin, Fred (19 December 2016). "The Fourth Annual Excellence in Opera ('Freddie') Awards". WQXR.
  35. ^ Salazar, David (29 June 2017). "Sondra Radvanovsky Takes Home 2017 Dora Award". OperaWire.
  36. ^ Delacoma, Wynne (17 October 2017). "Vocalist of the Year: Sondra Radvanovsky". Musical America.
  37. ^ "Four Extraordinary Canadians Receive Honorary Fellowships From The Royal Conservatory Of Music". BroadwayWorld. 1 June 2018.
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