Diana Soviero To Hold Master Class At Florida Grand Opera, Today

Florida Grand Opera (FGO) and Steinway Piano Gallery Miami are pleased to present acclaimed soprano Diana Soviero in a masterclass on Saturday, February 18 at 7:30 pm in Steinway Piano Gallery Miami in Coral Gables.

Soviero's appearance marks the second in a series of masterclasses that Florida Grand Opera is hosting for members of its Young Artist Program. These classes are open to the public through FGO's SongFest Masters Series, an extension of the SongFest South Florida program. Soviero will work with four members of FGO's Young Artist Program: mezzo-soprano Melissa Fajardo, tenor Michael Kuhn, soprano Sarah Payne, and bass-baritone Alex Soare.

Soviero has a long and rich history with Florida Grand Opera, having appeared with the company numerous times, in works such as La Traviata, Pagliacci, Manon Lescaut, and Madama Butterfly. Susan T. Danis, General Director and CEO of Florida Grand Opera, says, "Diana is a great star who has truly lived a life in the theater. She has been a friend of FGO for years and thrilled audiences with her performances. We are delighted that our young artists will have an opportunity to benefit from her expertise."

Diana Soviero is one of the great interpreters of the classic Italian and French repertoire of our time. She is also widely known for her fiery dramatic talents, which led Opera Magazine to dub her "one of the world's great singing actresses." Soviero conquered many of the great international houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. A specialist in the works of Puccini, her powerful portrayals of Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, Suor Angelica, and both Mimì and Musetta in La Bohème have achieved a musical and dramatic standard that few sopranos can match. She has also distinguished herself in contemporary American roles, such as Mrs. Desrochers in Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally's Dead Man Walking, and Madame Raquin in Tobias Picker and Gene Scheer's Thérèse Raquin.

In recent years, Soviero has achieved great distinction as a teacher. In addition to maintaining a private studio, she has worked with students at the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Program, and serves as official Voice Instructor for the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at Washington National Opera. She also teaches on the voice faculty of The Mannes College New School for Music.

In New York, she has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Giulio Gari Foundation and the Gerda Lissner Foundation. In 2011, she was awarded the V.E.R.A. (Voice Education Research Award) from The Voice Foundation.

In November 2016, Soviero and her husband, the acclaimed stage director Bernard Uzan, who staged FGO's Carmen in the fall of 2016, were named Artistic Directors of the Florida Grand Opera Young Artist Program.

Attendees are invited to observe as Soviero shares the authority and craft of her long career with the talented young artists of Florida Grand Opera. These events are open to attendees age seven (7) and older. Individual tickets cost $35.