Florida Grand Opera Presents SongFest South Florida Program

The Josephine S. Leiser Center and Steinway Piano Gallery present the final SongFest South Florida program of the 2016-17 Season. Titled "A Night at Court," this recital features three members of Florida Grand Opera's Young Artist Program performing songs by celebrated court composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Josef Haydn, Joseph Martin Kraus, and Carl Michael Bellman.

The song recital will be offered twice: at the Leiser Center in Fort Lauderdale on Friday, March 31, 2017 at 7:30 pm and at the Steinway Gallery in Coral Gables on Saturday, April 1 at 7:30 pm. Both concerts are free of charge, but reservations are strongly encouraged.

"A Night at Court" provides an appropriate prelude to Florida Grand Opera's production of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, which deals with political and romantic intrigue in the court of Sweden's King Gustav III. (Ballo opens at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County on April 29, 2017.) The SongFest program was assembled with an eye toward the kind of music heard in Gustav's court during the late eighteenth century.

Tenor Dominick Corbacio, familiar to FGO audiences for his appearance as Monsieur Triquet in this season's production of Eugene Onegin, performs four beloved songs of Mozart: "Oiseaux, si tous les ans," K. 307; "Dans un bois solitaire," K. 308; "Das Veilchen," K. 476; and "An Chloë," K. 524. Corbacio also offers Domenico Scarlatti's "Gia il sole del gange," Giuseppe Giordani's "Caro mio ben," and Giovanni Paisiello's "Nel cor più non mi sento"-three songs that have been recorded with great success in recent years by Cecilia Bartoli.

Mezzo Courtney Miller, who sang the role of the impetuous Olga in Eugene Onegin, offers three songs by Joseph Martin Kraus, whose musical contributions to the court of Gustav III earned him the sobriquet "the Swedish Mozart": "Die Mutter bei der Wiege," "Anselmuccio," and "Der Abschlied." Miller also sings four songs by Swedish composer and poet Carl Michael Bellman: "Guståfs skal!," Epistle 71-"Ulla, my Ulla, what Sayest to my offer," "Lullaby for my son, Carl," and Song 64: "O'er the misty park of Haga."

Soprano Laura León interprets two favorites of Haydn: "The Mermaid's Song" and "The Pastoral Song," plus Mozart's "Vorrei spiegarvi o Dio" and "No, che non sei capace." The latter two songs are well known from soprano Diana Damrau's recording, Mozart Arias.

The pianist for the entire program is Howard Lubin, a member of Florida Grand Opera's music staff.

ABOUT THE YOUNG ARTISTS

COURTNEY MILLER has performed at many U.S. regional companies, including Virginia Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, and Madison Opera, in roles ranging from Hannah in Mieczyslaw Weinberg's The Passenger to Meg in Mark Adamo's Little Women.

DOMINICK CORBACIO has performed with Opera Saratoga and American Lyric Theater. He was a grant winner in the 2016 Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition in New York.

LAURA LEÓN has appeared in FIU Opera Theater's Street Scene and, with the Miami Summer Music Festival, as the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte. Earlier this season, she was Frasquita in Florida Grand Opera's Carmen.

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