New York City Opera to Present ENRICO CARUSO AND HIS SONGS

New York City Opera presents Caruso and His Songs on Wednesday, February 21, 2024 at 7:30pm

at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Ave, NYC. Tickets are $10 for students, $35 for general admission, and can be purchased online at https://www.carnegiehall.org/calendar/2024/02/21/caruso-and-his-songs-0730pm.

150 years after his birth, tenor Mark Milhofer and pianist Marco Scolastra pay homage to one of the most famous singers of all time with a recital made up of songs written by and for Enrico Caruso, taken from their new double album. A 90 minute program that shows an unknown side of the tenor along with examples of how he influenced and inspired his friends, colleagues and admirers to write for his incredible voice. Caruso was really the first "cross-over" artist, the first international celebrity, bringing to a wider audience his stage roles alongside the Neapolitan songs of his homeland. He was either the first international operatic superstar to leave behind an extensive aural legacy, or he was the first singer to be propelled to that status as a result of his recordings. Either way, he became a household name, his recordings reaching an audience beyond any previous singer's dreams.

Mark Milhofer has discovered at least ninety songs written for and dedicated to him. But what most people don't realize is that Caruso himself also composed, writing a handful of songs. Sometimes he just wrote the tune, sometimes just the words and just once he wrote both. The inspiration for many of the songs was his colorful and sometimes tragic love life, dominated by his partner Ada Giachetti. Caruso's life was full of drama, great wealth, generosity and a lot of hard work.

Mark and Marco had the incredible opportunity to perform these songs in Caruso's house, his villa just outside Florence, around the time of the 100th anniversary of his death. Their new album, Enrico Caruso - His Songs, is made up of his nine songs, along with 39 of the 90 songs written for him, was recorded in Caruso's house, and is available now, to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Caruso's birth on February 25th 1873.

PROGRAM:

Enrico Caruso/Riccardo Barthelemy, Adorables Tourments

Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Mattinata

Francesco Paolo Tosti, Seconda Mattinata

Caruso/Calogero Adolfo Bracco, Serenata (Souvenirs d'un Concert)

Pier Adolfo Tirindelli, O Primavera

Mario Ferrarese, Portami Via

Raoul Gunsbourg, Le Moment Qui Passe

Luigi Denza, Vieni

Caruso/Earl Carroll, Dreams of Long Ago

Gaetano Calamani, Fiore Gentile - O Night Divine

Tirindelli, Amore e Fede

Caruso/Vincenzo Billi, Campane a Sera

Mary Helen Brown, Thoughts of You

Arturo Buzzi-Peccia, Lolita

Caruso, Tiempo Antico

Gabriele Sibella, Sotto il Ciel

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

After a quarter century of singing around the world, Mark Milhofer is at the peak of his vocal

powers. A Choral Scholar at Oxford, trained at the Guildhall School of Music, he then won one of the

few places on the Italian Opera Studio in Milan.

Career highlights include working with Franco Zeffirelli in Pagliacci in a Greek Amphitheatre in the

shadow of the Parthenon; spinning around the stage using two side tables as roller skates in Il

Barbiere di Siviglia; being naked for a movingly staged Billy Budd in Turin; learning magic tricks for

Menotti's The Consul; flying off in a pink carriage in Cenerentola in Bern; being blindfolded for

Britten's Curlew River in Perugia; and singing in a haystack in Purcell's King Arthur in Berlin and

Vienna.

Mark's busy concert schedule often includes Bach's Passions, Handel's Messiah, Britten's Serenade

for Tenor, Horn and Strings and War Requiem, Orff's Carmina Burana and Rossini's Petite Messe

Solennelle. Recital programs often promote new CD releases, including Tosti: The Song of a Life

and Benjamin Britten Complete Folk Song Settings. Mark's latest project is based around the songs

written by and for the great tenor Enrico Caruso. He has also written the introduction for a new

book of Caruso's songs which have been published together for the first time.

Future operatic plans include Monteverdi's Ulisse in Geneva and Aix en Provence, Luigi Rossi's Il

Palazzo Incantato in Versailles, Cavalli's Eliogabalo and George Benjamin's Lessons in Love and

Violence in Zurich, a staged St John Passion in Salzburg, Dijon and Paris, and Acis and Galatea at the

Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Next recordings will be Britten's Les Illuminations with Oleg Caetani

and the London Philharmonia and Britten's Michelangelo Sonnets with Marco Scolastra (piano) for

Brilliant Classics.

Marco Scolastra graduated with honors from the Conservatory of Perugia, where he specialized with Aldo Ciccolini, Ennio Pastorino and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. He has played for the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Teatro dell'Opera/Rome, Teatro Regio/Parma, Auditorium dell'Orchestra "G. Verdi', Festival dei Due Mondi, Ravello Festival, Teatro La Fenice, 'I concerti del Quirinale', Teatro di San Carlo, Musei Vaticani, Teatro Massimo, Conservatory 'P.I. Čajkovskij', Institute 'F. Chopin', Orchestre National du Capitole, Festival van Vlaanderen. As a soloist he has played under many important conductors: Yuri Bashmet, Andrew Constantine, Romano Gandolfi, Howard Griffiths; Richard Hickox, Claudio Scimone.

For many years he played in a duo with pianist Sebastiano Brusco. He has an intense collaboration with playwright and music historian Sandro Cappelletto. He has also been on stage with illustrious actors including Sonia Bergamasco, Arnoldo Foa, Ugo Pagliai, and Elio Pandolfi (a long association lasting almost twenty years).

ABOUT NEW YORK CITY OPERA

Founded as "The People's Opera" by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1943, New York City Opera (NYCO) has remained a critical part of the city's cultural life. Launching the careers of dozens of major artists, presenting engaging productions of both mainstream and lesser-known operas alongside commissions and regional premieres, NYCO has continued to endure as a uniquely American Opera Company of international stature with a distinct identity and singular mission: affordable ticket prices, a devotion to American works, English-language performances, the promotion of up-and-coming American singers, and seasons of accessible, vibrant and compelling productions intended to introduce new audiences to the art form.

Stars who launched their careers at New York City Opera include Plácido Domingo, Catherine Malfitano, Sherrill Milnes, Samuel Ramey, Beverly Sills, Tatiana Troyanos, Carol Vaness, and Shirley Verrett, among dozens of other great artists. New York City Opera has also presented such talents as Anna Caterina Antonacci and Aprile Millo in concert, as well as its own 75th Anniversary Concert in Bryant Park.

New York City Opera forged a path of inclusion and diversity in the arts. It was the first major opera company to feature African American singers in leading roles (Todd Duncan as Tonio in Pagliacci, 1945 and Camilla Williams in the title role of Madama Butterfly, 1946); the first to produce a new work by an African American composer (William Grant Still, Troubled Island, 1949); and the first to have an African-American conductor lead its orchestra (Everett Lee, 1955).

A revitalized City Opera re-opened in January 2016 with Tosca, the opera that originally launched the company in 1944. Outstanding productions since then include: the world premieres of Iain Bell and Mark Campbell's Stonewall, commissioned and developed by NYCO), legendary director Harold Prince's new production of Bernstein's Candide; Puccini's beloved La Fanciulla del West; and the New York premiere of Daniel Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas - the first in NYCO's Ópera en Español series. Subsequent Ópera en Español productions include the New York premiere of the world's first mariachi opera, José "Pepe" Martinez's Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, Literes's Los Elementos, and Piazzolla's María de Buenos Aires. NYCO's Pride Initiative, which produces an LGBTQ-themed work each June during Pride Month, includes such productions as the New York premiere of Péter Eötvös's Angels in America and the American premiere of Charles Wuorinen's Brokeback Mountain.

New York City Opera continues its legacy with regular main stage performances at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, an acclaimed summer series in Bryant Park that brings free performances to thousands of New Yorkers annually, and revitalized outreach and education programs at venues throughout the city that are designed to welcome and inspire a new generation of opera audiences.

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