Month: March 2020

Concert held in Hanoi to pay tribute to late opera singer Vu Manh Dung

19/03/2020

A concert was held at Saturday Coffee House in Hanoi recently to pay tribute to late opera singer Vu Manh Dung.

The concert featured famous opera artists including soprano Dao To Loan, mezzo soprano Quynh Huong, baritone Van Giap, and pianist Thuong Ha. They are Dung’s colleagues at the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

The audience was treated to masterpieces by world-renowned composers Frank Liszt and Beethoven and Vietnamese musicians Van Cao, Duong Thieu Tuoc and Pham Duy.

All proceeds from the concert have been donated to the late opera singer’s family.

Born in 1978, Dung was one of the leading opera singers in Vietnam. He served as deputy director of Opera Group of the Vietnam National Opera and Ballet before he was killed last month by his brother-in-law. He left behind his wife and four children.

Dung also taught at the Vietnam National Academy of Music and Military University of Culture and Arts.

He won domestic and international prizes during his career. In 2019, Dung was awarded the title of Emeritus Artist.

Baton Rouge’s Lisette Oropesa is at the top of the opera world

04/03/2020

Lisette Oropesa has had the kind of year where, if she wasn’t ready for it, it would have been impossible to keep up.

It’s her first day off in more than a week, and when the Baton Rouge-raised, New Orleans-born opera singer and her husband realize the latest Parisian metro strike means they might miss an intercontinental phone call, they know they have but one option to get to their apartment in time: Run.

“We’re cold because we’re sweaty. We’re in our running clothes, and we’d already run seven and a half miles, so, you know, what’s another mile?” Oropesa laughs.

It’s hard not to think that sense of adventure has helped Oropesa get where she is now, which at that particular moment meant preparing to star in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Opéra National de Paris. But in the past year, she’s also earned both the Richard Tucker Award and the Beverly Sills Award, two of opera’s top prizes. Her return to the Metropolitan Opera to star in Massenet’s Manon was applauded by The New York Times; critic Joshua Barone said Oropesa “slips into the title role as if it were custom couture.”

Somehow, she also managed to get home to LSU to host master classes and perform at her alma mater.

“Her roots in Louisiana are very precious to her, as is her family,” says Robert Grayson, the LSU professor of voice who still serves as Oropesa’s vocal teacher, occasionally flying out to her performances and rehearsals to offer advice. “She really understands the struggle and working at all times to do your best, and that continued outlook is what has really helped her achieve the gift of her talents, which is just amazing.”

Oropesa’s path has never been linear. Her parents fled from Cuba to New Orleans, landing later in Baton Rouge, where Oropesa’s mother, Rebecca, also a soprano, is a music teacher. Despite Rebecca’s insistence that Lisette would make a talented vocalist, a teenage Lisette didn’t yet put her focus there.

(https://www.businessreport.com/)

2019 was a banner year for Lisette Oropesa, shown here in the starring role in “Manon” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. (Photo by Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)