Leonardo De Lisi

Leonardo De Lisi’s career has been extremely varied covering various operatic styles and a wide range of concert repertoire.

He made his debut in 1990 at a very young age, performing his first operatic roles at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza (Le Nozze di Dorina by Galuppi) and at the Martina Franca Festival (Il Bravo by Mercadante).  During the Mozart bicentennial celebrations in 1991, he scored a great success at the Aldeburgh Festival (UK) in the role of  Alessandro in Mozart’s Il Re Pastore and also took the part of the Male Chorus in Britten’s  The Rape of Lucretia.  From 1992 to 1995 he was a tenor soloist at the Nice Opera, taking principal, cover or secondary roles in almost all the productions there (Rigoletto, Ernani, Don Pasquale, Carmen, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Ariadne auf Naxos, La Rondine, L'Elisir d'amore, Capriccio, Attila, Die Fledermaus, Die Schöpfung, Don Giovanni, Der fliegende Holländer, Yevgény Onégin etc.).  In 1994 he made his debut as Alfredo in La Traviata in Dublin, while between 1994 and 1996 at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa he sang the title roles in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria as well as the first performance of Il Paradiso degli Esuli by Bruno De Franceschi.  Between 1997 and 1999 at Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna he took part in the replicas of Francesco Cavalli’s Ercole Amante (Laomedonte) and sang Bajazet in Handel’s  Tamerlano at the San Gimignano Festival.  At the Teatro Comunale in Bologna he took a leading role in the world premiere of Ero e Leandro by F. Festa and Codice Mosè by C. Scannavini. At Teatro del Giglio in Lucca he sang the role of Prunier in Puccini’s La Rondine while in 2000, at the Teatro Regio in Turin, he interpreted Barone de Laubardemont in Penderecki’s Die Teufel von Loudun. On tour in France between 2001 and 2004 (Paris, Besançon, Orleans, Tourcoing, Clermont Ferrand, Reims, Orleans, etc.) he sang in Rossini’s La Scala di Seta and Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea conducted by Jean-Claude Malgoire, and in Rotterdam he sang the role of Vitaliano in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino under Alan Curtis. At the Venice Biennale in 2002 he sang the role of Giordano Bruno in the world premiere of Big Bang Circus by Claudio Ambrosini and he subsequently took part in the world premieres of Il fantasma nella cabina, Il mistero del finto cantante and Che fine ha fatto la piccola Irene? by Marco Betta and Andrea Camilleri, alongside Katia Ricciarelli, Vincenzo La Scola and Luciana Serra, first at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo and then in tour in Messina, Lucca, Modena, Siena and Rome. At Mittelfest 2003 in Cividale del Friuli he sang Trimalchio in Maderna’s Satyricon  with the ORT conducted by Luca Pfaff, a role he has taken up dozens of times since in Italy and abroad (Pisa, Livorno, Lucca, Milano, Macerata, Amsterdam, etc.). During the 2003 As.Li.Co season (Como, Brescia, Cremona, Pavia) he sang Arbace in Mozart’s Idomeneo (directed by P.L. Pizzi), while at the Opera in Nice in  2004 he was engaged to sing the title role in the same opera. In a recent performance of Honegger’s Les aventures du Roi Pausole, first staged in Paris and then shown all over France (Nice, Marseilles, Toulouse, Vichy, etc.), he played the role of Giglio to unanimous critical acclaim. Recently, he had considerable success in the comic travesty role of Donna Pasqua in Wolf-Ferrari’s Il Campiello in Trieste and Rovigo. In the 2008 Settembre musica, Milano MI.TO. at the Teatro F. Parenti, he played the leading role in the first Italian performance of Gesualdo by Luca Francesconi, with the Divertimento Ensemble conducted by Sandro Gorli and staging by Francesco Micheli.

His primary specialization however is vocal chamber music and he is recognized as one of the leading exponents in this field in Italy. He has won numerous prestigious awards and as a consequence he is regularly invited to perform at prominent concert societies:  Musée d'Orsay and Teatro degli Champs-Elysées in Paris, gli Amici della Musica in Padua, Florence and Perugia, the Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Breslau, the Barbican Center in London, the Spring Festival in Budapest, Accademia Chigiana in Siena, the Ghnessin Institute in Moscow, Merkin Hall in New York, Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia, the Spoleto Festival, Società del Quartetto in Milan, the Tanglewood Festival (USA) and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, to mention just the most prestigious. During the Venice Music Biennale 2000 he was the tenor soloist in a complete performance of all Stravinsky’s sacred and profane vocal works with Luisa Castellani and the Orchestra and Choir of Teatro La Fenice conducted by Antonio Ballista.

He has sung as tenor soloist with important orchestras such as the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Tuscany Regional Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, the London Synphony and the French Radio Orchestra, and under renowned conductors such as Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Michel Plasson, Bruno Bartoletti, Simon Rattle, Peter Maag, Fabio Luisi, Klaus Weise and Tamas Vasary. Some of his concerts have been recorded by leading European radio stations. In January 1996, Leonardo De Lisi was among the guests of honour at Elly Ameling’s farewell concert held in the main hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Marina D’Ambroso

Lieder may be the passion of the solitary wanderer, yet it takes two to perform them.

Awarded best pianist at the Walther Gruner Lieder competition in London (the only Italian performer to receive this recognition), Marina D’Ambroso’s trained under the guidance of great interpreters such as Elly Ameling, Dalton Baldwin, Rudolf Jansen, Erik Werba, Walter Berry, Ernst Haefliger and Hans Hotter.

After graduating in piano, singing and vocal music she studied in Irwin Gage’s Lieder interpretation course at the Zurich Music Academy. She was awarded a summa cum laude Diploma at the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien.

Numerous international singers have been accompanied by her including Lucia Valentini Terrani, Leo Nucci, Lorna Windsor, Leonardo De Lisi and Nuccia Focile and she was the collaborating pianist for courses held by Vera Rosza, Carlo Bergonzi, Lucia Valentini Terrani and Claudio Desideri.

She has given concerts for both Italian and foreign concert societies, including the Società del Quartetto in Milano, GOG in Genoa, Amici della Musica in Perugia and Padua, the Biennale in Venice, the Bratislav Cantans Festival, the Krakow Philharmonic, the Autumn Musical Festival of Santander and the London City Art Trust.

Her recordings include music by Malipiero, Ullmann and Hartmann for Nuova Fonit Cetra in collaboration the Athestis Chorus, and for Vocalia and she has recorded Melodies by the sisters Lili and Nadia Boulanger.

She teaches at the Padua Conservatoire.