Celebrity Series of Boston
Gary Dunning, President and Executive Director
Presents
Joseph Calleja, tenor
Friday, April 17, 2015, 8pm — NEC’s Jordan Hall
(Boston) Celebrity Series of Boston will present tenor Joseph Calleja in recital on Friday, April 17, 2015 at 8pm at NEC’s Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA. Sponsored by the D.L. Saunders Real Estate & Hotel Investors Group, AMO; Media partner 99.5 WCRB.
Tickets start at $35, and are available online at www.celebrityseries.org, by calling CelebrityCharge at (617) 482-6661 Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m., or at the Jordan Hall Box Office, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA.
This performance marks Joseph Calleja’s Celebrity Series debut.
Tenor Joseph Calleja has sung 28 principal roles and performed on most of the world’s leading stages, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and the Vienna Staatsoper. An exclusive recording artist for Decca Classics, his third solo album, The Maltese Tenor, debuted as the best-selling vocal album on the core classical charts in the U.K. and Germany.
Born in Malta in 1978, Joseph Calleja began singing at the age of 16, inspired by the film The Great Caruso starring Mario Lanza. He began formal training with Maltese tenor Paul Asciak and made his professional debut in Malta in 1997 as Macduff in Macbeth. Later that year he won an award in the Belvedere Hans Gabor competition, launching his international career. He won the 1998 Caruso Competition in Milan and was a prizewinner in Domingo’s Operalia the following year.
In 2011 Calleja appeared with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Stockholm, a performance which was broadcast on international television. He has sung roles such as Nadir in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, Faust in Gounod’s Faust, the title roles in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux and Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz, Rodolfo in La bohème, and Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. At the Metropolitan Opera, he debuted in the title role of Bartlett Sher’s new production of Tales of Hoffmann. Other recent roles include the role of Pinkerton in a new production of Madama Butterfly at the Houston Grand Opera, and a role debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as Adorno opposite Plácido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra.
Calleja made his Covent Garden debut as the Duke of Mantua, and returned to sing Alfredo, Macduff, and Adorno, and sang in a concert performance as Nicias in Massenet’s Thaïs. At the Vienna Staatsoper he has portrayed Elvino in Bellini’s La sonnambula and Arturo in I puritani; Nemorino in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and the title role of Roberto Devereux. At Vienna’s Konzerthaus, he sang Tebaldo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi in concert performances recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and released in 2009. He sang Tebaldo in concert performances at the Salzburg Festival, and appeared as Verdi’s Duke and Bellini’s Elvino at the Zurich Opera. The Duke of Mantua was also the vehicle for debuts with the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Netherlands Opera, the Welsh National Opera, and Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he gave his first performances as the lead in Gounod’s Faust. He performed Nemorino at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, and he debuted as Rodolfo at Dresden’s Semperoper and at the Frankfurt Opera – where he returned for role debuts as Roméo in Roméo et Juliette and Ruggiero in La rondine. Calleja’s German debut was as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Regensburg Festival, a role he reprised for his debut with the Teatre Principal de Palma, Majorca. His first appearance at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro was in the role of Lind in the world premiere of Azio Corghi’s Isabella. In addition, he has sung Alfredo in a new production of La traviata at the Opera National du Rhin, Strasbourg; Ernesto in Don Pasquale in Brussels; Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia in Liège; Fenton in Falstaff at the Teatro Regio di Torino; Edoardo di Sanval in Verdi’s Un giorno di regno in Bologna; Verdi’s Duke in Rotterdam and Copenhagen; Rodolfo at the Bregenz Festival; and Leicester in Maria Stuarda in Stockholm and Parma.
Program
Tchaikovsky: Opus 6, no. 6, Net, tolko tot, kto znal (None but the Lonely Heart)
Caldara: Alma del Core
Handel: “Ombra Mai Fu” from Xerxes
Pergolesi: Nina
De Crescenzo: Rondine al nido
Bixio: Parlami d’amore Mariù
Offenbach: “Il était une fois à la cour d’Eisenach
Tosti: Ideale
Donaudy: Vaghissima sembianza
Tosti: La Serenata
Verdi: “Ah, La Paterna Mano” from Macbeth
Puccini: “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca
About Celebrity Series of Boston
Celebrity Series of Boston was founded in 1938 by pianist and impresario Aaron Richmond. Over the course of its 76-year history, Celebrity Series has presented an array of the world’s greatest performing artists, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arturo Toscanini, Ignace Paderewski, Artur Rubenstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Andrés Segovia, Kirsten Flagstad, Marian Anderson, Luciano Pavarotti, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Martha Graham, Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the New York City Opera Company.
The Celebrity Series has been bringing the very best performers–from orchestras and chamber ensembles, vocal and piano music, to dance companies, jazz, and more–to Boston’s major concert halls for 76 years. The Celebrity Series of Boston believes in the power of excellence and innovation in the performing arts to enrich life experiences, transform lives and build better communities. Through its education initiatives, the Celebrity Series seeks to build a community of Greater Boston where the performing arts are a valued, lifelong, shared experience–on stages, in schools, at home– everywhere. For more information on Celebrity Series of Boston, call (617) 482-2595 or visit us online at www.celebrityseries.org.
The Celebrity Series of Boston, Inc. receives generous support from Amy & Joshua Boger; Donna & Mike Egan; Gabor Garai & Susan Pravda; David & Harriet Griesinger; Paul L. King; The Royal Little Family Foundation; Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation; Eleanor & Frank Pao; The John S. and Cynthia Reed Foundation; Sanjay & Sangeeta Verma; Nancy Richmond Winsten; Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC; First Republic Bank; Foley & Lardner; Massachusetts Cultural Council; The Peabody Foundation; PTC; Tufts Health Plan; The D.L. Saunders Real Estate & Hotel Investment Group, AMO; Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
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