Ailyn Pérez
Introduction
Winner in 2012 of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award and 2012 Placido Domingo Award, Ailyn Pérez has been praised for her dazzling vocalism and her alluring and committed stage presence. Named by Opera News as “one of opera’s next wave” (August 2012), the magazine observed, “The phrase ‘an embarrassment of riches’ might have been invented to describe the combination of talents that belong to Ailyn Pérez, the Chicago-born lyric soprano who truly seems to have it all.”
The soprano began her 2012-13 season with her house debut at the Bolshoi in Moscow, performing Mimi in La bohème. Her season also includes two runs at Hamburg’s Staatsoper, first as the Countess in Mozart’s le Nozze di Figaro and then in the title role of a new production of Verdi’s timeless classic La Traviata. Returning to the US, Pérez made her Avery Fisher Hall debut when she performed at the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala, which honored her as Richard Tucker Award winner. She then performed for the Richard Tucker Foundation at the Supreme Court in Washington, by invitation from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Her 2012-13 season includes performances as Mimì at Florida Grand Opera, her return to the Wiener Staatsoper to sing Adina in L’elisir d’amore opposite her husband, tenor Stephen Costello, and Alice Ford in Falstaff at the Glyndebourne Festival.
Last season was highlighted by Pérez’s historic win of the Richard Tucker Award, conferred annually on an American opera singer at the threshold of a major international career. She is the first Hispanic artist to win the prestigious prize in its 34-year history. Other highlights of Pérez’s 2011-12 season included highly-praised performances as Violetta in La Traviata at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in November, a role that she reprised in January 2012, again at the Royal Opera, in a one-night-only performance with her husband, tenor Stephen Costello. The Observer wrote, “The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama, from the impetuousness of her love for Alfredo...to the febrile emergency of her death...her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical."
Other performances in the 11/12 season included performances as Suzel in L’amico Fritz (Moscow), Mimì in La bohème (Zurich, Los Angeles), Violetta in La traviata and Marguerite in Faust (both at Hamburg Staatsoper), as well as a performance of Mozart’s Requiem conducted by Antonio Pappano (Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome). She also sang Gilda alongside Plácido Domingo in Act 3 of Rigoletto for the Domingo Gala concerts at the Royal Opera House (October 2011), appeared as Mimì in La bohème in a concert performance at Salzburg Festival, and gave acclaimed performances as Violetta in La traviata (Cincinnati) and Pamina in Die Zauberflőte (Ravinia).
For an up-to-date biography please contact Rachel Walters
_Jonathan_Rose.jpg)
_Jonathan_Rose.jpg)
