Works by Mozart, Verdi, Massenet, Saint Saëns, Donizetti, Guastavino, Ginastera, Piazzola and Parra. With Maria Luisa Merino Ronda (mezzo-soprano), Gustavo Ahualli (baritone), and Susana Frangi (piano). Reception after the concert.
About the artists
Gustavo Ahualli
Hailed for his rich and powerful baritone, Mr. Ahualli has become well known for his dramatic portrayals in a myriad of leading roles in both the standard operatic repertoire as well as new works by contemporary composers. In 1998, he obtained his Master’s in vocal performance from the Instituto Superior de Arte-Teatro Colón. In 2006, he was named first-prize winner of the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera Competition. Since his debut in the role of Papageno in Die Zauberflote with Teatro San Martin in his native Tucuman, Mr. Ahualli has appeared in more than 35 leading roles in operas such as Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata, Don Carlo, Nabucco, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, Turandot, Carmen, Werther, among others, in companies throughout United States, Southamerica and Europe. In the academic field, he is a Voice Faculty at Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.
Maria Luisa Merino Ronda
Singer Maria Luisa Merino, a native of Chile, is a graduate of Teatro Argentino de La Plata and currently studies at the Instituto Superior de Artes at Teatro Colon. She is the winner of the 2016 Women in Music contest, the second edition of the Lyrical Singing Contest held by the Chile Chapter of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. In 2017 she will perform in the productions of Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires: Der Rosenkavalier, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony and Rusalka.
Susana Frangi
Graduated from the Facultad de Bellas Artes of the National University of La Plata (Argentina) as a Professor Superior in Piano, Ms. Frangi completed her chamber music’s studies in the Accademia Musicale Chigiana de Siena (Italy) with Sergio Lorenzi and Riccardo Brengola and Orchestra Direction at the National Conservatory of Music of Buenos Aires with Mario Benzecry. She has conducted numerous concerts in Argentina and Venezuela, dedicated mainly to the propagation of the lesser known operas of the lyric repertoire. In 1993, in Argentina, she offered the first performance in her country of the opera Dafne by Marco da Galeano (1608) in its complete version. In 1998 she presented the first opera written on the American continent: La púrpura de la rosa by Tomás de Torrejón y Velazco. Since 1999 she conducted Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia and Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali, and L’Oca del Cairo among others, among others. In 2000 she was invited to New York by DeStefano Presents,inc. where she played a recital at the Donnell Library Center and during 2004 she came back to the United States, with the same company, as Assistant Conductor in Bohéme by Puccini. In 2011 she conducted the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Venezuela and ballet’s season at the Teatro Teresa Carreño of Caracas.