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Rising diva Christina Lamberti of the Houston Grand, San Francisco, Singapore Lyric, and Philadelphia opera companies will sing from her current projects and talk about her life 11 a.m. Monday in Williams Center for the Arts room 123.
Coordinated for the Experiencing Opera: Divas, Dalliances, and Death course taught by Nina Gilbert, director of choral activities, the event is open to the campus community.
Future visitors to the class will include makeup artist Kevin Rawlings of the Metropolitan Opera and librettist Michael Korie, who will read from his works in progress and answer questions. Theremin expert Jason Smeltzer performed for the class last week.
The class will visit Willard Martin Harpsichords in Bethlehem next month and will make trips to see Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, with a backstage tour, at the Metropolitan Opera; Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, also with a backstage tour, at New York City Opera; and Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera at the Metropolitan Opera.
Students in the course learn from field trips, readings, lectures, discussions, and guest artists. The class surveys operatic masterworks from a variety of eras and explores opera’s connections to other fields, including sociology, psychology, and architecture.
Lamberti has received widespread praise for her performances.
“In the title role [of Iphigénie en Tauride by Gluck], Christina Lamberti revealed a genuine spinto voice with exciting presence and the ability to infuse long, arching phrases with tremendous emotion,” notes an Opera News review. “Her soft singing was often ravishing.”
“The ability to convey emotion so vividly that an audience becomes totally enraptured in the moment is the rarest commodity in opera today. Fortunately, every once in a while a singer comes along who proves such artistry is still alive, as soprano Christina Lamberti did recently at the Merola Grand Finale concert in Davies Symphony Hall,” states the Bay Area Reporter.
“Her cavernous chest notes were seamlessly woven into the rest of her rich vocal tapestry,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle. “Here is someone to watch.”
Lamberti completed a three-year Adler Fellowship with the San Francisco Opera. She sang many roles during her residence, including such operas as Death in Venice, Elektra, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Clotilde in Norma, and Anna in Nabucco. She covered the title role of Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo and was called in the third act to substitute for an indisposed Carol Vaness. Her other credits include the title role in San Francisco Opera Center’s production of Iphigenie en Tauride and its production of Cosi fan Tutte, for which she sang the role of Fiordiligi. While at Adler she made her Festival Opera debut singing the role of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and was the Countess in its production of Le nozze di Figaro.
Lamberti began her studies at Westminster Choir College, where she appeared in productions of L’Enfant et les Sortileges, Les Dialogues des Carmelites, Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Warren Martin’s Cinderella. She then studied with Claudia Pinza at Duquesne University and participated for three years in the Ezio Pinza Council for American Singers of Opera program in Oderzo, Italy. In the same period, she apprenticed at the Pittsburgh Opera Center under the direction of Tito Capobianco. Next, Lamberti studied at Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, where her roles included Mimi in La Boheme, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan Tutte, and Alice Ford in Falstaff. She made her Opera Company of Philadelphia debut in the 1996 production of Aida before moving to San Francisco.