OperaNews.com
Girls of Summer
MICHELLE JOHNSON tells BRIAN KELLOW about her upcoming debut as Aida at the Glimmerglass Festival.
Michelle Johnson's impressive
lirico-spinto voice is most familiar to those operagoers who frequent
the competition circuit: in 2011 alone, Johnson was a top prize-winner
in the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation, Gerda Lissner International
Vocal Competition and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
But she's about to step out in a highly exposed way. This July and
August, she takes on the title role of Aida in a new production at the
Glimmerglass Festival, staged by Glimmerglass’s artistic and general
director, Francesca Zambello.
At Glimmerglass, Johnson will become the latest in a long line of
gifted African–American sopranos to sing Verdi's Ethiopian princess.
Clearly, Zambello doesn't want this to be just another generic Aida:
an African–American tenor, Noah Stewart, has been cast as Radamès, and
on the podium is someone who should be well equipped to capture Verdi's
"Egyptian" sound — Nader Abbassi, artistic director and principal
conductor of Cairo Opera.
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