Vito Priante

Rossini’s Dandini (La Cenerentola) has previously brought the Italian baritone successes at the major houses of Vienna, Munich, Naples, and Los Angeles. Other portrayals in the bel canto comedies include Figaro/The Barber of Seville (Rome, Berlin, Turin, Florence), Prosdocimo/Il turco in Italia (Munich), and Belcore/L’elisir d’amore (Turin). His achievements in more dramatic bel canto operas include Cecil/Maria Stuarda (Barcelona). Priante is a highly praised Mozartian, with successes in that repertoire including Figaro (eight leading theaters, among them Glyndebourne/DVD, Munich, and Berlin), Leporello (Venice), and Guglielmo (Lyon). His roles encompass a wide variety of familiar fare – for example, Escamilllo/Carmen (Covent Garden) and the four villains/Les contes d’Hoffmann (Madrid) – and more rarely heard works, from Handel’s Tamerlano (Covent Garden, Barcelona) and Jomelli’s Betulia Liberata (Rome) to Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero (Madrid, La Scala – the latter portrayal earned him the Italian music critics’ 2008 Franco Abbiati Prize as best male singer of the year). His discography includes operas of Handel, Vivaldi, Cherubini, and Donizetti. “At the beginning of my career,” Priante told ClassicPeople.com, “I found myself performing the Baroque repertoire to which I was drawn and from which I found inspiration, in particular because of the theatricality of the genre, the recitatives, and the da capo. You are forced to be inventive in order to avoid repetition and honestly, to avoid boredom.” Priante later moved to a new repertoire, “equally suitable to my voice type. Singing Mozart, Rossini, and Donizetti has the sensation of using all the facets of my voice and in particular supports the idea that interpretation follows technique and not the other way around, and both are equally important.”

Lyric Opera debut: Dandini/ La Cenerentola (2015|16)

Last updated: October 4, 2015
Photo: Cantonio Aragona