Gianna Rolandi Biography
Gianna Rolandi is an American soprano. Following a highly successful 20-year national and international operatic career.
Gianna Rolandi Age
Gianna Rolandi was born on August 16, 1952, in New York City, And grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina USA. She was born under zodiac sign Leo. Rolandi celebrates her birthday on August 16th every year.
Gianna Rolandi Alive
Gianna is alive and not dead as of now. She is also in perfect health despite her old age.
Gianna Rolandi Family
Her mother, Jane Frazier, was an American soprano. While her father, Enrico Rolandi is an Italian obstetrician-gynecologist. They met while singing in Italy. Roland’s mother taught voice at Converse College in Spartanburg. she hasn’t shared whether if she has siblings or not. All that is known at the moment is that she lost her father while at the age of three, who died in a car accident on Long Island.
And the family moved back to the Carolinas, her mother’s home. And later became a staff member of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. She remarried in 1959 to John West Coker. chairman of the Music Department at Wofford College in Spartanburg, and a staff member of the Brevard Music Center.
Gianna Rolandi Husband
Rolandi became acquainted with conductor Andrew Davis. When he conducted her performances of Zerbinetta in Ariadne Auf Naxos. Both at the Metropolitan Opera in 1984 and again at Glyndebourne in 1988.
They married in 1989 and lived in England until 2000 when Davis was appointed the music director and principal conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. They currently live in Chicago. Where Rolandi was the director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center and the LOCAA until 2013. Since Sir Andrew Davis’s knighthood in 1999, Rolandi may be referred to as Lady Davis.
Gianna Rolandi Violin
Rolandi started out as a violinist, at the age of 6.y. By the late 1960s, she was studying violin at the Brevard Music Center. And she attended the North Carolina School of the Arts as a violin major in her senior year of high school.
She took her first voice lessons at the Brevard Music Center and continued a long association with the Center. where many of her coloratura roles were learned and first performed.
Gianna Rolandi Soprano
The soprano then trained for four years at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She was a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera auditions in 1974, winning the Minna Kaufmann Ruud Competition as one of the youngest winners in its history. She graduated from the Curtis Institute in 1975.
Gianna Rolandi New York City Opera
In 1975 Rolandi got a contract with the New York City Opera. Before graduating from the Curtis Institute that same year. Her operatic debut, at NYCO, was as Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
And as Zerbinetta in Ariadne Auf Naxos, for both of which she received critical acclaim. While in New York, Roland studied singing with Ellen Faull. Appearing regularly with the City Opera since her debut, Rolandi moved beyond soubrette roles in operettas.
And as a leading coloratura soprano at the NYCO for the next 15 years. Singing more than 30 operatic roles, including I puritani, La Traviata, La fille du régiment, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor.
The Cunning Little Vixen, Lakmé, and Giulio Cesare. In her early years at the NYCO, Rolandi was able to establish her career firmly without needing to go abroad. In 1982 she said, “I feel like I’ve grown up here.
The City Opera is a blessing for me, as it is for lots of young singers. You get exposure and you don’t have to leave home.”Renowned soprano Beverly Sills, General Director of the New York City Opera, influenced Rolandi greatly.
Sills said of Rolandi in 1981, “Gianna epitomizes all the things I want to see the City Opera stand for.” Rolandi’s repertory included many of the retired Sills’ most famous roles “Beverly’s door is always open,” Rolandi stated in 1982.
Directorship at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Following her retirement from vocal performance in 1994, Rolandi has devoted herself to pedagogy and administration. She became Director of Vocal Studies for the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Ryan Opera Center.
And it’s Lyric Opera Center for American Artists (LOCAL) in May 2002. And was then named Director of the Ryan Opera Center and the LOCAA in 2006, succeeding Richard Pearlman upon his death.
The LOCAA, founded in 1973, is the professional artist development program for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. LOCAL is considered one of the most prestigious vocal programs in America. And has produced many notable singers.
Each year a dozen young singers are selected from the 500 who audition annually. And the selectees are in residence for twelve months, receiving an intensive regimen of advanced instruction, master classes, live performances.
Gianna Rolandi Lucia
Gianna Rolandi Quotes
♦ “I really enjoy LOCAA because you have the cream of the crop here.”
♦ “Everything they go through, I have been through.”
♦ “The first thing I want to pass on to them is how to do it.”
♦ “I was fortunate to have a solid technique and could sing standing on my head if I had to, and that’s what I want for them—an easy production…”
♦ “Kids this age have to be careful; they all want to sound like Brunnhilde’s”.
♦ “Having been a coloratura, I know it is possible to be heard in big houses without screaming your guts out.”
♦ “I want them to develop patience and a real sense of self-confidence, so they can stand up for what they believe in musically and not be pushed around.”
♦ “That’s so important in this field; you can have four sessions with four different coaches and they will all tell you something different.”
♦ “You have to learn how to make something your own, and how to tell somebody that’s the way you do it. I want them to be unique.”
Gianna Rolandi Net Worth
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