Ronald Naldi (born ) is an American lyric tenor who has sung on the stages of the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred ...
,
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is an American opera company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox (Chicago opera), Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, w ...
,
Arena di Verona
The Verona Arena is a Roman amphitheatre located in the historic center of Verona, an iconic symbol of the Venetian city alongside the figures of Romeo and Juliet. It stands as one of the grand structures that defined Roman architecture and i ...
,
Salzburger Landestheater
The Salzburg State Theatre (''Salzburger Landestheater'') is a theatre situated in Salzburg, Austria, a venue for opera, theatre, and dance, contemporary and older works, with resident companies of actors, singers and dancers. The theatre present ...
New Jersey State Opera
The New Jersey State Opera is an opera company based in Newark, New Jersey. It was established in 1964 as the Opera Theater of Westfield, and shortly after opening Alfredo Silipigni was hired as Artistic Director
An artistic director is the e ...
, under the baton of maestri
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine ( ; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March ...
,
Valery Gergiev
Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (, ; ; born 2 May 1953) is a Russian conducting, conductor and opera company director. He is currently general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre and of the Bolshoi Theatre and artistic director o ...
,
James Conlon
James Conlon (born March 18, 1950) is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of Los Angeles Opera and principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.
Early years
Conlon grew up in a family of five children on Che ...
Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin (born September 1, 1944) is an American conductor, author and composer.
Early life and education
Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a Jewish musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His fat ...
,
Joseph Colaneri
Joseph Colaneri is an American conductor.
Career
From 1987 to 1998, he was a conductor with the New York City Opera. He has been a member of the conducting staff at the Metropolitan Opera since 1998, and as of 2014 has conducted more than 35 perfo ...
,
Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras (; (17 November 1925 – 14 July 2010) was an American-born Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associ ...
,
Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene (December 21, 1946 – October 8, 1995) was an American conductor.
Early life and education
Keene was born in 1946 in Berkeley, California, the son of Yvonne (née Cyr) and Jim Keene. His mother was of Acadian, German, and Scott ...
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss (August 15, 1922 – February 1, 2009) was a German-American composer, pianist, and conductor.
Career
Born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922, Foss was soon recognized as a child prodigy. He began piano and theory lessons with J ...
,
Nello Santi
Nello Santi (22 September 1931 – 6 February 2020) was an Italian conductor. He was associated with the Zürich Opera House for six decades, and was a regular conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He was focused on Italian reper ...
, Vincent LaSelva, Thomas Booth, and Eduardo Müller, and alongside singers
Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, ...
,
Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti (, , ; 12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerou ...
,
Leo Nucci
Leo Nucci (born 16 April 1942) is an Italian operatic baritone, particularly associated with Verdi and '' Verismo'' roles.
Biography
Born at Castiglione dei Pepoli, near Bologna, Nucci studied with Giuseppe Marchese. He made his stage debut ...
Samuel Ramey
Samuel Ramey (born March 28, 1942) is an American operatic bass. At the height of his career, he was greatly admired for his range and versatility, having possessed a sufficiently accomplished bel canto technique which enabled him to sing the mu ...
, and Renee Fleming, among many.
His repertory comprises over 100 operatic roles in six languages, as well as an extensive repertory of American, English, French, German, and Italian songs.
Naldi has sung over 300 performances at the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred ...
since his debut there in 1983, including Ismaele in ''
Nabucco
''Nabucco'' (; short for ''Nabucodonosor'' , i.e. "Nebuchadnezzar II, Nebuchadnezzar") is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on the biblic ...
'', Tschekalinsky in '' The Queen of Spades'', and Vitek in the Met premiere of
Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (, 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, Music theory, music theorist, Folkloristics, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian folk music, Moravian and other Slavs, Slavic music, includin ...
's '' The Makropulos Case''. In his 15th consecutive season at the Met ('07-'08), he sang in productions of ''
Macbeth
''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...
'', ''
War and Peace
''War and Peace'' (; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work comprises both a fictional narrative and chapters in which Tolstoy discusses history and philosophy. An ...
'', ''
Otello
''Otello'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's play ''Othello''. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the La Scala, Teatro alla Scala, M ...
'', and '' The Gambler'', as well as a production of ''
Les Troyens
''Les Troyens'' (; in English: ''The Trojans'') is a French grand opera in five acts, running for about five hours, by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself from Virgil's epic poem the ''Aeneid''; the score was composed be ...
'' with
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine ( ; June 23, 1943 – March 9, 2021) was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March ...
and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five (orchestras), Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in ...
.
Naldi has also appeared with the festivals of
Spoleto
Spoleto (, also , , ; ) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is south of Trevi, north of Terni, southeast of Perugia; southeast of Florence; and north of Rome.
H ...
(Italy),
Waterloo
Waterloo most commonly refers to:
* Battle of Waterloo, 1815 battle where Napoleon's French army was defeated by Anglo-allied and Prussian forces
* Waterloo, Belgium
Waterloo may also refer to:
Other places
Australia
* Waterloo, New South Wale ...
, and Caramoor, and toured China, Egypt, the Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka with the Ambassadors of Opera. He has performed with over 25 symphony orchestras and has an extensive repertory of more than 30 oratorios. With St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, he has sung over 200 performances of the chamber operas of Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, Offenbach, Rieti, and Fioravanti.
Born in
Bound Brook, New Jersey
Bound Brook is a borough in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located along the Raritan River. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 11,988, an increase of 1,586 (+15.2%) from the 2010 census coun ...
, Naldi graduated in 1960 from
Bound Brook High School
Bound Brook High School is a comprehensive community public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Bound Brook, in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as the lone secondary school of the ...
Newspapers.com
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The ...
. "Ronald Naldi, 27-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Naldi of 514 Verona Place, has emerged in first place in the Mid-South Regional Metropolitan Opera Audition finals and will complete in the national semifinals in New York City on April 11.... Naldi was graduated from Bound Brook High School in 1960, where he was a pupil of Gene Ferguson, who recently signed a second two-year contract to sing with the Berlin Opera Co."
He is a member of the Italian-American Hall of Fame, and has been tenor soloist and artist-in-residence in
Ocean Grove, New Jersey
Ocean Grove is an Local government in New Jersey#Unincorporated communities, unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) that is part of Neptune Township, New Jersey, Neptune Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United State ...
, for 41 summer seasons.
Education
Naldi earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music in five years at
Indiana University School of Music
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music. It has more than 1,500 students, approximately half of whom ar ...
in Bloomington and subsequently received a
Fulbright scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...
to study in Rome. He has studied voice with
Charles Kullman
Charles Kullman (January 13, 1903February 8, 1983), originally Charles Kullmann, was an American tenor who enjoyed a wide-ranging career, both in Europe and America.
Life and career
Charles Kullman was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and bega ...
,
Margaret Harshaw
Margaret Harshaw (May 12, 1909 – November 7, 1997) was an American opera singer and voice teacher who sang for 22 consecutive seasons at the Metropolitan Opera from November 1942 to March 1964. She began her career as a mezzo-soprano in the ear ...
,
Luigi Ricci Luigi Ricci may refer to:
* Luigi Ricci (composer) (1805–1859), Italian composer
* Luigi Ricci (vocal coach) (1893–1981), Italian assistant conductor and vocal coach
* Gino Ricci (1910-?), Italian javelin thrower
{{hndis, Ricci, Luigi ...
, Luciano Francardi, Carol Bayard, and William Riley.
From 1966 to 1973, he was a professor of voice at Memphis State University (currently the
University of Memphis
The University of Memphis (Memphis) is a public university, public research university in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 20,000 students.
The university maintains the Herff Col ...
).
Discography
Most recent recordings are entitled ''O Sole Mio'' (2003) and ''Torna a Surriento'' (2004), the latter winning a critics' choice award from "Gramophone" magazine. Each features
Neapolitan
Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to:
Geography and history
* Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city
* Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and High ...
and Italian songs with orchestrations by John Colaiacovo.