Roberto Alagna (; born 7 June 1963) is a French operatic
tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...
. He obtained French citizenship in 1981, while also retaining his previous Italian citizenship.
Early years
Alagna was born in
Clichy-sous-Bois
Clichy-sous-Bois () is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from central Paris.Sicilian immigrants. As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian
cabaret
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining o ...
s, mostly for tips. Influenced primarily by the films of
Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza (, ; born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza ; January 31, 1921 – October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and actor. He was a Hollywood film star popular in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Lanza began studying to be a professional singer at ...
and learning from recordings of many historic tenors, he then switched to opera, but remained largely self-taught. He was discovered by Gabriel Dussurget, the co-founder of the
Aix-en-Provence Festival
The Festival d'Aix-en-Provence is an annual international music festival which takes place each summer in Aix-en-Provence, principally in July. Devoted mainly to opera, it also includes concerts of orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo instrumental ...
.
Career
After winning the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, an initiative backed by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, that started in
Modena
Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...
in 1988, Alagna made his professional debut as Alfredo Germont in '' La traviata'' with the
Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hun ...
touring company. This led to many engagements throughout the smaller cities in France and Italy, mainly again as Alfredo, a role he would eventually sing over 150 times. His reputation grew and he was soon invited to sing at major theatres such as La Scala in 1990,
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
in 1992 and the
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (18 ...
at Covent Garden in 1994 (opposite
Leontina Vaduva
Leontina Vaduva (Romanian: Leontina Văduva; born in Roșiile, on December 1, 1960) is an acclaimed Romanian soprano. She studied at the Bucharest Conservatory and with Ileana Cotrubaș, and debuted in the title role of ''Manon'' at Toulouse, in ...
) catapulted him to international stardom.
Alagna opened the 2006/07 season at La Scala on 7 December 2006 in the new production of ''
Aida
''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 Decemb ...
'' by
Franco Zeffirelli
Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019), was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post-World War II era, ...
. During the second performance on 10 December, Alagna, whose opening performance was considered ill-at-ease, was booed and whistled from the ''loggione'' (the least expensive seats at the very back of La Scala), and he walked off the stage. The tenor's reaction to his public criticism was denounced as immature and unprofessional by La Scala management and Zeffirelli, who said, "A professional should never behave in this way. Alagna is too sensitive, it is too easy to hurt his feelings. He does not know how to act like a true star." The role of Radames was taken over successfully for the rest of the performance by his
understudy
In theater, an understudy, referred to in opera as cover or covering, is a performer who learns the lines and blocking or choreography of a regular actor, actress, or other performer in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to a ...
Antonello Palombi, who entered on stage wearing jeans and a black shirt.
In 2007 while at the Metropolitan Opera singing the role of Pinkerton in '' Madama Butterfly'', Alagna replaced the indisposed tenor
Rolando Villazón
Rolando Villazón Mauleón (born 22 February 1972) is a Mexican operatic tenor, stage director, author, radio and television personality and artistic director. He now lives in France, and in 2007 became a French citizen.
Villazón has published ...
as Romeo in ''Roméo et Juliette'' opposite soprano Anna Netrebko for two performances in September and two performances in December. Alagna was also engaged by the Metropolitan Opera at the last minute to cover for the indisposed in a 16 October 2007 performance of ''Aida''. After the performance, the audience gave him a standing ovation. The 15 December performance of ''Roméo et Juliette'' starring Alagna and Netrebko was broadcast by the Met into 447 theatres worldwide in high definition and seen by about 97,000 people.
In recent years, Alagna has been an advocate of restoring to prominence neglected French operas – Alfano's ''
Cyrano de Bergerac
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist.
A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...
Fiesque
''Fiesque'' (''The Genoese Conspiracy'') is an opera in three acts by the French composer Édouard Lalo. The libretto, by Charles Beauquier, is based on Schiller's 1784 play, '' Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua'', an account of the conspira ...
'', and new works –
Vladimir Cosma
Vladimir Cosma (born 13 April 1940) is a Romanian composer, conductor and violinist.
He was born into a family of musicians. His father, Teodor Cosma, was a pianist and conductor, his mother a writer-composer, his uncle, Edgar Cosma, composer and ...
David Alagna
David Alagna (born in Paris, 1975) is a French stage director and composer.
As a composer he is best known for his opera ''Le Dernier jour d'un condamné'' based on the story by Victor Hugo, to a libretto by his brother Frédérico Alagna, himself ...
's ''Le dernier jour d'un condamné''. He has also recorded light music with an homage album to
Luis Mariano
Luis Mariano Eusebio González García (13 August 1914 – 14 July 1970), also known as Luis Mariano, was a popular tenor of Spanish origin who achieved celebrity in 1946 with "La belle de Cadix" ("The Beautiful Lady of Cadix") an operetta by ...
, ''Sicilien'', and ''Pasión''.
Alagna was scheduled to make his debut at the
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...
on opening day, 25 July 2018, in the title role of a new production of
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's ''
Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wolf ...
''. Alagna withdrew from the festival on 29 June 2018 citing failure to learn the role in time.
Personal life
Alagna's first wife, Florence Lancien, died of a brain tumour in 1994; they had one daughter, Ornella, who was born in 1992. In 1996, he married Romanian
soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
Angela Gheorghiu
Angela Gheorghiu (; ; born 7 September 1965) is a Romanian soprano, especially known for her performances in the operas of Puccini and Verdi, widely recognised by critics and opera lovers as one of the greatest sopranos of all time.
Embarking ...
. The couple announced a divorce in 2009, but had reunited by 2011. However, in January 2013, the couple mutually agreed on a formal divorce. Alagna and Polish soprano
Aleksandra Kurzak
Aleksandra Kurzak (Polish pronunciation: ; born 7 August 1977) is a Polish operatic soprano who has an international career primarily in Europe and the United States. In her earlier career she was a specialist in lyric and coloratura soprano ro ...
had begun a relationship, and their daughter, Malena, was born on 29 January 2014. Alagna and Kurzak married in 2015.
Alagna has worked together on several projects with his brothers Frédérico Alagna and the stage director and composer
David Alagna
David Alagna (born in Paris, 1975) is a French stage director and composer.
As a composer he is best known for his opera ''Le Dernier jour d'un condamné'' based on the story by Victor Hugo, to a libretto by his brother Frédérico Alagna, himself ...
. The three brothers recorded an album of light music, ''Serenades'', and worked together on the younger brother David's opera based on Hugo's ''Last Day of a Condemned Man''. Alagna has often sung Alfano's Cyrano opposite his sister-in-law
Nathalie Manfrino
Nathalie Manfrino is a French soprano. For UNIVERSAL- DECCA, She recorded her first disc, "French Heroines" with The Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, DECCA label, which received the Golden Orpheus and the " Georg Solti prize". Her second solo ...
as Roxane.
The government of France named Alagna Chevalier of the
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
Il trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's mos ...
La bohème
''La bohème'' (; ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions '' quadri'', '' tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giusep ...
Lucia di Lammermoor
''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel '' The Bride of Lammermoo ...
'' (Donizetti)
* Edgar, ''
Lucie de Lammermoor
''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor''.
...
'' (French adaptation) (Donizetti)
* Fritz, ''
L'amico Fritz
''L'amico Fritz'' () is an opera in three acts by Pietro Mascagni, premiered in 1891 from a libretto by P. Suardon ( Nicola Daspuro) (with additions by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti), based on the French novel ''L'ami Fritz'' by Émile Erckmann a ...
'' (Mascagni)
* Hoffmann, ''
Les Contes d'Hoffmann
''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in ...
'' (Offenbach)
* Mario Cavaradossi, ''
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language drama ...
Roberto Devereux
''Roberto Devereux'' (or ''Roberto Devereux, ossia Il conte di Essex'' 'Robert Devereux, or the Earl of Essex'' is a ''tragedia lirica'', or tragic opera, by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after François An ...
'' (Donizetti)
* Cyrano, ''
Cyrano de Bergerac
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist.
A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...
'' (Alfano)
* Don Carlos, ''
Don Carlos
''Don Carlos'' is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play '' Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Fried ...
Werther
''Werther'' is an opera (''drame lyrique'') in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann (who used the pseudonym Henri Grémont). It is loosely based on Goethe's epistolary novel '' Th ...
'' (Massenet)
* Le Chevalier des Grieux, '' Manon'' (Massenet)
* Jean, '' Le jongleur de Notre-Dame'' (Massenet)
* Faust, ''
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...
Cavalleria rusticana
''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play ...
'' (Mascagni)
* Canio, '' Pagliacci'' (Leoncavallo)
* Duke of Mantua, ''
Rigoletto
''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play '' Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had co ...
'' (Verdi)
* Fiesque, ''
Fiesque
''Fiesque'' (''The Genoese Conspiracy'') is an opera in three acts by the French composer Édouard Lalo. The libretto, by Charles Beauquier, is based on Schiller's 1784 play, '' Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua'', an account of the conspira ...
'' (Lalo)
* Marius, '' Marius et Fanny'' (Cosma)
* Radamès, ''
Aida
''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 Decemb ...
'' (Verdi)
* Rodrigue, ''
Le Cid
''Le Cid'' is a five-act French tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille, first performed in December 1636 at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris and published the same year. It is based on Guillén de Castro's play ''Las Mocedades del Cid''. Castro ...
'' (Massenet)
* Ulysse, ''
Pénélope
''Pénélope'' is an opera in three acts by the French composer Gabriel Fauré. The libretto, by René Fauchois is based on Homer's ''Odyssey''. It was first performed at the Salle Garnier, Monte Carlo on 4 March 1913. The piece is dedicated ...
Un ballo in maschera
''Un ballo in maschera'' ''(A Masked Ball)'' is an 1859 opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The text, by Antonio Somma, was based on Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's 1833 five act opera, '' Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué''.
Th ...
'' (Verdi)
* Calaf, ''
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is " Nessun dorma", ...
'' (Puccini)
* Chevalier des Grieux, ''
Manon Lescaut
''The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut'' ( ) is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of ''Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité'' (''Memoirs and Adventures of a Ma ...
'' (Puccini)
* Samson, ''
Samson et Dalila
''Samson and Delilah'' (french: Samson et Dalila, links=no), Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar at the (Grand Ducal) Theater ( ...
James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala
''James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala'' was a concert, lasting (including intermissions) approximately eight hours, that the Metropolitan Opera staged in 1996 in honour of its then principal conductor and artistic director. Exc ...
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...