The internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Markella Hatziano will join the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Symphony Orchestra in concert at 7:30 p.m. April 28, at St. Paul United Methodist Church, in a program titled “Heroes, Heroines and the Commonfolk: Music of Berlioz and Copland.”
The concert is free and open to the public.
A native of Athens, Greece, Hatziano has sung at most of the world’s major opera houses, including La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Salzburg Festival, Tanglewood, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the State Opera of Berlin, the San Francisco Opera, the Baltimore Opera, the Opera Company of Boston, and many others.
On the concert stage, she has appeared with many of the world’s top orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the LA Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, and more.
She has collaborated with many of the great artists of our times including the opera singers Jóse Carreras, Jessye Norman, Montserrat Caballé, Shirley Verrett, Josephine Barstow, Gwyneth Jones, Carol Neblett, Samuel Ramey, Ben Heppner, Robert Hale, Jose Cura, Simon Estes, Michele Crider; the directors Robert Wilson and Franco Zeffirelli; the conductors Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Mariss Jansons, Bernard Haitink, Christoph von Dóhnanyi, Seiji Ozawa, Kent Nagano, Sir Colin Davis, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Claudio Scimone, Jacques Delacote, Michel Gielen, Michel Plasson, Andrew Davis, Semyon Bychkov; and the composers Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Hadjidakis and Vangelis Papathanassiou.
The mother of former Nebraska U student and university symphony member Alexandra Larson, Hatziano attended concerts of the university’s orchestra nearly a decade ago and was so impressed with what she heard that she immediately volunteered to sing with the orchestra free of charge.
On April 28, she will perform Berlioz’s demanding, highly dramatic and hyper-Romantic work “La mort de Cléopâtre” (The Death of Cleopatra) and the beloved aria “Vissi d’arte” from Puccini’s “Tosca.”
Also on the program are Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” “John Henry,” “Our Town,” and “El Salón México,” as well as Berlioz’s “Royal Hunt and Storm” from “Les Troyens,” and the “Hungarian March” from “La Damnation de Faust.”
Glenn Korff School of Music Director of Orchestral Activities Tyler Goodrich White conducts.
