LOLA CASARIEGO

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Lola Casariego was born in Oviedo. She studied music and voice in Madrid, and at a very young age made her debut on the professional stage in the role of Manuela (La Chulapona), conducted by Miguel Roa, in the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid and in the Edinburgh Festival. Shortly thereafter she was chosen by Alberto Zedda to sing Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia) in a production at Teatro de la Zarzuela conducted by him, and was invited to the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and to “Settembre Musica” in Torino to repeat the role in honor of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Gioacchino Rossini.

Thereafter her career in opera, zarzuela, concerts and recitals took her to such illustrious international theaters and concert halls as the Pittsburgh Opera, the Grand Théâtre du Genève, Opéra de Marseille, the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, Opéra de Massy (in Paris), the opera companies of Tours, Reims, Nice and Monte-Carlo, the Pleyel Hall in Paris, the Smétana Hall in Prague, the Arsenal de Metz, the Tívoli in Copenhagen, the MDR Auditoriums in Weimar and Leipzig, the Konzerthauses of Vienna and Berlin. She has worked with, among others, conductors Pieter Maag, Franz Brüggen, Christopher Hogwood, Harry Christophers, Serge Baudo, Alain Guignal, Jacques Mercier, Jean-Ives Ossonce, Alberto Zedda, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Antoni Ros Marbá, Víctor Pablo, Jesús Lopez-Cobos, Pedro Halffter Caro, Edmon Colomer, Maximiliano Valdés, Josep Pons, Juanjo Mena and Jesús Amigo, and stage directors Jonathan Miller, Luigi Squarzina, Pier Luigi Pizzi, José Carlos Plaza, Emilio Sagi, Josep Maria Flotats and Gerardo Malla.

Her extensive concert repertoire includes Handel's The Messiah, the Requiems of Mozart and Verdi, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony, Les nuits d’été and L’enfance du Christ by Berlioz, Trois Poèmes de S. Mallarmé and Scheherezade by Ravel, Chausson’s Poème de L’amour et de la mer, and the Siete Canciones Populares Españolas and Psiché by de Falla.

Cherubino, Dorabella, Adalgisa, Cenerentola, Idamante, Siebel, Sesto, Ottavia and Marchesa Melibea were among her early operatic roles. Later she essayed such parts as Carmen, Charlotte, Isabella (L’Italiana in Algeri) and Preziosilla (La forza del destino). Her debut at the Opéra de Nice as Salud in de Falla’s La Vida Breve caused a sensation, and she later repeated the role at Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, in the Fredric R. Mann Theater in Tel Aviv with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Israel, and, most recently, in the ceremony honoring the “Príncipe de Asturias” Awards in Oviedo and in a telecast from the Teatro Monumental in Madrid with the Orquesta de Radiotelevision Española. Her success in this role caused her to realize the opportunities available to her as a lirico-spinto soprano, and she worked intensively to make this change under the tutelage of tenor and professor Daniel Muñoz.

Lola Casariego can be heard in recordings by EMI Classics, Audivis-Valois, Harmonia Mundi and Non Profit Music, singing works by, among others, Barbieri, Granados, Rodrigo, Bautista, Halffter, Scarlatti and Antonio de Literes

She appears as Diana in the zarzuela Los diamantes de la corona by F.A. Barbieri, conducted by Cristóbal Soler and directed by Jose Carlos Plaza. The DVD, recorded live from Teatro de la Zarzuela, will be released shortly.