The Enescu Festival and Competition Online continues to broadcast exceptional concerts and recitals from its archive, recorded in the 2019 and 2018 editions of the two events, being the only classical music festival in the world to offer free access to classical music of great quality.
The third concert series #EnescuOnline opens with an exceptional recital given by one of the most charismatic figures of the international lyric scene, celebrated American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, accompanied by pianist David Zobel. For the first time in Romania and at the Enescu Festival in 2019, Joyce DiDonato and David Zobel gave an impressive recital at the packed Romanian Athenaeum to a thrilled audience. The compelling program includes works by Haydn, Mozart, Bellini, Pablo Luna, Berlioz, and Hahn and is available online on the Festival’s website between May 23 and 26.
Kansas-born Joyce DiDonato performs for audiences and critics across the globe in operas ranging from Mozart and Handel to Rossini, Donizetti, Berlioz, and Jake Heggie. “She has the clarity, flexibility, and agility this music needs, leaving the purity of the vocal line intact, as well as the ability to drop to nothing then expand thrillingly,” said The Guardian about how well suited DiDonato’s lyric voice was to the lighter repertoire – Rossini, Mozart and, especially, Handel.
Winner of the 2018 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, she is a multi-Grammy Award winner and a fierce advocate for the arts. One of many great singers today fully committed to her art and her voice, DiDonato’s energy, imagination, and drive are rare among classical artists. “I love the challenge of asking my voice to serve the emotional temperature. It has to be demonic and seraphic. If you can crack open a heart – and I know this sounds a bit fluffy – and make it harder for someone to go to bed at night and switch off, that’s the power of music. Every human being, rich or poor, deserves that experience. It’s up to us to make it available to them,” declared Joyce DiDonato in a recent interview.
An exclusive recording artist with Erato/Warner Classics, one of the most recent additions to Joyce’s acclaimed discography is Berlioz’ Les Troyens, which won the Award for the Best Complete Opera Recording at the 2018 International Opera Awards and the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Opera Award. Her solo albums include In War & Peace that won the 2017 Best Recital Gramophone Award, Stella di Napoli, and the Grammy-Award-winning Diva Divo and Drama Queens. Erato/Warner Classics also released Songplay and Into the Fire in the 2018-2019 season.
French pianist David Zobel is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and a Sony ES Award for Musical Excellence. He earned degrees in accompanying from The Juilliard School and in singers’ coaching from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. Zobel enjoys a successful career as a collaborative pianist and opera accompanist in France and abroad. He regularly accompanies singers at distinguished competitions, including the Plácido Domingo International Voice Competition, Le Concours de la Ville de Paris, Concours International d’Opéra in Marseille, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna.
With Joyce DiDonato, David Zobel has performed on some of the world’s most prestigious concert stages, including at Teatro alla Scala, Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, Gran Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona, La Monnaie in Brussels, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. Mr. Zobel accompanies Ms. DiDonato on her first highly acclaimed solo album The Deepest Desire, which was awarded the Diapason d’Or de l’Année.
photo credit: Cătălina Filip
