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Fernando del Valle

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Fernando del Valle

Fernando del Valle (né Brian Skinner, 28 February 1964) is an American operatic tenor.

Ancestry

He took the name del Valle in honour of his grandfather, Fernando Meléndez del Valle, who was also a tenor.[1][2] He is the great, great grandson of Andrés del Valle, President of El Salvador in 1876 and a direct descendant of Colonel José María San Martín, President of El Salvador (1854–56) and founder of Santa Tecla, El Salvador.[3][4]

Biography

He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana USA.[5] A graduate of Tulane University, and Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, where he was awarded a Career Grant from The Dallas Opera. He is an alumnus of San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program where he studied in 1992 and 1993. He later won the "Bel Canto" competition of Chicago and subsequently relocated to Italy where he studied under Carlo Bergonzi and, later, Thomas Hayward.

Early years

Del Valle made his operatic debut at the age of seventeen (1981), as the First Shepherd in Blow's Venus and Adonis, at Loyola University of the South. The next year, he was tenor soloist in Bach's "St Matthew Passion" with the New Orleans Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra. In 1986, he made his Boston debut in that composer's "Christmas Oratorio", in Jordan Hall, as the winner of the Boston Premiere Ensembles Young Artist Competition. The following spring, he sang at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, with the Beethoven Society of New York. Elsewhere, he continued his career as a concert tenor with a repertoire that included Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and the Requiems of Verdi, Britten and Lloyd Webber. The tenor's Carnegie Hall debut occurred in 1993, with Mozart's "Great" Mass in C minor. He performed the tenor solos in George Frideric Handel's Messiah for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, at the The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in 1994. He made his European debut in 1995, singing in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi.

Del Valle's European operatic debut took place with the role of 'don José' in the Hugo de Ana production of Carmen at the Teatro Comunale di Treviso under the vocal direction of Regina Resnik and conducted by Peter Maag. In 1996, he appeared as Rodolfo in La bohème, at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Vladimir Jurowski, conducting.

1997 – present

In 1997, del Valle appeared as 'don José' at the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice, 'Pinkerton' in Madama Butterfly with the Palm Beach Opera, Anton Guadagno, conducting and 'Faust' in Colmar, France. He made his German debut in 1998 as 'Rodolfo' with the Frankfurt Opera, and also appeared at the Wexford Festival in Ireland as 'Paolo' in Fosca (opera) by Antônio Carlos Gomes. A series of important engagements followed, and since 1999, del Valle has appeared around the world, including performances in Frankfurt, Maastricht, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Bremen, Bergen, Costa Rica, Munich, Helsinki, Belo Horizonte in Brazil, Bari, Baveno, Wiesbaden, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Hamburg and Wiesbaden. For some years, del Valle was engaged as the Principal Tenor at the Staatstheater Darmstadt,[6] followed by performances in Israel, Korea, Catania, Sydney, Lisbon and Prague. In 2003, his portrait was realized by Ricarda Jacobi,[7][8][9] protégé of Oskar Kokoschka. On the occasion of the 150th (1854–2004) Anniversary of Santa Tecla, El Salvador, Mr. del Valle was invited by former Salvadoran Ambassador Ernesto Rivas-Gallont to present 2 Concerts. The Tenor requested that the first performance take place on September 23, the feast-day of Saint Thecla, the Saint for whom the city is named.[10]

SantaTecla150th

Fernando del Valle (far right) with Ernesto Rivas-Gallont (left) former Salvadoran Ambassador in Washington from 1981 to 1989, and U.S.Ambassador Hugh Douglas Barclay and his wife Dee Dee. (far left) after reception in his honor at the Embassy of the United States of America, San Salvador.

Roles sung on stage

Bizet

Boito

Donizetti

Giordano

Gomes

Gounod

André Ernest Modeste Grétry

Lehar

Leoncavallo

Mascagni

Massenet

Mozart

Ponchielli

Jacques Offenbach

Puccini

Johann Strauss

Strauss

Verdi

Wagner

Discography

References

  1. ^ "Santa Tecla, Cronología" ISBN 99923-0-141-4 Recopilada por Dr. Juan José Contreras Callejas, Mauricio Alvarado Cea Campo, Ángela Margarita Alvarado: Consejo National para la Cultura y el Arte, CONCULTURA, San Salvador 2004: Page 14, "El Diario de Hoy, 30 de Noviembre de 1985
  2. ^ New Orleans magazine, July 1999
  3. ^ http://archive.laprensa.com.sv/20040822/opinion/opinion1.asp La Prensa Grafica, 22. August 2004, La distinguida genealogía de los San Martín
  4. ^ "Un tenor lírico con raíces tecleñas" by Morena Azucena 22-09-04 VIDA, Page 106 http://www.elsalvador.com
  5. ^ "New Orleans: "Big year for the Big Easy" 17, January, 2003 by Richard Siklos http://www.telegraph.co.uk
  6. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau 3 August 2004
  7. ^ "Malen wie ein Vogel, der sein Lied Pfeift" - Interview
  8. ^ http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Nationalbibliothek
  9. ^ * Literature by and about Fernando del Valle in the German National Library catalogue
  10. ^ Santa Tecla con 150 años, Eugenia Velásquez, Publicada 9 de Agosto 2004, El Diario de Hoy, metro@elsalvador.com

External links

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