Celebrating Puccini

There is no better tribute to Giacomo Puccini in the centenary of his death than by two of the singers who best know his music: soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and tenor Piotr Beczała. This artistic partnership, which has been together for years, will perform some of the most unforgettable pieces by one of the greatest opera composers. The history of music would be destitute without its Tosca, La bohème or Turandot.

Piotr Beczała, born in Poland, is recognised as one of the great tenors of today, for the beauty of his voice and for his versatile stage presence. Besides his prolific operatic career, Beczała is a sought-after concert and lied performer. His recitals, both on his own or with another, have taken him in recent years to Baden-Baden, Amsterdam, Madrid, Budapest, Vienna, Milan and Oman. His collaboration with Radvanovsky began in 2020. Together they have sung on different stages: Barcelona, Vienna or Moscow. Beczała has been awarded Singer of the Year by ECHO Klassik in 2014, the International Opera Awards in 2018, and by Opus Klassik in 2021. In 2019 he was named Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera and he holds an honorary doctorate from the Katowice Academy of Music, awarded in 2022.

Sondra Radvanovsky, born in Illinois, is a world-wide acclaimed American and Canadian soprano. The far-reaching and exquisite colour of her voice combines with her dramatic qualities of interpretation which go from the principal parts in Rusalka and Lucrezia Borgia, to Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac or the lead part in Manon Lescaut. She is widely acclaimed as one of the best sopranos for Verdi and Puccini and as an interpreter of bel canto. In an enormous calendar of opera productions and recitals, there is also the intensity of recordings and television programmes. Well aware of the power of social media, she directs and presents the brilliant podcast, “Screaming Divas”, together with her colleague and friend, Keri Alkema. For the past four years, the two women have talked about music, projects and their lives.