Aquiles Machado - Pollione *

Winner of numerous international competitions including Operalia and Viñas, Aquiles Machado made his debut with Elisir d'Amore in Caracas and later with Macbeth in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Among his most successful interpretations: La Traviata (Bilbao, Cagliari), Rigoletto (Nice, Verona), Macbeth (Valencia), La Bohème (Florence, Madrid, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Washington), Lucia di Lammermoor (Las Palmas, Bilbao), Faust (Nice), Der Rosenkavalier (Vienna), Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Seville and Rome), Luisa Miller (Naples), Les Troyens (London Symphony Orchestra). In recent years he discovered a more dramatic repertoire with Tosca (Beijing), Un Ballo in Maschera (Liège), La Forza del Destino (Festival Verdi at the Teatro Regio in Parma and Wiener Staatsoper) and Simone Boccanegra (Berlin and Barcellona). He works with prestigious conductors, such as: Roberto Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Maurizio Benini, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Jesús Lopez Cobos, Placido Domingo, Rafael Frubeck de Burgos, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Leopold Hagger, Friedrich Hayder, Daniel Oren, Mistlav Rostropovich. After his success gained as Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca and in I Masnadieri in Naples, Mr. Machado performed Enzo Grimaldo in La Gioconda in Palermo and Rome, Don José in Carmen in Las Palmas, Gabriele Adorno in Simon Boccanegra in Zurich, Alfredo in La Traviata in Florence, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Wiener Staatsoper, Rodolfo in La Bohème in Valencia, Riccardo Chailly conducting, Un Ballo in Maschera in Las Palmas. Aquiles Machado has just performed Verdi’s Requiem in Bologna and on tour in Moscow at the Rostropovich Festival. Future plans: Il Trovatore at the Macerata Opera Festival; Roméo et Juliette (Roméo) at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège; La Traviata in Oviedo; Madama Butterfly in Vienna (Wiener Staatsoper); a lyric concert in Palermo. Mr. Machado will star in Verdi’s Requiem in Leipzig, Cincinnati and St. Louis.

Gianluca Floris - Flavio

A specialist for comic characters, he regularly works with such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Yuri Temirkanov, Daniel Oren and Placido Domingo. Among the main roles in his reperto ire it is worth mentioning: Goro in Madama Butterfly, Edmondo in Manon Lescaut, Pang and Pong in Turandot, Malcolm in Macbeth, the Messenger in Aida, Narraboth in Salome, Spoletta in Tosca, Gastone in La Traviata, Normanno and Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Wagner in Boito’s Mefistofele, Dr. Cajus and Bardolfo in Falstaff, Walter in Tannhäuser, Don Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro, Remendado in Carmen, Selim in Il Corsaro and an Incredible in Andrea Chénier. Mr. Floris recently performed Norma and Andrea Chénier in Turin. Future plans: Nabucco in Bologna and Norma in Lyon.