Raffaella Lupinacci –  Tancredi (December 15^th), Isaura

Young up-and-coming Italian mezzo, Raffaella Lupinacci is a prizewinner of the 2013 AsLiCo Competition. Ms. Lupinacci made her operatic debut in 2011 as Tisbe in Rossini’s Cenerentola, and then as Giovanna and Paggio in Verdi’s Rigoletto at Teatro “A. Rendano” in Cosenza. She attended the Accademia Rossiniana in Pesaro in 2012, making her debut as Marchesa Melibea and Modestina in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims. She was reinvited in Pesaro in 2013 for L’Italiana in Algeri (Zulma). More recently she sang the role of Mary in L’Olandese volante for the AsLiCo Opera Domani project, which toured many theaters in Northern Italy. She recently made her debut in the Circuito Lirico Lombardo singing Verdi’s Otello (Emilia) in Como, Cremona, Pavia, Brescia and Milan.

Future plans include: Rossini’s Otello and a Verdi Gala in Antwerp; Petite Messe Solennelle in Saint-Etienne.

Francesco Cilluffo - conductor

Conductor and composer, he graduated from the Turin Conservatoire, the Guildhall School of Music and the King’s College in London. Among his most notable appearances as conductor: Cavalleria Rusticana in Sassari; L’Arlesiana for the season’s opening of Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi; a Verdi Gala at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow with the singers and the orchestra of the Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Center; concerts with the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari and the ORT-Orchestra della Toscana; a new production of Il Trovatore for the AsLiCo on tour in Northern Italy’s historical theaters; Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; Mozart’s Requiem and Duruflé’s Requiem op. 9 with the Orchestra Filarmonica di Torino; Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Festival della Valle d’Itria; concerts with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Santiago de Chile; The Servant by Tutino at the Teatro Rossini in Lugo; Le Nozze di Figaro at the Byblos Festival; a gala concert at the Scottish Opera in Glasgow.

Future engagements include: Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 14 with the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra (in the framework his 3-year long collaboration with the orchestra); La Fille du Régiment at the Teatro Real in Madrid; a new production of Manon Lescaut for the opening of the new Opera House in San Antonio (USA); La Traviata at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège.