Ital­ian bari­tone Ambro­gio Maestri made his Roy­al Opera debut in 2004 as Don Car­lo di Var­gas (La forza del des­ti­no) and has since sung Sir John Fal­staff (Fal­staff) and Dul­ca­ma­ra (L’elisir d’amore) for the Com­pa­ny. Maestri was born in Pavia and stud­ied singing and piano there. He worked as a chef in his family’s restau­rant before begin­ning his oper­at­ic career. In 2001 he made his role debut as Fal­staff under Ric­car­do Muti at La Scala, Milan, and the Teatro Ver­di, Bus­se­to, as part of the Ver­di Cen­te­nary cel­e­bra­tions. He has since become renowned for his per­for­mances in the role, which he has sung world­wide more than 200 times. His reper­to­ry also includes many oth­er Ver­di roles, such as Iago (Otel­lo), Rena­to (Un bal­lo in maschera), Don Car­lo (La forza del des­ti­no), Gior­gio Ger­mont (La travi­a­ta), Count di Luna (Il trova­tore), Amonas­ro (Aida), Rolan­do (Il battaglia di Leg­nano, Simon Boc­cane­gra, Rigo­let­to and Nabuc­co. He appears for opera com­pa­nies around the world, includ­ing the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera, New York, Paris Opéra, Liceu, Barcelona, Vien­na State Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin. He has a par­tic­u­lar­ly close rela­tion­ship with the Are­na di Verona. Maestri’s oth­er engage­ments include Enri­co Ash­ton (Lucia di Lam­mer­moor) for Bavar­i­an State Opera, Scarpia (Tosca) in Barcelona and Torre del Lago, Don Pasquale and Alfio (Cav­al­le­ria rus­ti­cana) for the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera and in Salzburg, Tonio (Pagli­ac­ci) for La Scala and in Vien­na, and Michon­net (Adri­ana Lecou­vreur). He has appeared in film in Fer­zan Özpetek’s Mag­nifi­ca pre­sen­za.

Span­ish sopra­no Sylvia Schwartz has appeared at many of the world’s finest opera hous­es and fes­ti­vals includ­ing La Scala Milan, Deutsche Staat­sop­er Berlin, Wiener Staat­sop­er, Teatro Real Madrid, Bay­erische Staat­sop­er, Staat­sop­er Ham­burg, The Bol­shoi The­atre, Mag­gio Musi­cale Fiorenti­no, Edin­burgh, Baden Baden, Salzburg and Ver­bier fes­ti­vals. In 2016–2017 her engage­ments include per­for­mances at Teatro Real Madrid (in a new pro­duc­tion of Clemen­za di Tito), her debut at the Bergen Nation­al Opera (Il tur­co in Italia), and Don Gio­van­ni with the Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra at the Edin­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val. In con­cert, Sylvia will appear as a soloist with the NHK Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra con­duct­ed by Charles Dutoit, with the Malmö Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra and with the Orchestre Nation­al de Lyon. She will give a con­cert and mas­ter­class as part of the Voice and Piano Cham­ber Music Fes­ti­val in Krakow, Poland and sing var­i­ous recitals in Europe and Cana­da. High­lights of recent sea­sons include a spe­cial recital of ‘Songs for Terezín’ at Teatro Real Madrid, con­certs with the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic and Sir Simon Rat­tle; appear­ances in Vien­na (with José Car­reras), Dus­sel­dorf, Prague, Lis­bon, Syd­ney, São Paulo, Greno­ble, Halle, Copen­hagen, Oslo, Lux­em­bourg and for the Ver­bier Fes­ti­val, Salzburg Mozart­woche & Salzburg Fes­ti­val, and per­for­mances with the Rund­funk­chor Berlin in Hong Kong & Brus­sels. She was part of a vocal quar­tet with Bernar­da Fink, Michael Schade and Thomas Quasthoff per­form­ing Brahm’s Liebeslieder Waltzes on a major tour of the USA and Europe. She has giv­en var­i­ous recitals at venues such as Con­cert­ge­bouw Ams­ter­dam, Schu­ber­ti­ade Schwarzen­berg, Wig­more Hall, Vien­na Staat­sop­er, De Sin­gel Antwerp and Ver­bier Fes­ti­val. On the opera stage, recent appear­ances include at Deutsche Staat­sop­er Berlin, Wiener Staat­sop­er, Staat­sop­er Ham­burg, Teatro Real Madrid, Mag­gio Musi­cale Flo­rence and Michi­gan Opera.

One of the most tal­ent­ed young tenors of today, born in San Sebastián in 1995, Xabier And­u­a­ga stud­ied singing at Musikene Cen­tro Supe­ri­or de Músi­ca in Spain. In 2016 he attend­ed the Accad­e­mia Rossini­ana of Pesaro under the baton of Alber­to Zed­da, fol­lowed by his Rossi­ni Opera Fes­ti­val debut as Cav­a­lier Belfiore in Il viag­gio a Reims. His recent engage­ments have includ­ed La Cener­en­to­la (Don Ramiro) at Opera de Bil­bao, at Teatro Rossi­ni di Pesaro, at Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val of Sibiu and at Pam­plona Opera, Le Siège de Corinthe (Adraste) at Rossi­ni Opera Fes­ti­val di Pesaro, Il viag­gio a Reims (Cav­a­lier Belfiore) at Teatro Filar­mon­i­co di Verona. He also took part as soloist in a Rossi­ni Gala at Opéra de Limo­ges and at Teatro Real de Madrid, Lucia di Lam­mer­moor (Lord Arturo) at Théâtre des Champs Elysées de Paris, and Il Bar­bi­ere di Siviglia (Con­te d’Almaviva) al Teatro delle Muse di Ancona. Among his future plans: L’Italiana in Algeri at Teatro Colon de Buenos Aires, Ric­cia­r­do e Zoraide at Rossi­ni Opera Fes­ti­val di Pesaro, Il mat­ri­mo­nio seg­re­to (Paoli­no) at Opéra Roy­al de Wal­lonie de Liège, Il Bar­bi­ere di Siviglia alla NCPA in Bei­jing, Così fan tutte (Fer­ran­do) at New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv.

Born in Gen­o­va in 1976, he began his musi­cal stud­ies in 1992 with M° Pao­lessi and Arcidi­a­cono, and from 1997 stud­ied with M° Rober­to Negri at the Accad­e­mia di Palaz­zo Ducale. In 1999 he joined the Acad­e­my of Singing of Teatro alla Scala, where he made his debut in Fide­lio, and in Tosca, both con­duct­ed by M° Muti, and in Adri­ana Lecou­vreur. He made his debut in Ver­di Requiem, and sang La Bohéme, Il trova­tore, La travi­a­ta, Un bal­lo in maschera, Mac­beth, Il bar­bi­ere di Siviglia, Ober­to, Orfeo at La Scala, where he opened 2001 Sea­son in Otel­lo and 2002 one in Iphi­ge­nie en Aulide. He sang La bohéme,a new Otel­lo, Il bar­bi­ere di Siviglia and I lom­bar­di alla I° Cro­ci­a­ta, Lucia di Lam­mer­moor at the Teatro Comu­nale in Flo­rence, and reg­u­lar­ly sang in Bologna, Tri­este, Rome, Verona, Turin, Genoa, Par­ma, Bil­bao, Ams­ter­dam, Cata­nia, in Bar­bi­ere, Simon Boc­cane­gra, Poli­u­to, Bohéme, Ernani, Mac­beth, Pop­pea, Manon, Capuleti e Mon­tec­chi… He sang at Covent Gar­den new pro­duc­tions of Rigo­let­to and Un bal­lo in maschera, at the Opéra de Paris in I Capuleti e I Mon­tec­chi, Otel­lo and La Bohéme as well as La Cal­is­to, Don Gio­van­ni and Rossini’s Sta­bat Mater at the Théa­tre des Champs-Elysées. He has sung Colline in Bohéme at La Scala, Paris, Turin, Rome, Naples, Oslo, Brux­elles, Sao Paulo, sang Ober­to and Atti­la in Par­ma, Il trova­tore in Bre­genz, released on DVD, Son­nam­bu­la and La Cal­is­to in Vien­na. Among his recent and future engage­ment: Trilo­gia Ver­diana, Walkure and Fide­lio in Erl, Un Bal­lo in maschera in Toron­to, Trova­tore in Sao Paulo and Car­men in Bar­cel­lona, Meis­tersinger and Il Bar­bi­ere di Siviglia in Erl, Fal­staff at La Scala, Tosca in Genoa, La Wal­ly in Pia­cen­za and La Cal­is­to in Stras­bourg.

Eva Mei stud­ied at con­ser­va­to­ry “Lui­gi Cheru­bi­ni” in Flo­rence. As Kon­stanze in Mozart’s DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL she made her debut at the Vien­na State Opera in 1990. In the last 2 decades, she appeared in the most impor­tant opera hous­es all over the world.  Known for her Mozart and Bel­can­to roles she sang Nori­na, Amenide, the Queen of the night, Vio­let­ta, Händel‘s Alci­na, Mozart‘s Don­na Anna and Con­tes­sa, Donizetti’s Anna Bole­na, Micaëla or Mathilde. In 2012 she sang in IL RE PASTORE at Salzburg Fes­ti­val and returned again with Rossini’s PETITE MESSE SOLENNELLE con­duct­ed by Anto­nio Pap­pano. Eva Mei has sung in hous­es like La Scala Milan, Roy­al Opera House Lon­don, State Opera Berlin, Vien­na Con­cert Hall, Salle Pleyel Paris or Sun­to­ry Hall Tokyo. A strong rela­tion­ship exists with the Opera House Zürich where she sings reg­u­lar­ly. She worked with many con­duc­tors like Nico­las Harnon­court, Clau­dio Abba­do, Zubin Mehta, Ric­car­do Muti, Col­in Davis, Daniel Baren­boim, Lorin Maazel, Franz Welser-Möst, William Christie, Daniele Gat­ti, Fabio Luisi, Myung-whun Chung and Jonathan Nott.  Cur­rent and future engage­ments include a new FLEDERMAUS at La Scala Milan, as Alice Ford/FALSTAFF she will come to Vin­cencza and at New Nation­al The­ater Tokio. As Vitellia/LA CLEMENZA DI TITO she will go to Palau de les Artes Valen­cia and will give con­certs in Tel Aviv, Mon­tepul­ciano and Tokio.

One of the world’s lead­ing mez­zo-sopra­nos, Lau­ra Polverel­li has already sung in some among the world’s major the­ather and fes­ti­vals under the con­duc­tion of renowned con­duc­tors such as Clau­dio Abba­do, Rinal­do Alessan­dri­ni, Gary Berti­ni, Fabio Bion­di, Ivor Bolton, Bruno Cam­panel­la, Ric­car­do Chail­ly, Myung-Whun Chung, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Ottavio Dan­tone, Col­in Davis, Gian­lui­gi Gel­met­ti, Daniel Hard­ing, René Jacobs, Jean-Claude Mal­goire, Andrea Mar­con, Michele Mar­i­ot­ti, Zubin Mehta, Ric­car­do Muti, Car­lo Rizzi, Christophe Rous­set, Jef­frey Tate. She appeared in such venues as Teatro alla Scala in Milano, Wiener Staata­sop­er, Teatro del Mag­gio Musi­cale in Flo­rence, Accad­e­mia Nazionale di San­ta Cecil­ia in Rome, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Bay­erische Staat­sop­er in Munich, Ham­bur­gis­che Staat­sop­er, Teatro Real de Madrid, Opéra de Lyon, Opéra de Mon­te­car­lo, Théâtre des Champs Elysées de Paris, Teatro San Car­lo di Napoli, Rossi­ni Opera Fes­ti­val in Pesaro, Glyn­de­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val, Fes­ti­val Mozart in La Coruña and Fest­wochen Alter Musik in Inns­bruck. Recent engage­ments have includ­ed  Fal­staff (Meg) at Teatro alla Scala, in Paris, Flo­rence, Chica­go and Stock­holm, Maria Stu­ar­da (Elis­a­bet­ta) in Mon­te­car­lo, Le nozze di Figaro (Cheru­bi­no) in Par­ma and Reg­gio Emil­ia, Nor­ma (Adal­gisa) in Napoli and Tokyo, Edoar­do e Cristi­na in Wild­bad.

After his stud­ies in vio­lin and com­po­si­tion, he stud­ied singing get­ting the Diplo­ma. Since his debut in Mac­beth by Ver­di (Saler­no, 2006), his name reg­u­lar­ly appears on the play­bills of the world’s most pres­ti­gious the­atres (Verona Are­na, Car­lo Felice the­atre in Genoa, San Car­lo the­atre in Naples, Fes­ti­val Puc­ci­ni at Torre del Lago, Roy­al Opera House, Roy­al Opera House Mus­cat). He ded­i­cates him­self to char­ac­ter roles (Arlecchi­no, Goro, Edmon­do, L’incredibile, Pong, Arturo) and thanks to his qual­i­ties he has become the favourite singer of impor­tant orches­tra con­duc­tors such as Oren, Jurowsky, Acs, Aprea, Wil­son as well as direc­tors such as Zef­firelli, De Bosio, Proi­et­ti, Ranieri, De Tom­masi, Michelet­to. Con­se­quent­ly, he has had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tread the boards along­side emi­nent per­form­ers among which Nuc­ci, Bru­son, Alvarez, Casol­la.

Born in Athens, he stud­ied piano, singing, con­duct­ing and com­pos­ing at the Athens Con­ser­va­to­ry. He is a lead­ing bari­tone in the Greek Opera house (1995–1999) and at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düs­sel­dorf (2000–2006) where he sings Posa/Don Car­los, Germont/Traviata, Enrico/Lucia, Conte/Nozze di Figaro, Don Gio­van­ni, Figaro/Barbiere, Dandini/Cenerentola, Taddeo/Italiana in Algeri, Silvio/Pagliacci, Ulisse/Ritorno d´Ulisse, Guglielmo/Cosi, Oreste / Iphi­ge­nie en Tau­ride, Eugen One­gin, Ham­let, Pel­leas… As a guest he sings in New York (Carnegie Hall, Elec­tra), Vir­ginia Opera (Don Pasquale), Glyn­de­bourne Fes­ti­val (Fal­staff), Brus­sels (La Travi­a­ta), Ams­ter­dam (Lucia di Lamer­moor), Paris (Capric­cio), Berlin (Il bar­bi­ere di Siviglia), Gen­eve (Il Bar­bi­ere di Siviglia, Les Vepres sicili­ennnes), Frank­furt (Don Car­lo), Nantes (Fal­staff), Budapest (Cosi fan tutte, Don Gio­van­ni with Ivan Fish­er cond.), Faust, Il bar­bi­ere di Siviglia, I Pagli­ac­ci and Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria in Paris, Il Bar­bi­ere di Siviglia in Vien­na, La Travi­a­ta in Gen­eve, Mac­beth in Bor­deaux, Don Gio­van­ni in Las Pal­mas, Ciboulette in Paris Opera Comique etc… He record­ed numer­ous Cds. Among them a record­ing of Handel’s “Tamer­lano” which was award­ed and praised inter­na­tion­al­ly, as well as the “Julius Cae­sar” by Han­del and Gretry’s “Andro­maque” and Verdi’s “Fal­staff” under Vladimir Jurows­ki on DVD or Goun­od and Saint-Saens songs.

Known for her devot­ed musi­cal­i­ty and earth­i­ness of her dark col­ored and pow­er­ful mez­zoso­pra­no, swiss born Yvonne Naef appears reg­u­lar­ly at the fore­most opera hous­es and con­cert venues includ­ing the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera, Opera de Paris, Roy­al Opera House Covent Gar­den, State Operas of Vien­na and Ham­burg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Zurich Opera, Salzburg Fes­ti­val, Musikvere­in and Konz­erthaus Vien­na, Phil­har­mo­ny Berlin, Roy­al Albert and Carnegie Halls etc. With a vast reper­to­ry from the baroque to the con­tem­po­rary, she col­lab­o­rates with con­duc­tors such as Alain Altinoglu, Semy­on Bychkov, Dou­glas Boyd, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschen­bach, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Iván Fis­ch­er, Daniele Gat­ti, Bernard Haitink, Marc Minkows­ki, Sei­ji Oza­wa, Mariss Jan­sons, Michael Tilson Thomas and Franz Welser-Möst. High­lights of the past sea­sons include Quickly/FALSTAFF in Zurich, Milan and Astana, Ulrica/UN BALLO IN MASCHERA and Kundry/PARSIFAL, Fricka/DIE WALKÜRE, Ravel’s L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES under Sei­ji Oza­wa, Mahler’s 8th Sym­pho­ny in Salzburg under Gus­ta­vo Dudamel and Wagner’s WESENDONCK LIEDER in Paris. The cur­rent sea­son sees amongst oth­ers Ravel’s L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILEGES with the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic and Mikko Franck and Verdi´s FALSTAFF with the Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra under the baton of Iván Fis­ch­er. Yvnonne Naef has made numer­ous record­ings, some of which have received cov­et­ed inter­na­tion­al clas­si­cal music awards.

His recent and upcom­ing engage­ments include at the Roy­al Opera House, Covent Gar­den, first Schmidt in Werther (avail­able on CD) con­duct­ed by Anto­nio Pap­pano and Reman­da­do in Car­men con­duct­ed by Daniel Oren, singing along­side Rober­to Alagna and Anna-Cate­ri­na Antonac­ci, Herodes in Salome con­duct­ed by Shao-chia Lü in Tai­wan, Mime (Siegfried) in Lübeck, Flute in A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream by Brit­ten at Grand Théâtre de Genève, Lacouf in les Mamelles de Tirésias at Lau­sanne Opera. Born in Perth, Scot­land, Stu­art Pat­ter­son stud­ied singing in Glas­gow, Lon­don, Flo­rence and Paris. He beginns as a lyric tenor and sings in France and Italy such parts as Don Ottavio, Fer­ran­do, Basilio, Curzio, Ulisse, Ramiro, Pâris, Vin­cent in Mireille by Gounod…In 2000 he beginns to spe­cial­ize in char­ac­ter roles such as Sell­em in The Rake’s Progress and Vater Mignon in Die Teufel von Loudun at Teatro Regio Tori­no, Blind in Die Fle­d­er­maus and Incred­i­bile in Andrea Chénier at Grand Théâtre de Genève; Rossini’s L’Occasione fa il ladro (Euse­bio), Il sign­or Bruschi­no (Bruschi­no Figlio) and Scala di seta (Dor­mont) at Opéra Comique, Cole Porter’s Kiss me Kate (Gang­ster) in Paler­mo, Nozze di Figaro (Basilio/ Curzio), Gian­ni Schic­chi (Gher­ar­do), Fal­staff (Cajus), Grande Duchesse de Gérol­stein (Puck), Zauber­flöte (Mono­statos), Schostakovitch’s The Nose and Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sor­tilèges all at the Opéra de Lau­sanne, Snout in A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream in Lyon, San­cho Pança in the Man of La Man­cha in Bre­genz, Flute in A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream in Bern, the Dance Mas­ter in Manon Lescaut in Lyon, Goro in Madama But­ter­fly at the Staat­sop­er, Berlin, Mime in Siegfried at Pala­cio de Bel­las Artes in Mex­i­co City then in Lübeck. This last pro­duc­tion is avail­able on DVD.