Elena Xanthoudakis shines in Anna Bolena (Melbourne Opera)

We are thrilled to read this glowing review for Tait Awardee, Elena Xanthoudakis, who is singing the title role in Melbourne Opera’s production of Anna Bolena. Rob Holdsworth reviewed ‘Anna Bolena’ (Melbourne Opera) for Australian Book Review‘s Arts Update.

Elena Xanthoudakis as Anna Bolena

The star of Melbourne Opera’s Anna Bolena is Elena Xanthoudakis, last seen as Mary Stuart in 2015. Xanthoudakis has a fine soprano voice and is blessed with superlative technique and acting ability. What a performance this is! Whenever Xanthoudakis was on stage, the audience was riveted by Anne’s plight. The Act II mad scene that ends the opera, with its Home Sweet Home reminiscence, was especially poignant.

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To read the full review please click here

Source: Anna Bolena (Melbourne Opera)

Elena Xanthoudakis to take on the Queen

The Australian soprano reflects on the challenges of singing Donizetti’s tragic Anna Bolena.

Elena Xanthoudakis as Anna Bolena for Melbourne Opera
Elena Xanthoudakis as Anna Bolena

While Anna Bolena is definitely on the larger end of the bel canto roles, it still requires great flexibility, as well as heft and drama where required. It is a great thrill to sing and while it is perhaps ‘heavier’ than some other bel canto roles – mostly due to the intense dramatic situation Anna finds herself in – one must remember to maintain a lilt and ease so that the voice remains flexible. There are also a number of lower notes: the bottom register is well applied by Donizetti to add drama and colour, and I absolutely love using a wide range of colours to characterise her journey. The challenges of the role lie in matching the tessitura and the weight or volume.

Sally Anne-Russell, Jane Seymour & Elena Xanthoudakis, Anna Bolena
Sally Anne-Russell, Jane Seymour & Elena Xanthoudakis, Anna Bolena

There are also a number of added cadenzas and high notes, so finding the balance between the elements is crucial. Anna is extremely fun to sing, as well as technically challenging – but again therein lies the fun too! Donizetti’s Anna Bolena departs from the historical details in a number of ways, done for dramatic licence. However, there is much that corresponds with the historical Anne Boleyn’s journey. In my opinion, her trial itself was a complete set-up, and the nature of it is made very clear in the opera.As for Anna’s mad scene, I would say it is less ‘mad’ than many! She begins the mad scene in a state of delusion, drifting in and out of awareness of her real situation. It begins in some respects like the Lucia di Lammermoor mad scene, in both concept – Anna is imagining a wedding – and orchestral colour. However, it soon shifts to much more dramatic colours and intense melodic shapes. It is perhaps less florid than roles like Elvira or Lucia, but is no less impressive. The role of Anna Bolena has been performed by a great number of sopranos, including Callas, Sutherland, and Netrebko. In an ideal world we would all love the dramatic intensity of La Callas, as well as the beauty of tone and flexibility of La Stupenda. Of the other major exponents of the role, I admire Beverly Sills for her recordings, which are extremely ornamented – perhaps too much? I would like to be at least as inventive where required. And though no recordings of Giuditta Pasta exist, one would hope to have a voice as strong and flexible as hers at the top, with the same depth and colour in the middle and bottom. Pasta, the original Anna, was a mezzo-like soprano, who was both the first Norma and Amina, the latter of which is substantially lighter and requires more limpid flexibility. Given the original Anna’s voice, and contemporary audience expectation for extemporised top notes, balance and care must be taken in order to maintain ease at both ends of the registers, to give the widest range of possible colour. Knowing the repertoire of Donizetti’s Tudor Queens, it would be a joy to one day have the opportunity to sing Queen Elizabeth in Roberto Devereux.

Elena’s performance of Mozart’s, Ch’io mi scordi di te? K 505, with Jayson Gillham and the Tait Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Kelly Lovelady, at the 2014 Tait Winter Prom at St John’s Smith Square.

Elena Xanthoudakis appears in the Australian premiere of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena for Melbourne Opera November 2, 5 and 9. Buy tickets here

Melbourne Opera stages the Australian premiere of Roberto Deveraux in 2017.

Win an A-Reserve double pass to opening night

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Following the sold out triumph of Maria Stuarda last year, Melbourne Opera continues the great Donizetti trilogy bringing the bel canto masterpiece Anna Bolena to The Athenaeum for the first time this November.

Starring Elena Xanthoudakis (Anne Boleyn), Sally-Anne Russell (Jane Seymour), Eddie Muliaumaseali’i (Henry VIII), Boyd Owen (Richard Percy), Dimity Shepherd (Mark Smeaton) and Phillip Calcagno (Lord Rochefort).

Source: Elena Xanthoudakis to take on the Queen from Limelight Magazine

Tait Winter Prom 2014 at St John's Smith Square

The 2014 Tait Winter Prom was a landmark event for the Tait Memorial Trust at St John’s Smith Square, proudly supported by Australia’s largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. To see and hear our talented Awardees performing at one of London’s most prestigious concert platforms was thrilling…truly a great night for the Trust and for our young Australians we support.

Tait Memorial Trust Winter Prom 2014

Now in our 23rd year Awards have increased by 30% from 2013  largely due to the more than three fold rise in Tait Friends subscriptions in 2014 and our loyal audience who come to our events and generously give towards our scholarship fund.

Thank you.

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We are very grateful for the
support that we receive
from the following organisations:

Principal Partner:
Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Partners:
Australian Business
The Australia Day Foundation
Bailey Nelson UK
The Britain-Australia Society
Cubitt House
Minter Ellison
Oliveto & Olivo Ltd
Qantas
Royal Over-Seas League
The Thornton Foundation
Treasury Wine Estates

2014 Tait Winter Prom at St John’s Smith Square
London Tuesday 9th December 2014
St John’s Smith Square,
Showcasing Australian Talent — An evening of Music and Ballet
Supported by Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Conducted by Kelly Lovelady
Tait Chamber Orchestra
Presented by former Miss Australia, Kimberley Busteed
Directed by Greg Eldridge

Jayson Gillham, Piano
Elena Xanthoudakis, Soprano
Xenia Deviatkina-Loh, Violin
Sophie Moffatt, Dancer
Calvin Richardson, Choreographer
Matthew Ball, Dancer
Marlena Devoe, Soprano
Chad Vindin, Piano
Adam Szabo, Cello
Yelian He, Cello
Nicola Crowe, Flute
Gerard Schneider, Tenor

Concert Programme

Percy Grainger (1882-1961)
Handel in the Strand
Jayson Gillham, Piano

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto: No. 14 in E flat , K. 449
Jayson Gillham, Piano

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The Lark Ascending
Xenia Deviatkina-Loh, Violin

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Ch’io mi scordi di te? Non temer, amato bene. K.505
Elena Xanthoudakis, Soprano
Jayson Gillham, Piano

Interval 20mins

Gabriel Faure
Kenneth MacMillan 1 – choreography
Requiem, Pie Jesu solo
Sophie Moffatt, dancer 2
Coached by Leanne Benjamin OBE
Marlena Devoe, Soprano
Chad Vindin, Piano

Saint-Saëns
The Swan
The Carnival of the Animals
Calvin Richardson – choreography
The Dying Swan
Calvin Richardson, Dancer 3
Adam Szabo, Cello
Chad Vindin, Piano

Giovanni Sollima (1962- )
Violoncelles Vibrez!
Yelian He & Adam Szabo, Cellos

Kevin Penkin (1992- )
Changing Feet
Nicola Crowe, Flute

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
La Boheme, Act 1
Che gelida manina
Si, mi chiamano Mimi
O soave fanciulla

Marlena Devoe, Soprano
Gerard Schneider, Tenor 4

1 Performed with the kind permission from The MacMillan Estate
2 Appears with kind permission from The Royal Ballet School
3 Appears with kind permission from The Royal Ballet
4 Appears with kind permission from The National Opera Studio

Winter Prom highlights

Jayson Gillham playing Grainger’s, Handel in the Strand

Xenia Deviatkina-Loh playing Vaughan William’s,  The Lark Ascending

Elena Xanthoudakis singing Mozart’s, Ch’io mi scordi di te? K 505 with Jayson Gillham, piano

Adam Szabo & Yelian He playing Sollima’s, Violoncelles Vibrez!

Marlena Devoe & Gerard Schneider sing the Final scene from Act 1, La boheme, Puccini

Review in Limelight Magazine

Review in Seen and Head

Elena Xanthoudakis, Soprano – Recording of Bel Canto arias with Richard Bonynge

Elena Xanthoudakis, Tait Memorial Trust Prize winner at the Performing Australian Music Competition 2008 this year has been busy in New York City covering in Le Comte Ory and Rigoletto for the Metropolitan Opera as well as performing in Concert with the Melbourne Symphony amongst other engagements. This year, she was fortunate to record a solo Orchestral Disc with Maestro Richard Bonynge with the Support of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and the Tait Memorial Trust. The CD of Bel Canto arias will be released next March 2014 on Signum records. Elena is also looking forward to performing Gilda in Rigoletto for Opera Queensland in the the new year along with recitals at the Melbourne Recital Centre with TrioKROMA.Image