Biography

Cecilia Gasdia studied music and piano at the Conservatorio di Verona, graduating in 1980. That same year she won the first prize in the "New Voices for Opera" competition dedicated to Maria Callas

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...

. In 1981 she made her operatic debut in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 as Giulietta in Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

's I Capuleti e i Montecchi

I Capuleti e i Montecchi

I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...

and rose to prominence following her successful debut at La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

 in 1982 when at very short notice she replaced Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....

 in the title role of Donizetti's Anna Bolena

Anna Bolena

Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...

. Following her debut at the Rossini Opera Festival

Rossini Opera Festival

The Rossini Opera Festival is an opera festival held in August of each year in Pesaro, Italy, the birthplace of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini....

 in Pesaro

Pesaro

Pesaro is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. According to the 2007 census, its population was 92,206....

 in 1983 she became a well-known singer in Rossini's operas during the 1980s, with 14 different Rossinian roles in her repertoire.

She made her American debut on 5 October 1985 as Gilda in a concert performance of Rigoletto

Rigoletto

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...

in Philadelphia conducted by Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...

 (repeated on 8 October at Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

). In the same year she made her Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...

 debut as Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. John Von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

wrote of her performance:

"With her pale features and petite, high-waisted figure, Gasdia looked as if she had stepped out of a painting by Raphael. She sang with a sweetness, purity and fluency of tone that was rich in soft shadings and consistent in quality from the top to bottom of her range."

Her Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 debut in 1986 as another 'Juliette', this time in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette

Roméo et Juliette

Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...

. By the late 1990s Gasdia increasingly devoted herself to recitals and concerts, including a 2001 US concert tour with Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli, is an Italian tenor, multi-instrumentalist and classical crossover artist. Born with poor eyesight, he became blind at the age of twelve following a soccer accident....

. Throughout the course of her career, she has worked with Claudio Scimone

Claudio Scimone

Claudio Scimone is an Italian conductor.He was born in Padua, Italy and studied conducting with Dmitri Mitropoulos and Franco Ferrara. He has established an international reputation as a conductor, as well as a composer. He has revived many baroque and renaissance works...

 and I Solisti Veneti

I Solisti Veneti

I Solisti Veneti is one of the first rank of small Italian chamber orchestras with modern instruments. Founded in Padua in 1959 by Claudio Scimone, it has made a reputation especially with Italian Baroque music, recording many works by Antonio Vivaldi, Tomaso Albinoni, Francesco Geminiani,...

both on the concert stage and in the recording studio.

External links

• Official site