Renato Palumbo

In the present stylised production by Lorenzo Mariani the 'violet-perfumed murderess' is taken by mezzo-soprano Marianne Cornetti, one of the most in-demand representatives of her vocal category. Opposite her, in the role of Adriana, is a soprano who as a Verdi and verismo specialist also appears regularly at all the major international opera houses, Micaela Carosi. The 'cock-of-the-walk' role is sung by the world-class tenor Marcelo Álvarez. His timbre, velvety smooth yet robustly virile, is ideally suited to a vocal characterisation of the idolised Maurizio. Conductor Renato Palumbo is very much at home with Cilea's operatic masterpiece, since the Italian Romantic and verismo periods are at the core of his extensive repertoire.

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This new production of Norma, directed by Grammy Award-nominated opera, theatre and film director Kevin Newbury (winner of the Irish Times Theatre Award 2010) and starring Sondra Radvanovsky as a "powerful, elegant" Norma (New York Times) and Gregory Kunde as Pollione, is "something very special. The word 'historic' is used perhaps a little too often but tonight there really is no other adjective to describe the sensational performances offered to us by Sondra Radvanovsky and Gregory Kunde."

Arthaus presents Rossini's popular comic opera, La Cenerentola, in a staging from the opera house in Naples. The operatic re-telling of this much loved fairy-tale centres on Cinderella's honesty and integrity, and on her willingness to forgive others, and to encourage those around her to be equally tolerant. Paul Curran's production presented to rapturous acclaim in Genoa in May 2006, finds a rather unusual setting for this moral tale. He sets the story in the year 1912, in his own words, "because I wanted to draw attention to social conflicts, and this was a period when class differences were very real".