AIDA GARIFULLINA
opera gala

First Part

• Orchestra: Vincenzo Bellini, Norma - “Sinfonia” 
• Aida Garifullina: Charles Gounod, - aria of Juliette “Je veux vivre” 
• Orchestra: Georges Bizet - Carmen “Preludio I atto” 
• Szabolcs Brickner: George Bizet, Carmen “The Flower” 
• Aida Garifullina: Vincenzo Bellini, Norma - “Casta diva” 
• Orchestra: Giacomo Puccini, Manon Lescaut “Intermezzo” 
• Aida Garifullina: Giacomo Puccini, Boheme - “Quando m'en vo’ ” 
• Duetto - Garifullina-Brickner: La Boheme: O soave fanciulla” 
• Aida Garifullina: Leo Delibes “Les filles de Cádiz “

Second Part

• Orchestra: G.Verdi “La forza del Destino” Sinfonia 
• Aida Garifullina: Franz Schubert - “Ave Maria” 
• Orchestra: Giuseppe Verdi - Traviata “Preludio 3 Atto” 
• Duetto - Garifullina-Brickner: G.Verdi, Traviata “Parigi o Cara” 
• Orchestra: G.Rossini “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” Sinfonia 
• Aida Garifullina: G.Gimenez: El Barbero de Sevilla - “Me llaman la primorosa” 
• Orchestra: Pietro Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana-intermezzo 
• Aida Garifullina: Dvorák: Song to the Moon 
• Aida Garifullina: Ruggero Leoncavallo - “Mattinata” 

Encore

• Duetto - Garifullina- Brickner: Brindisi Traviata, “Libiamo” 
• Aida Garifullina: Giacomo Puccini - “O mio babbino caro” 

Born in 1987 in Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Aida Garifullina was surrounded by music from an early age. Her first lessons in music came from her choirmaster and pianist mother who encouraged in her a love and devotion to singing. The work with her mother led her to further her musical development from early childhood and, later, inspiring a passion to pursue a career in opera. 

Following initial studies in Nuremberg, Germany and The University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria, Aida achieved huge recognition at Placido Domingo’s 2013 Operalia Competition, winning First Prize. She later joined the ensemble of the revered Vienna Staatsoper, regularly performing there whilst continuing to further her international career. 

On the operatic stage she has sung under the musical guidance of some of the most prominent conductors, including Gustavo Dudamel, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Antonio Pappano, Yannick Nezet-Seguin and Placido Domingo.

Alongside a successful operatic career, Aida is a celebrated recording artist. Her acclaimed solo album “AIDA”, with Decca Records, won Best Solo Album of the year (ECHO).

“Soprano Aida Garifullina shows she has a fine future ahead of her with this excellent debut album featuring an alluring combination of arias”

– Daily Mail

As a guest singer on Andrea Bocelli’s Album “Si”, she joined artists such as Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran and The Weekend. The album topped both the US and U.K. charts, and Aida joined Andrea Bocelli for a US tour – performing at Madison Square Garden in NYC, MGM Las Vegas and Verizon Centre in Washington, DC. 

“…Garifullina is equally talented and beautiful, and commanded the stage with her vocals and looks…”

– Las Vegas Sun

In 2018, Aida performed alongside Robbie Williams at both the opening and closing ceremonies of the FIFA World Cup, with over one billion people watching live. She appeared as the guest soloist at the 2018 BBC Proms in Hyde Park, London, and the Bastille Day Concert in Paris – both to vast international audiences – alongside several highly acclaimed international recitals worldwide.

“Aida Garifullina made an auspicious house debut, gamely removing her drawers during ‘Quando m’en vo’, but finding humane dignity over Mimi’s deathbed.”

-The Telegraph

In 2019, Aida was a guest soloist in Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China – as part of the Deutsche Grammophone 120th Anniversary Celebrations. The event was broadcast worldwide, and later released on DVD.

An opportunity to combine two of her greatest passions – Opera and Film – Aida appeared on the big screen as opera singer Lily Pons in the Oscar nominated movie “Florence Foster Jenkins” directed by Steven Frears, featuring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. 

“Filming ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ made me as excited and nervous as performing in any opera,” says Garifullina. “It was my first time in a feature film, and I had the wonderful Stephen Frears directing me and Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant in the audience – no pressure! And then it was all done in one take, live to camera. I could hardly believe it was all over so quickly but the result looks and sounds amazing.”

– The Guardian

She was also an invited guest of Good Morning America in December 2019, following her successful Metropolitan Opera Debut. In the same year, she was invited by Alibaba /Jack Ma to perform at his annual Gala Event, alongside Taylor Swift and Lang Lang at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai. 

In 2019, Aida performed a solo concert for the official inauguration of the “One Shenzhen Bay” concert hall in the Chinese city of Shenzhen – located on the 72nd floor of the highest skyscraper in the complex. On that same evening, the tower was given the title of “The Highest Concert Hall in the World” in the Guinness Book of world records.

2019 brought several further landmark events for Aida, as she gave her Argentinian debut with a solo concert at one of the world’s most beautiful Opera houses – the renowned Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. The journey was supported, and filmed, by a German Film Production company, who made a documentary of the events surrounding the performance. 

“Aida is fearless. She got to the point where the high notes just bloom.”

– The New York Times

During 2020, Aida was honored to receive an audience with Pope Francis, later singing at annual charitable concert of the Vatican – “Concerto di Natale”. The concert raised funds to support children in need in Africa and was broadcast live on Christmas Eve.

The next stop was the legendary, historical theatre – La Scala, Milan – where Aida appeared as soloist in a Christmas concert, performing Mozart’s “Exsultate, Jubilate”.

In 2021, Aida was named by GQ magazine as Super Woman of the Year in Culture. 

With a strong desire to help those around her, Aida is on the board of several charitable foundations and involved with many humanitarian projects. She sings regularly in support of many foundations, including the David Foster Foundation, Andrea Bocelli and Mohammed Ali’s “Celebrity Fight Night” and many more.

Aida is in high demand both on the international operatic stage and concert platform and is currently working with her team on several large-scale music projects, to officially be announced in the near future.

Aida Garifullina appears by arrangement with Askonas Holt.

https://onlyaida.com/

Pier Giorgio Morandi

Conductor

Pier Giorgio Morandi played for ten years as principal oboist in Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala in Milan. He studied composition at Conservatorio G. Verdi in Milan, and orchestra conducting at Salzburg Mozarteum with M° Ferdinand Leitner. During the years spent at La Scala, Morandi was assistant conductor of  M° Riccardo Muti and later of M° Giuseppe Patanè, from whom he gained a lot of experience in refining the stylistic Italian repertoire and in learning all the secrets of the Italian operatic tradition.

In 1987 he studied in Tanglewood, USA, with M° Leonard Bernstein and M° Seiji Ozawa. In the same year, Morandi  won the "Tanglewood Competition", also known as "Bernstein Prize". In 1989 he  became  Deputy Principal Conductor at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, where he conducted Ernani, Madama Butterfly and several symphonic concerts. In 1990 he recorded his first opera with Roma opera house, Paisiello’s Don Chisciotte. From 1991 and for the following five years, he was Principal Guest Conductor at Budapest National Opera House.

Morandi  has a wide Italian operatic repertoire and he has been working as regular guest conductor since 1990 in all the major opera houses in Italy, Europe and worldwide: Palermo, Trieste, Roma, Marseille, La Maestranza in Seville, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Osaka, National Opera Theatre in Seoul, Colon in Buenos Aires, Stockholm Royal Opera House, Theatre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, Wiener Staatsoper, Macerata Opera Festival, Arena di Verona, Opernhaus Zürich, Goteborg, Teatro Regio di Parma, Napoli, Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Bilbao, Maiorca, Las Palmas, Valencia, Copenhagen Royal Opera House, Seattle Opera, Royal Albert Hall in London.

An appreciated interpreter of symphonic repertoire, Morandi has worked, among others, with Budapest Radio Orchestra, Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest State Orchestra, Flamish Radio Orchestra, Roma’s Santa Cecilia Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra del Filarmonico di Verona, Sanremo Symphony Orchestra, Reggio Calabria Symphony Orchestra, Fukuoka Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.

A prolific recording artist, Morandi appeared in several releases, including the Verdi Gala DVD with tenor José Cura and the London Symphony Orchestra, and two Sony Classic CD’s of the European tour with tenor Vittorio Grigolo.

Recent seasons’ highlights include La Fanciulla del West, Tosca and Un Ballo in Maschera at Stockholm Royal Opera House (where he held the position of Principal Guest Conductor), Aida in Oslo and in Qatar, L’Elisir d’Amore, La Bohème and Don Carlo in Dresden, Maria Stuarda in Frankfurt, Macbeth at La Scala, Attila at the Palace of Arts in Budapest, Rigoletto in Naples, a symphonic concert at Musikverein in Graz.

Most recently, Don Carlo, Aida and Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala, Otello in Copenhagen, Madama Butterfly in Oslo, Manon Lescaut, Rigoletto, Turandot, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème and La Traviata in Dresden, La Fanciulla del West in Frankfurt, Otello and L’elisir d’amore at the China National Center of Performing arts in Bejing, Manon Lescaut at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Rigoletto at Opéra Bastille, Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the China National Center of Performing arts, Rigoletto and Madame Butterfly at Metropolitan Opera, Rigoletto al Metropolitan Opera, Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Carlo in Hamburg,  Turandot at Sferisterio Opera Festival,  Aida at Opera Australia, Madame Butterfly at Teatro Regio di Torino.

He was Principal Guest Conductor at Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and at Royal Opera House in Stockholm.

His future plans include:  Turandot at Spring Festival in Tokyo (concert form), La Forza del destino and Il Trittico at Oper Frankfurt.