“Rodolfo Celletti” Belcanto Academy: high-level improvement courses for opera singers from Italy and abroad, including non-EU citizens.
It is now possible to enrol for the year 2011 at the “Rodolfo Celletti” Belcanto Academy in Martina Franca, promoted and organised by the Fondazione “Paolo Grassi” with the collaboration of the Festival della Valle d’Itria.
The course, led by the artistic director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria Alberto Triola, is an opportunity to improve various aspects of vocal technique and interpretation in the field of the Italian belcanto repertoire(from Monteverdi to Protoromanticism), including an analysis of the various styles of the tradition of Western musical theatre.
The Academy’s high-level improvement courses are for candidates possessing the necessary artistic qualities and predisposition for the profession; not to mention solid basic techniques, essential for a complete understanding of this highly specialised education and for practicalexperience training, with the aim of gaining professional experience in the field of the belcanto repertoire.
On the basis of personal vocal characteristics, interests and aptitude, which will be verified during the admission phase, students will be divided into two groups with the following orientations: “Baroque and Pre-Classical” (group A) and “Classical and Protoromantic” (group B). Each student will be constantly guided towards the full awareness and mastery of his/her own vocal skills and of the specific techniques required by the appropriate repertoire. The students will also participate in technical acting training activities of particular importance, which stems from the need for a mature and correct knowledge of physicality and the main psycho-emotional mechanisms, in order to achieve full awareness of the principal performative instruments required by modern musical theatre, in terms of physique, and of performing character roles. The course aims to train professional operatic artists who, in the light of the needs and characteristics of the modern musical theatre, intend to make the most of a solid culture of the profession and of a complete knowledge of their role as singer-actor performers.
The course includes different subjects as, for exemple, "Art and technique of Baroque recitative", "Art and technique of coloratura" and "Awareness of breathing dynamics". The course includes a masterclass in “Art and technique of performance” with some of the most illustrious maestros of the belcanto, singers and conductors.
For the 2011 course the masterclasses will take place with:
Alberto Zedda, Raul Giménez, Fabio Luisi, Stefania Bonfadelli and Daniela Dessì.
Laboratories of acting and performing technique will be directed, among other teachers, by:
Rosetta Cucchi and Juliette Deschamps.
Among the many teachers of the Academy are:
Alfonso Antoniozzi, Mariano Bauduin, Tiziana Fabbricini, Shermann Lowe, Paola Pittaluga, Gianni Tangucci and Vittorio Terranova.
The course is divided into three different sessions (for a total of 600 hours) of advanced theoreticaltechnical study and technical acting training, with considerable laboratory and concert work-experience activity, including participation in the summer productions of the Festival della Valle d’Itria. Each session consists in highly specialised teaching – structured in individual and group courses – and in prestigious masterclasses.
The schedule for the year 2011 is as follows:
- Spring session: 2 - 13 March 2011
- Summer session: 17 - 26 June 2011
- Autumnal Session: November - December 2011
Applications to the Fondazione “Paolo Grassi”, via Metastasio 20, 74015 Martina Franca (TA), or by e-mail to the following address: accademia@fondazionepaolograssi.it; phone: +39 080 4306763.
