Amarilli Nizza


Amarilli Nizza is an Italian operatic soprano.

Early life and education

Nizza was born in Milan. She is a great-great=granddaughter of the soprano Medea Figner. and Iolanta ).
From childhood she studied piano and singing with her grandmother Claudia Biadi. In 1993 she won the competition Mattia Battistini and debuted in Madama Butterfly'' by Puccini at Teatro Flavio Vespasiano in Rieti. After a series of earlyexperiences, in 2001 Amarilli Nizza started to be internationally in the spotlight by mainly performing the great Italian opera repertoire.

Career

She was Giorgetta in Il tabarro at Teatro dell'Opera in Rome in 2002, in 2003 Francesca in Francesca da Rimini, in 2005 Thaïs, in 2006 Micaela in Carmen, in 2008 Madama Butterfly at Terme di Caracalla and Amica, and in 2010 Margherita / Elena in Mefistofele.
At Teatro Verdi in 2003 she was Nedda in Pagliacci conducted by Massimo de Bernart, in 2004 Anna in I cavalieri di Ekebù, in 2005 Anna Glavari in The merry widow with Vittorio Grigolo, in 2007 Suor Angelica and Manon Lescaut conducted by Daniel Oren. In 2014 again Madama Butterfly conducted by Donato Renzetti.
In 2003 she performed Tosca for Arena di Verona foundation in Cipro. At Arena di Verona she debuted as Aida in 2005 and performed this role until 2014 ; in 2006 she was Nedda in Pagliacci by Leoncavallo. In 2012 Micaela in Carmen by Bizet and Liù in Turandot by Puccini. In 2013 she returned to perform the role of Abigaille in Nabucco by Verdi and of Aida. In 2014 she sang her first Cio Cio San at Arena di Verona. At Teatro Filarmonico in Verona she debuted in 2004 as the main role in Tosca by Puccini; then The merry widow by Lehár in 2005, Manon Lescaut in 2011 and Nedda in Pagliacci in 2012; Odabella in Attila by Verdi in 2013.
In 2007 she debuted as Tosca with José Cura at Wiener Staatsoper.
During the Festival Puccini in Torre del Lago in 2010 she debuted Madama Butterfly and came back to this festival in 2014 to perform Suor Angelica and Giorgetta in Il Tabarro.
For the first time she sang in Naples in 2006, thus performing Desdemona in Otello at Teatro San Carlo; again in 2006 she performed Madama Butterfly at Arena Flegrea, where she returned in 2009 for the same role.
At Teatro Regio in Turin in 2008 she performed Fidelia in Edgar, aired by RAI Italian television, and in 2014 sang Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, which was aired live HD at cinemas around the world, in specific over eighty cinemas in Italy and on Rai Radio 3. This opera was aired afterwards on Rai 5 TV with an audience of 97.000 people. In January 2015 she returned in Turin at Teatro Regio to perform the main character in Suor Angelica.
In 2011 she debuted at Royal Opera House in London as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, then Leonora in Il trovatore at Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele in Palermo, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at Lipsia Opera, and Nedda in Pagliacci with Alberto Gazale, conducted by Daniel Oren at Teatro Verdi.
In 2012 she performed Mimì in La bohème at Opéra de Nice. In 2013 Amica at Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Madama Butterfly at Fenice in Venice, where she returned for the same role in 2014.
In Spain she sang in Mallorca, in Oviedo Un ballo in maschera at Teatro Campoamor in 2009, and at Oviedo Opera Madama Butterfly in 2014, in Siviglia, in Pamplona and at Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.
In Germany she made her debut in 2003 as Aida at Deutsche Oper in Berlin, where she returned in 2005 for Pagliacci and in 2007 for Suor Angelica. Moreover, she debuted at Staatsoper in Hamburg, at Lipsia Opera and at Semperoper in Dresden.
In China she performed in 2006 in a concert in Beijing in collaboration with Teatro San Carlo, in 2013 in a concert Verdi/Wagner in Macao directed by Lu Jia, and in 2015 in Andrea Chenier at Beijing National Centre for the Performing Arts directed by Lu Jia.
In 2015 she performed in Suor Angelica at Teatro Regio di Torino, in Nabucco and Tosca at Oper Leipzig, Macbeth at De Nationale Opera Amsterdam, Andrea Chenier directed by Lu Jia with Alberto Gazale in Pechino, in Aida with Gregory Kunde at Arena di Verona directed by Andrea Battistoni in a production by Franco Zeffirelli, in Macbeth at Teatro Comunale di Bologna and in Manon Lescaut at Hamburgische Staatsoper.
In 2016 she performed in Macbeth at Semperoper Dresden, in Suor Angelica at Opera di Firenze, in Nabucco at Opera di Leipzig, in Madama Butterfly at Teatro Municipale di Piacenza and at Teatro Comunale di Modena.

Partial discography

She recorded several CDs for different labels and recorded many DVDs. She firstly recorded a CD including all Mazurkas by Chopin with the pianist Enrica Ciccarelli, copied by Pauline Viardot,
DVD
Amarilli Nizza worked with conductors such as: Maurizio Rinaldi, Daniel Oren, Eve Queler, Bruno Bartoletti, Alain Lombard, Philippe Auguin, Markus Letonja, Patrick Fourniller, Renato Palumbo, Maurizio Arena, Maurizio Benini, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Alain Guingal, Donato Renzetti, Giuliano Carella, Gunter Nehueld, Piegiorgio Morandi, Massimo de Bernart, Stefano Ranzani, Kery-Linn Wilson, Steven Mercurio, Nikša Bareza, Ralph Weikart, Yoram David, Massimiliano Stefanelli, Viekoslav Sutey, Romano Gandolfi, George Pehlivanian, Paolo Carignani, Julian Kovachev, Carlo Palleschi, Roberto Rizzi-Brignoli, Paolo Arrivabeni, Fabrizio Maria Carminati, Antonino Fogliani.
And directors like: Franco Zeffirelli, PierLuigi Pizzi, Saverio Marconi, Vivien Hewitt Stefano Vizioli, Stephen Lawless, Jean Luis Grinda, Gianfranco De Bosio, Walter Pagliaro, Hugo De Ana, Gilbert Delfo, Alberto Fassini, Roberto De Simone, Massimo Ranieri, Federico Tiezzi, Nicolas Joel, Gino Landi, Cristina Pezzoli, Isabelle Wagner, Giorgio Gallione, Ivan Stefanutti, Dieter Kaegi, Leo de Bernardinis, Beppe De Tomasi, Pierfrancesco Maestrini, Renata Scotto, Antonello Madau Diaz, David Poutney, Goetzhe Friedrich, Pier Alli, Lorenzo Mariani, Renzo Giacchieri, Franca Valeri, Giovanni Scandella, Giulio Ciabatti, Francesco Micheli.

Honours and awards