Patricia Racette, one of opera’s most in-demand artists, will perform a concert of demanding arias and duets during “An Evening with Patricia Racette” at 5 p.m. this Sunday, Nov. 21 at The Granada.
Racette will come directly to Santa Barbara from singing a leading role in the Metropolitan Opera’s current production of Il Trovatore. Her two-hour concert program will feature several of her signature arias from Tosca, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly and others, including several duets with mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack, a recent Adler Fellow who is now enjoying an international performing career.
Much of the program will be both vocally and emotionally challenging, and it wouldn’t be feasible for anyone who didn’t have Racette’s vocal strength and stamina. Acclaimed as a “triple threat,” Racette is one of very few singers in recent opera history to perform all three female roles in the three one-act operas that make up Giacomo Puccini’s Il Trittico, as well all three female roles in Jacques Offenbach’s Contes d’ Hoffmann.
Friday’s program promises to be an extraordinary evening of operatic “favorites.”
Former Opera Santa Barbara artistic director and guest conductor for the concert Maestro Valery Ryvkin met with Racette in New York to rehearse for Sunday’s concert between her Met performances.
“Pat and I go back to the early 1990s when we were both starting out at the San Francisco Opera and then the Met,” said Ryvkin, adding that he considers Racette to be one of the world’s greatest acting singers. “For me personally, working with Pat is an absolute joy! She is fun, creative, fabulously musical and artistic. We in Santa Barbara are fortunate indeed to experience her art firsthand, in a concert which will feature her performing some of the most favorite arias from her best roles.”
Tickets are still available for “An Evening with Patricia Racette.” Click here or call The Granada at 805.899.2222.
— Marylove Thralls represents Opera Santa Barbara.