Fernando Bustos Helps Early Music Festival End On High Note

Look Away: Fernando Bustos as Orfeo in the Twin Cities.

"The second annual Twin Cities Early Music Festival — three weeks of period instrument and early vocal style performances — presented its finale Friday night, an ambitious and largely successful semi-staging of Gluck’s classic 18th-century opera, Orfeo ed Euridice.....A feisty little 10-piece orchestra offered playing that was both lively and consistently in tune — no small accomplishment in the period-instrument world. Even so, under the circumstances, it was probably wise that conductor Donald Livingston cut at least a half-hour out of the score. Two of the singers came from Panama for this production (which was repeated Saturday). These were a young countertenor, Fernando Bustos, who sang Orfeo, and soprano Graciela Saavedra, who portrayed Amore, the Goddess of Love. Bustos brought a sincerity and an emotional vulnerability to the role that more or less carried the evening, and his high tenor, with its poignant naturalness, had none of the steely sound that mars the singing of so many countertenors. As far as variety of vocal expression and coloring, Bustos is probably not yet in the league of David Daniels, the current champ of countertenors who sang Orfeo for Minnesota Opera, but he is clearly on his way. He sang the great lament, 'Che faro senza Euridice?' with such sweetness and tragic dignity that it seemed fresh and new. Saavedra was a saucy Amore with an agile voice, though a couple of her coloratura flights sounded tentative. Linh Kauffman was a warmly human Euridice exquisitely sung. Both Bustos and Kauffman embodied the 'noble simplicity' that Gluck sought in his works for the stage." Read the entire review here and learn more about the festival here. Additional information on Fernando Bustos, after the jump.

Television Chef Silvia Colloca Takes On Gluck Orfeo Role

Coming Up Roses: Silvia Colloca shows her many
 facets, including opera. (Photo: Robert Gray)

"Is she a television chef? A food blogger? An actor? A singer? With Silvia Colloca, it's not clear exactly what category to put her in, but the Milan-born Sydney mother of two and wife of Richard Roxburgh is happy with the confusion. 'I don't want to be pigeonholed. I think that's a good role model for my kids to show them you can do what you want so long as you are passionate and professional about it,' Colloca said, as she prepared to launch her next incarnation: opera singer as part of the inaugural Spectrum Now arts festival, of which Roxburgh is the creative director. Though Colloca has won a legion of fans across Australia since the launch of her hit cooking series Made In Italy on SBS last year, next Saturday night she will reprise her career as an operatic mezzo-soprano. She takes on the role of Orfeo in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, based on the myth of Orpheus descending to the underworld to claim his wife. In this case, however, it is Colloca claiming 'her' wife. 'I've done this role before - it really isn't terribly gender-specific so it still works with a woman playing Orfeo,' she enthused. 'And you know, it's Mardi Gras - the timing is great.''....Colloca has been singing as long as she has been cooking and acting. She studied classical singing for five years in Milan before spending several years working as a professional singer throughout Europe. But it was through acting that she met Roxburgh, when they appeared together in the Hollywood horror flick Van Helsing, playing a couple of vampires." [Source] Watch Silvia Colloca perform the aria "Che faro senza Euridice" after the jump.