Opera superstar Joyce DiDonato won a Grammy this year for Best Classical Vocal Solo.
The Prairie Village native and mezzo-soprano was the star of a TV special titled "Homecoming" produced by Kansas City's KCPT and PBS Arts. The concert with the Kansas City Symphony at the newly-opened Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts was broadcast nationally, and now, she has a new disc out titled "Drama Queens," which she recorded in Italy in July.
In the first part of Wednesday's Up to Date, Steve Kraske talks with DiDonato about "Homecoming," the new album, and why no matter where travels take her around the globe, she still calls Kansas City home.
HEAR MORE: Joyce DiDonato performs this Friday, Nov. 16 at the Folly Theater as part of the Harriman-Jewell Series. She'll perform the "Great Queens of the Baroque": Orlandini, Monteverdi, Cesti, Hasse, Porta, Gluck, and Handel with Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco. Click here for ticket information.
Born in Kansas and educated at Wichita State University and Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, Joyce DiDonato won a Grammy in 2012 in the Classical Vocal Solo category. In 2010, DiDonato won the highly-prized Artist of the Year honor at the Gramophone Awards, as well as Recital of the Year award for her album Colbran: Rossini’s Muse. She also collected a German Echo Klassik Award as Female Singer of the Year. Other honors include the Met’s Beverly Sills Award, the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year, citations from Operalia, and recognition by the Richard Tucker and George London foundations. Recently, she has performed back-to-back title roles at La Scala in Milan (Der Rosenkavalier and La donna del lago), the world premiere of the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island at the Metropolitan Opera, concerts with the New York Philharmonic in New York and London, the title role of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda at Houston Grand Opera, and here with the Kansas City Symphony at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
