West Australian Opera and The Consulate of Italy, Perth Cultural Partnership
West Australian Opera and the Consulate of Italy, Perth are proud to work together to foster cultural connections and support the promotion of Italian language.
The partnership was formalised on 30 April by West Australian Opera’s Executive Director Carolyn Chard AM and the Italian Consul Sergio Federico Nicolaci.
Opera maintains deep roots to Italian heritage with many of the best loved and most performed operas sung in Italian.
The Consulate will enable Italian language learning for West Australian Opera artists and will nurture the Wesfarmers Arts Young Artists as part of their ongoing developmental training.
West Australian Opera’s Executive Director Carolyn Chard AM said:
“We are grateful to Sergio Federico Nicolaci and The Consulate of Italy, Perth for enabling these important learning opportunities and celebrating opera’s rich Italian heritage. We know that singers will benefit from Italian language coaching in works sung in Italian. Opera celebrates the importance of sung stories and we are proud to work in many languages including Italian, Czech and Noongar amongst others.
We are fortunate to be celebrating culture, the arts and opera as we enter a formal agreement with the Consulate. There are two important aspects to this and these are language and collaboration. Language is a very big part of our world and in opera, Italian language in particular. And in the complex artform of opera, collaboration is extremely important.
We are grateful to the Consulate for enabling this new collaboration, and we are grateful to Maria Rosaria Francomacaro and John Kinder who will deliver the Italian language program. This new association will be invaluable to our Wesfarmers Arts Young Artists as part of their development and our singers as they prepare for roles in Orpheus & Eurydice later this year.”
The Italian Consul Sergio Federico Nicolaci said:
“Thanks to this important collaboration with West Australian Opera, we not only pay a tribute to Puccini's enduring influence on the panorama of world opera music, but also underline our strong commitment to promoting and increasing interest and passion for the ltalian language and culture.”
Image credit: Owen Gregory
