Launching the Badoer Dalla Rizza Scholarship Fund

We’re delighted to announce the launch of the Badoer Dalla Rizza Scholarship Fund to support early-career artists in their study of Italian opera repertoire.

Thanks to the generous support of our Founding Supporters and Patrons of Arte Lirica Festival, Mr and Mrs B. McGuire, the fund will provide scholarships that will widen access to Veneto Opera Summer School and Arte Lirica Festival, our summer study programme in Italy. The programme provides an excellent development opportunity, comprising expert Italian opera repertoire coaching and preparation for a range of performances including staged scenes at Asolo’s royal opera house. In 2019, participants performed extracts from La bohème, Don Giovanni and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria.

In 2019, the fund provided at least one 50% scholarship for singers of each voice type, one pianist/répétiteur and each of the following instrumentalists: violinist, cellist, flautist, clarinettist and bassoonist. There will also be a limited number of smaller bursary awards made to help towards the costs of the programme for those who do not receive a scholarship.

The scholarship fund has been set up in memory of bass Paolo Badoer and his teacher, Gilda Dalla Rizza, Puccini’s favourite soprano.

Paolo Badoer was the beloved singing teacher of Melofonetica Founder Matteo Dalle Fratte, and a successful international opera singer who sang for over 40 years in major opera houses and concert halls around the world. He was the favourite pupil and close friend of Gilda Dalla Rizza, the soprano who inspired Puccini, Mascagni, Giordano, Zandonai and Toscanini.

Gilda Dalla Rizza was one of the greatest opera stars in the world during the 1920s and 1930s, she premiered roles in many operas including Magda in La rondine, and inspired Puccini to create Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, and Liù in Turandot. She received widespread acclaim as Violetta in La traviata at La Scala with Toscanini. As a talented teacher in Venice, she also coached Maria Callas.

The work that Melofonetica does today to promote excellence in sung Italian aims to preserve not only the legacy and teaching of both Paolo Badoer and Gilda Dalla Rizza, but the beauty and heritage of Italian opera as it was handed down through the generations of great performers and composers.

To find out more about Veneto Opera Summer School and Arte Lirica Festival, visit our programme webpage here. Please contact us if you’d like further details.