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BELLA ITALIA

NOVEMBER 9, 2025 | 2:00 PM

POST CONCERT TALK FOLLOWING THE PERFORMANCE

 

SERIES TICKETS
SINGLE TICKETS ON SALE SEPTEMBER 16

VIS Orchestra

Whether you’re new to opera or a devoted aficionado this concert promises to uplift your spirit and nurture your soul. Experience the enchanting voice of soprano Sarah Caulfield as she delivers a stunning performance bringing to life the rich themes of love, laughter, betrayal, seduction, passion, heartache, tragedy, and comedy. Enjoy a thoughtfully curated selection of your favourite opera pieces, showcasing the masterpieces of iconic composers such as Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini.

CONDUCTOR: Cosette Justo Valdés
GUEST ARTISTS: Sarah Caulfield,  soprano

PROGRAMME

G. ROSSINI: Overture “Semiramide”

G. ROSSINI: Una voce poco fa from “Il barbiere di Siviglia”

V. BELLINI: Casta Diva from “Norma”

G. PUCCINI: Si, mi chiamano Mimi  from “La Bohème”

Vittorio MONTI: Csárdás

Amilcare PONCHIELLI: Danza delle ore from “La Gioconda”

G. VERDI: E strano! / Sempre libera degg’io from “La Traviata”

G. VERDI: Prelude to Act I “La Traviata”

G. VERDI: Lo vidi e’l primo palpito from “Luisa Miller”

G. DONIZETTI: Di quai soave lagrime… Perche di stolto giubilo? from “Poliuto”

G. VERDI: Overture “La forza del destino”

Sarah Caulfield, soprano

BELLA ITALIA

NOVEMBER 8, 2025 | 7:30 PM

 

SERIES TICKETS
SINGLE TICKETS ON SALE SEPTEMBER 16

POST CONCERT TALKS FOLLOWING THE PEFORMANCE

Whether you’re new to opera or a devoted aficionado this concert promises to uplift your spirit and nurture your soul. Experience the enchanting voice of soprano Sarah Caulfield as she delivers a stunning performance bringing to life the rich themes of love, laughter, betrayal, seduction, passion, heartache, tragedy, and comedy. Enjoy a thoughtfully curated selection of your favourite opera pieces, showcasing the masterpieces of iconic composers such as Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini.

CONDUCTOR: Cosette Justo Valdés
GUEST ARTISTS: Sarah Caulfield,  soprano

PROGRAMME

G. ROSSINI: Overture “Semiramide”

G. ROSSINI: Una voce poco fa from “Il barbiere di Siviglia”

V. BELLINI: Casta Diva from “Norma”

G. PUCCINI: Si, mi chiamano Mimi  from “La Bohème”

Vittorio MONTI: Csárdás

Amilcare PONCHIELLI: Danza delle ore from “La Gioconda”

G. VERDI: E strano! / Sempre libera degg’io from “La Traviata”

G. VERDI: Prelude to Act I “La Traviata”

G. VERDI: Lo vidi e’l primo palpito from “Luisa Miller”

G. DONIZETTI: Di quai soave lagrime… Perche di stolto giubilo? from “Poliuto”

G. VERDI: Overture “La forza del destino”

Sarah Caulfield, soprano

VIS Orchestra

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Sarah Caulfield
Soprano

Hailing from Chilliwack, Sarah Caulfield has been lauded by Opera Canada as “a singer to watch … her voice was brilliant and full, with floating high notes and effortless coloratura.” A recent M. Mus graduate from the University of British Columbia, her performances included the title role of Rusalka, Frau Fluth (Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Corinna (Il viaggio a Reims), Giulietta (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Casilda (The Gondoliers), Aunt Norris (Mansfield Park). and the Madame in Shadow Catch, a Noh-inspired chamber opera set in Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park. Since graduating, she debuted as Fiordiligi at the Krušnohorské Theatre in Teplice, Czechia, and covered the role of Lauretta in Opera Kelowna’s Gianni Schicchi. In 2025, she was selected to attend the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance as part of the Rossini Opera Festival.

Having a passion for chamber and concert repertoire, Sarah has appeared as a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (Traditional Christmas tour). Richmond Orchestra (Fauré Requiem), Bach on the Rock (Handel Messiah), and the UBC Early Music Ensemble. She has also enjoyed work as a choral soloist and private music instructor. At present, she’s grateful to reside on Treaty 6 territory (Edmonton, Alberta).

Gioanchino Rossini
February 29, 1792 - November 13, 1868

Gioachino Antonio Rossini, (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.

Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most popular works, including the comic operas L’italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English as The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, which brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such as Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello. He also composed opera seria works such as Otello, Tancredi and Semiramide. All of these attracted admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for his first opera in French, Le comte Ory), revisions of two of his Italian operas, Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse, and in 1829 his last opera, Guillaume Tell.

Rossini’s withdrawal from opera for the last 40 years of his life has never been fully explained; contributary factors may have been ill-health, the wealth his success had brought him, and the rise of spectacular grand opera under composers such as Giacomo Meyerbeer. From the early 1830s to 1855, when he left Paris and was based in Bologna, Rossini wrote relatively little. On his return to Paris in 1855 he became renowned for his musical salons on Saturdays, regularly attended by musicians and the artistic and fashionable circles of Paris, for which he wrote the entertaining pieces Péchés de vieillesse. Guests included Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Giuseppe Verdi, Meyerbeer and Joseph Joachim. Rossini’s last major composition was his Petite messe solennelle (1863). He died in Paris in 1868.

 

Read more on Wikipedia.org…

Guiseppe Verdi
October 1813 - January 1901

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him.

In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus “Va, pensiero” from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).

His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his ‘middle period’: Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. The bicentenary of his birth in 2013 was widely celebrated in broadcasts and performances.

Read more on Wikipedia.org…