D’Anna Fortunato

Born: 1945 - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (or Charleston, South Carolina?), USA

The American mezzo-soprano D'Anna Fortunato studied primarily at the New England Conservatory of Music with Gladys Miller.

D'Anna Fortunato has long been an admired favorite on the American Orchestral-Concert scene, while establishing herself as a respected operatic artist as well. Of her New York City Opera Debut in Georg Frideric Handel's Alcina, the New Yorker called her a Handelian of crisp accomplishment. She has gone on to create major roles in premiere performances of G.F. Handel's Operas in such venues as Merkin Hall, Carneige Hall, Emmanuel Music, and Monadnock Music, while singing major roles in 8 premiere G.F. Handel CD's for Albany, Newport Classics, and Vox. Other major roles have been created with such Companies as Glimmerglass (Beatrice in Berlioz' Beatrice and Benedict.) Kentucky Opera (Artist-in Residence, Maddalena in Rigoletto, and Dido in Dido and Aeneas.) , Connecticut Grand Opera (Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia.), Opera San Jose (Sarah in Mollicone's Hotel Eden), Rochester Opera (Seibel in Faust,and Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte.) ,Florida Grand Opera (Dorabella) and the Boston Lyric Opera on many occasions, the most recent being Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro.

Highlights of her orchestral engagements have included Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilege, and Verdi's Falstaff with Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Messiah's with the National Symphony; Mozart's Requiem with Ottawa's National Arts Center Orchestra; Gluck's Orfeo with the Philadelphia Orchestra; Berlioz' Romeo et Juliette with the Minnesota Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony; Ah ,Perfido! with the Pittsburgh Symphony; Arthur Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bucher with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Mazur; Luciano Berio's Folksongs with both the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the Omaha Symphony; and Messiah's with the New Japan Philharmonic, and Ozaka's Telemann Orchestra. D’Anna Fortunato has also been associated with Roger Norrington and his series of Beethoven 9th's performed worldwide.

Much of D'Anna Fortunato's musical life has been devoted to the works of J. S. Bach. To this end, she has sung on numerous occasions with the Bethlehem, Winter Park, Carmel, Boulder, and Rome Bach Festivals; at the 92nd Street Y with John Gibbons; as a long-time soloist with Emmanuel Music (l3 seasons); the Cantata Singers (l0 seasons); and as present member of the Bach Aria Group, touring, recording, and teaching summer seminars at S.U.N.Y. Stony Brook (l5 years).

D’Anna Fortunato's list of Festival appearances is lengthy, and includes Marlboro, Tanglewood, Casals, Blossom, Rockport, Newport, Vaison-la-Romaine, and Berlin's Spectrum Festival.She has been a frequent visitor with such chamber organizations as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Boston Chamber Music Society (which awarded her a citation of merit), the Northeast Harbor Chamber Festival (Composer's String Quartet), and the Marblehead Chamber Music Festival.

Newly released CD's include G.F. Handel's Deidamia (role of Achille) for Albany, and a New York Philharmonic CD of A. Honegger's Jeanne d'arc au Bucher (Heavenly Voice). Heading her list of 35 CD's is a re-release on Sony of her Victorian Baseball: Hurrah for our National Game, while her CD of Amy Beach Songs on Northeastern won Best of the Year from the New York Magazine, the Boston Globe, and the New York Post. Her Dido in Dido and Aeneas on Harmonia Mundi with the Boston Camerata, was hailed as the best by Graham Sheffield in Opera on Record .Other labels include London/Decca, Koch, Bridge, Gasparo, Erato, and Margun.

D'Anna Fortunato has researched and performed extensively the little-known works of Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, and Charles-Martin Loeffler. Composers John Harbison, Stephen Jaffee, Stephen Albert, and John Heiss amongst others, have chosen her to debut their compositions.

D’Anna Fortunato is now a Professor of Voice at the New England Conservatory of Music.