During her 2013-14 season, rising-star soprano Ailyn Pérez – winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award and the 15th annual Plácido Domingo Award – embodies Verdi’s iconic Violetta on both sides of the Atlantic. The Chicago-born singer portrays the composer’s tragic heroine in Verdi bicentennial stagings of La Traviata at Hamburg State Opera (Sept. 20-17) and Opera de Oviedo in Spain (Oct. 13-19), with 2014 productions at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (Dec. 31-Jan. 6), London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (May 6-20) and San Francisco Opera (July 5-13). Reviewing her 2012 triumph in La Traviata at Covent Garden, The Observer of the UK called Pérez “an ideal Violetta… The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama. Her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical.” But it’s not only Violetta this season for the soprano, as she returns to New York for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall (Nov. 17) and performs in recital at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (Dec. 17).
