|
It is always a great pleasure to receive a prestigious award. I am about to receive one which will round off a season (just ended) in which I have given a lot and received a lot in return. Since we are talking about the Illica Prize, I’m thinking in particular about my Puccini roles, Tosca at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia at the start of the season, La Bohéme at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Madama Butterfly staged at the Baden-Baden Festival and in a concert performance at the Berlin Philharmonie, both with the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Kirill Petrenko.
I consider it an enormous privilege to be receiving the 2025 Illica Prize in the female singer category, alongside Pier Luigi Pizzi (set designer, stage director and costume designer), Michele Pertusi (male singer), Angelo Foletto (music critic) and Giovanni Godi (President of the Fondazione Simonetta Puccini). It is an immense honour to join a roll of distinguished names that is almost unrivalled, and that from the first 1961 edition until now comprises artists, intellectuals and men of the theatre whom I revere. There are about two hundred of them, and it is impossible to name them all, so I will limit myself to those who through direct acquaintance, their role in my artistic development, or their art and lives have inspired and filled me with joy: Renata Tebaldi, Ettore Bastianini, Luciano Pavarotti, Magda Olivero, Mirella Freni, Daniela Dessì, Ennio Morricone, Mario Del Monaco, Tullio Serafin, Fedora Barbieri, Franco Corelli, Eugenio Montale, Virginia Zeani, Nicolaj Ghiaurov, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Franco Abbiati, Luchino Visconti, Herbert von Karajan, Renata Scotto, Giorgio Strehler, Carlo Bergonzi, Boris Christoff, Antonino Votto, Franco Zeffirelli, Flaviano Labò, Carlo Maria Giulini, Leontine Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Shirley Verrett, Placido Domingo, Piero Cappuccilli, Riccardo Muti, Ruggero Raimondi, Sherrill Milnes, Montserrat Caballè, Alfredo Kraus, Renato Bruson, Georges Prêtre, José Carreras, Leo Nucci, Tito Gobbi, Ettore Campogalliani, Lucia Valentini Terrani, Samuel Ramey and Carla Fracci.
I would like to thank the illustrious jury for the award. We will see each other on Saturday 12th July at 8.30 p.m. in Piazza del Municipio, Castell’Arquato, the delightful historic town where Luigi Illica was born. |
