ABOUT
Christine Alfano soprano
​Praised for her "enticing strength and marvelous vocal character" (Arts Knoxville), Christine Alfano's powerful and sparkling voice has charmed audiences at home and abroad. Often described as possessing an "important" and "luscious" Verdian instrument by top coaches and conductors, her voice is particularly at home in the music of the bel canto, romantic and veristic periods. Her singing has been featured on NPR's "Performance Today," America's most popular classical music radio program.
​The 2024-2025 season features a role and two company debuts, as well as an Artist Residency. Alfano will perform the role Gertrud in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel with Amelia Island Opera under the baton of Maestro Keith Chambers, her first time performing with the company. The season will also feature her directorial debut with Bold City Opera, directing an innovative and immersive production of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. In 2025, she will spend three months as an Apprentice Artist with Sarasota Opera during their Winter 2025 season, performing in Verdi's Stiffelio, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. In addition to the season's operas, she will be featured in the Welcome Concert at Sarasota Opera House (January 25th, 2025), the Stars of Tomorrow Concert at Manatee School of the Arts (February 9th, 2025), and the Apprentice at Noon at the Peterson Great Room concerts at Sarasota Opera House (March 21st and 28th, 2025). Following the winter season, springtime will feature her return to Amelia Island Opera to sing the role of Kate Pinkerton and to study cover the title role in Madama Butterfly in April 2025. She will be the featured soloist in Bold City Opera's "An Evening of Arias" in May 2025, perfoming a selection of arias by Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Wagner and Massenet.
Last season, Alfano performed Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with the UK-based VIDA Guitar Quartet for Beaches Fine Arts Series in Jacksonville, Florida. The 2023-2024 season also featured her role debut as Angelica in Puccini's Suor Angelica with Bold City Opera. In addition, she appeared as a featured soloist in Saint-Saëns' Oratorio de Noël and was a guest soloist in Vivaldi's Gloria with The Bolles School. Alfano will return to Saint-Saëns' Oratorio de Noël as the soprano soloist at San Jose Episcopal Church this December.
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In past seasons, she has been engaged in several world premieres, most notably Marble City Opera's production of Pesci's Royal Flush. Other recent new-music credits include Psychiatrist in A Severed Chord with Voices of the Valiant and Ms. Dara in An Embarrassing Position with Tennessee Opera Theatre. Other roles from prior seasons include Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus and Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte, both with Tennessee Opera Theatre. International credits include La Ciesca in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi with both the Brancaleoni International Music Festival and the Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival. In 2022, she was a featured soloist at the Ehrbarsaal in Vienna, Austria, where she performed arias and duets from Bellini’s Norma and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Alfano was a selected participant of the 2022-2023 Season's Professional Artist Workshop at Gulfshore Opera and is an alum of both the Knoxville Opera Studio and the Palm Beach Opera Studio. She currently studies with Metropolitan Opera soprano Jennifer Rowley; previous teachers have included Kirsten Arnold, Dr. Kimberly Roberts, and Daniel Belcher.
Active in the opera world as an emerging stage director, she has several international credits on her resume. Summer 2023 featured her direction of the world premiere of A Girl from Ipanema by Brazilian composer Diogo Carvalho in Vienna, Austria. In Summer 2022, she made her professional directing debut with the premiere of Pluto by Michael J. Polo in both the United States and Austria, collaborating with Maestro Gregory Buchalter. She has assistant directed for organizations including the Lakes Area Music Festival (The Rake's Progress) Tennessee Opera Theatre (Die Zauberflöte), and the Vienna Summer Music Festival (La Bohéme, Die Zauberflöte, Hänsel und Gretel, Don Giovanni).
She received her Master of Music degree in Voice Performance and her Graduate Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy from the University of Tennessee College of Music in 2022, where she was the GTA for the Tennessee Opera Theatre. She attended Florida State University College of Music for her undergraduate work, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in both Music and Italian.
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