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Liverpool Philharmonic Blog

Gianni Schicchi: Behind the Scenes

This March we welcome Sir Bryn Terfel to Liverpool Philharmonic Hall when he will join the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and singers from the European Opera Centre for dramatised performances of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. You’ll probably have heard the beautiful aria ‘O mio babbino caro’ sung in the opera by Lauretta, Gianni Schicchi’s daughter.

We spoke with Kenneth Baird, Chief Executive of the European Opera Centre, who gave us a backstage insight into the casting process for this performance:

Last summer we put out a call for singers to be considered for all the roles in Gianni Schicchi apart from the title role and the seven-year-old Gherardino – sung by a treble. This is our twelfth opera with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and our third with Sir Bryn.

When the European Opera Centre began in 1996, emails were hardly in use and websites were rarities for arts organisations. International travel was essential to find singers, as was an extensive operation to notify conservatoires, national music information points, artists’ agents, singing teachers and so on. Within Europe, there were then very few opera studios or opera training programmes.

A generation on, early career artists can be reached internationally through a couple of websites (although we still send out notifications to supplement these). So, for Gianni Schicchi several hundred singers applied to us from 46 countries. Each application, which includes biographical, audio and visual material, is considered meticulously by the Centre’s Artistic Advisor, Laurent Pillot. The quality of audio and visual electronic communication now readily available internationally makes this initial assessment through these means possible, which was certainly not the case in the 1990s.

As a conductor, Laurent Pillot has worked all his professional life in opera including at the Opéra National de Lyon and in Los Angeles where he was Associate Music Director working with the Centre’s President, Kent Nagano. He founded the Opera Studio at the Bavarian State Opera where his work was the subject of three one-hour documentaries made for television. He is highly skilled in hearing the potential in developing artists. A short-list of twenty to thirty singers is arrived at with selected candidates invited to Laurent Pillot’s home city of Lyon to work with him. The only criterion used is suitability for the role.

People have often asked whether the Centre is about finding stars. Stars tend to come to public attention purely through their outstanding talent. The Centre aims to help talented people wanting to pursue careers in opera from education to professional engagement. That is not to say that leading singers have not emerged. Anita Hartig – the fine soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony which launched Domingo Hindoyan’s first season as Chief Conductor – attended one of the Centre’s training programmes in Ireland: she came to Liverpool in 2021 before heading to the Metropolitan Opera, New York to sing Mimi in La bohème. She is one of many of the Centre’s alumni now pursuing careers at a high level around the world.

Cookies on our website

Liverpool Philharmonic has updated its cookie policy. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites. Such third party cookies may track your use on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time.