Gabriella Ravazzi: A Life in Music

Gabriella Ravazzi is a musician and vocalist renowned for her technical mastery and expressive range.  Possessing perfect pitch and a four-octave vocal range, she is a versatile artist who readily explores the expressive possibilities of her instrument.

Her musical journey began at the age of five with violin studies.  She graduated at a young age from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan and quickly joined prestigious chamber ensembles and orchestras, including the RAI and Angelicum Orchestra. At seventeen, she embarked on vocal studies under the tutelage of Carla Castellani.  She garnered numerous national and international accolades, achieving gold medals at the Viotti Competition in Vercelli and the AS.LI.CO competition, which led to her professional operatic debut in Milan as Susanna in Mozart's *Le Nozze di Figaro*, conducted by Aldo Ceccato and directed by Vittorio Patanè.

This marked the beginning of a distinguished career that has established her as a leading figure in the Italian music scene.  Ravazzi transcends genre boundaries, seamlessly navigating the spectrum of musical styles from early music (16th century) to avant-garde compositions.  Her repertoire encompasses opera, concert, and recital performances.

Her operatic roles exceed 130, encompassing a vast range of composers, from Mozart and Monteverdi to Schönberg and Berio. She has graced the stages of Europe's most prestigious opera houses, including La Scala (Milan), the Paris Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona), Teatro Regio (Turin and Parma), Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, La Fenice (Venice), Teatro San Carlo (Naples), Teatro Carlo Felice (Genoa), Teatro Massimo (Palermo), Teatro Real (Madrid), and the Arena di Verona, among others.  Her concert career has taken her to equally renowned venues such as the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Holland Festival, Warsaw Autumn, Teâtres de Lyon, Monte-Carlo, Sydney Opera House, the GOG (Genoa), Unione Musicale (Turin), and the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam).  She has also participated in numerous world premieres of both operatic and concert works.

Ravazzi's discography includes recordings of roles such as Zerlina in Mozart's *Don Giovanni* and Musetta in Puccini's *La Bohème*. She also recorded Luigi Nono's *Y. Entonces Comprendió* for Deutsche Grammophon. Her work has been broadcast on radio stations throughout Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.

Her extensive repertoire includes compositions by virtually all significant 20th-century composers, including Webern, Penderecki, Ligeti, Petrassi, Eisler, Boulez, Berg, Shostakovich, Xenakis, Henze, Stravinsky, and Scott Joplin. She collaborated extensively with leading composers of the latter half of the 20th century, participating in world premieres of works by Berio, Nono, Maderna, Chailly, Manzoni, Bussotti, Sciarrino, Corghi, and Guarnieri.  She has performed the complete chamber works of Webern and a significant portion of Schönberg's repertoire, including *Moses und Aron* and *Pierrot Lunaire*. She was also the first Italian interpreter of Charles Ives' songs and contemporary Russian music.

Throughout her career, she has collaborated with eminent conductors including M. Arena, J. Ahronovitch, B. Bartoletti, P. Bellugi, A. Ceccato, V. Delman, O. Danon, C. von Dohnányi, O. de Fabritiis, F. Molinari-Pradelli, P. Maag, P. Mefano, Z. Pesko, M. Rosenthal, N. Sanzogno, H. Swarowsky, C. Zecchi, I. Catlevich, A. Zedda, F. Cerha, and G. L. Gelmetti, and stage directors such as G. Strehler, L. Puggelli, V. Puecher, E. De Filippo, G. C. Menotti, G. Pressburger, G. Chazalettes, M. Scaparro, and B. De Tomasi.

Ravazzi's accomplishments have been recognized with prestigious awards, including the Noci d'oro and Stendhal prizes for lifetime achievement and the 1994 First Prize of Italian Singing Schools.  She served for over twenty years as a singing teacher at state conservatories and for fifteen years taught "Setting and expressiveness of the voice" at the acting school of the Teatro Stabile in Genoa.  An active presence on the juries of major competitions, she conducts masterclasses internationally.  Additionally, she has directed the staging of over 30 operas.

As founder and artistic director of the associations "Musica in Scena," "Teatro Tempo," and "Spazio Musica," she organizes and directs "Orvieto Spazio Musica Opere e Concerti," which features performances, international singing competitions, and, notably, the "L. Mancinelli" competition for opera conductors—one of the first of its kind in Europe.  This program actively supports emerging singers, conductors, and pianists.  She also created the publication "Great Operatics for Young Singers" for Casa Ricordi, a collection of opera arias used in conservatories worldwide.  Her contributions to music are documented in renowned music encyclopedias such as UTET, the *Grosses Sänger Lexikon* by Kutsch and Riemens, and *Who's Who in Opera*.