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" In this heated duet of love and lust, Maria Fasciano boldly portrayed her mixed feelings..."
- Berkeley Daily Planet
" Fasciano was utterly fearless"
- San Francisco Examiner
"...Glorious, soaring lyricism...”
Arkansas Times
BIOGRAPHY
Praised by the San Francisco Examiner for her “utterly fearless” portrayal of Cio-Cio San with San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola Young Artist Program, Maria Fasciano is a three-time Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition Regional Finalist (2008, 2011, 2013). She has also earned awards from the Shreveport Opera Singer of the Year Competition and the Rochester Oratorio Classical Idol Competition.
During her time at Merola she performed Act II of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to great acclaim in the Schwabacher Concert Series as well as portraying the title role in scenes from Verdi’s Luisa Miller. She also garnered great praise for the “fiery passion” (Berkeley Daily Planet) in her portrayal of Nedda from Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci in the Merola Grand Finale concert.
She has appeared with Opera in the Rock (Little Rock, AR) as Mimì in La bohème and as The First Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flutein collaboration with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in addition to singing selections from Norma and Der Rosenkavalier in their annual gala. She has also performed with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra during their holiday concert series, Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder and as the soprano soloist in their performances of Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem and Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Maria has also performed roles with Chautauqua Opera and New Rochelle Opera as well as appearing as a soloist with the Arkansas Chamber Music Society, Arkansas Choral Society, Little Rock Choral Society, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Western New York Chamber Orchestra, Parkway Symphony Orchestra and Texarkana Symphony.
Currently, Maria is pursuing her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Memphis where she has performed the title role in Puccini's Suor Angelica, Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte and Lady Billows in Britten's Albert Herring. Maria holds a Master of Music Degree from the Eastman School of Music where she performed in Eastman Opera Theater’s productions of Cendrillon (Noémie) and La Finta Giardiniera (Arminda). During her time at Eastman, she also performed with the Eastman Philharmonia singing Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
AUDIO
Ihr habt nun traurigkeit - Ein Deutsches Requiem
Arksansas Symphony Orchestra
Oh Patria Mia (Aida)
Recorded Live, April 2019
Che tua madre(Madama Butterfly)
Merola Opera Program
Non mi tentar... (I Pagliacci)
Merola Opera Program
with Alexander Birch Elliott, baritone
and Anthony Reed, bass-baritone
Im treibhaus - Wesendonck Lieder
Arksansas Symphony Orchestra
GALLERY
VIDEO
REPERTOIRE &
Awards
Opera
Micaela - Carmen - Georges Bizet
Lady Billows - Albert Herring - Benjamin Britten
Rooster/Protestor/Hen - The Cunning Little Vixen - Leoš Janáček
Noémie - Cendrillon - Jules Massenet
Fiordiligi - Così fan tutte - W.A. Mozart
Arminda - La Finta Giardiniera - W.A. Mozart
Donna Anna - Don Giovanni - W.A. Mozart
Madame Goldentrill - The Impresario - W.A. Mozart
First Lady - The Magic Flute - W.A. Mozart
Blanche DuBois - A Streetcar Named Desire - Andre Previn
Mimì - La bohème - Giacomo Puccini
Cio-Cio San - Madama Butterfly - Giacomo Puccini
Angelica - Suor Angelica - Giacomo Puccini
Berta - Il barbiere di Siviglia - Gioachino Rossini
Roselinde - Die Fledermaus - J. Strauss
CONcert/ORatorio
Symphony No. 9 - Ludwig von Beethoven
Ein Deutsches Requiem - Johannes Brahms
Requiem - Gabriel Faure
Des Knaben Wunderhorn - Gustav Mahler
Coronation Mass - W. A. Mozart
Gloria - Francis Poulenc
Vier Letzte Lieder - Richard Strauss
Bachianas Brasileiras, No. 5 - Heitor Villa Lobos
Wesendonck Lieder - Richard Wagner
SUGGESTED REPERTOIRE
Norma - Norma - Vincenzo Bellini
Anna Bolena - Anna Bolena - Gaetano Donizetti
Maria Stuarda - Maria Stuarda - Gaetano Donizetti
Elisabetta - Roberto Devereaux - Gaetano Donizetti
Nedda - I Pagliacci - Ruggero Leoncavallo
Elijah - Felix Mendelssohn
Tosca - Tosca - Giacomo Puccini
Aida - Aida - Giuseppe Verdi
Amerlia - Un Ballo in Maschera - Giuseppe Verdi
Alice - Falstaff - Giuseppe Verdi
Luisa - Luisa Miller - Giuseppe Verdi
Desdemona - Otello - Giuseppe Verdi
Requiem - Giuseppe Verdi
Elisabeth - Tannhäuser - Richard Wagner
Venus - Tannhäuser - Richard Wagner
Elsa - Lohengrin - Richard Wagner
Awards
Shreveport Opera Singer of the Year // Lorena Bessey Mangin Memorial Award & Audience Choice // 2015
Elizabeth Connell Prize for Dramatic Soprano // Semi-Finalist // 2014
Rochester Classical Idol Competition // 3rd Place // 2014
Marcello Giordani Competition // Semi-Finalist // 2014
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions // Mid-South Regional Finalist // 2013
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions // Great Lakes Regional Finalist // 2011
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions // Great Lakes Regional Finalist // 2008
Press
"Fasciano's bold tenor featured much in the Gloria, effortlessly filled the room. Gloria is built to give the soprano soloist a huge moment at the end. Fasciano was up to it and then some and effectively put a bow on a gift of an evening."
-Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Werner Treischmann
"The Eastman-trained Maria Fasciano sings the [Wesendonck] Lieder, and nobody will give a whit that the songs - most often performed by mezzo-sopranos - are being sung instead by someone with a leviathan high C in her possession, because the richness of Fasciano's middle range rivals that of most mezzos anyway.
-Arkansas Times, 1/18/2016, Stephanie Smittle
"Soprano Maria Fasciano, in front of 28 members of the orchestra and conductor Philip Mann, simply blew away listeners in the dimly illuminated church. Fasciano's full voice is gorgeously suited both to the setting and the music."
-Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 1/20/2017, Eric E. Harrison
"...and those of us who have heard her gala performances with Opera in the Rock have collectively swooned over her magnificently controlled pianissimos and her glorious, soaring lyricism in arias like "I Want Magic" and "Un bel di."
-Arkansas Times, 5/12/2016, Stephanie Smittle
"...Maria Fasciano aced the fifth movement "Ihr habt nun traurigkeit."
-Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 2/28/2016, Eric E. Harrison
"On the tragic side, Fasciano emerged with the most memorable performance in the title role of the excerpt from the second act of Madama Butterfly. This is the scene that leads up to the arrival of Pinkerton’s ship in the harbor and includes the first appearance of the son born of Cio-Cio San after her wedding to Pinkerton. Recently, there has been a tendency to present Cio-Cio San as a woman whose passions have detached her from reality. It is almost as if the bel canto tradition of the mad scene has been expanded to fill the entire opera, although it takes the viewer a bit of time to appreciate just how precarious Cio-Cio San’s mental state really is.
Rallo seems to have decided to pursue this approach, and Fasciano was utterly fearless in following him into every one of the dark corners exposed over the course of the excerpt she performed. Under Rallo’s staging, every other character on stage had his/her individual devices to remind the audience of the underlying reality of the situation. Within the context that they set, Fasciano’s Cio-Cio San took on an almost painful sense of detachment, escalating what is too often dismissed as mere melodrama to a level of far more substantive tragedy."
-San Francisco Examiner, 7/18/2014, Stephen Smoliar
"Another surprise, at least for me, was soprano Maria Fasciano, whom I had not heard before. Ms. Fasciano sang the role of Nedda in an ensemble scene from Leoncavallo’s I PAGLIACCI. In this heated duet of love and lust, Maria Fasciano boldly portrayed her mixed feelings: She is physically drawn to Silvio yet evinces some remorse about betraying her husband Canio.
-Berkeley Daily Planet, 8/22/2014, James Roy MacBean
"On the more serious side the most effective scene was "Decidi il mio destin" (decide my fate), the love duet between Nedda (Maria Fasciano) and Silvio (Alexander Elliott) in the first act of Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (clowns). Those who saw the Schwabacher Summer Concert may recall the sparks set off by Fasciano and Elliott in their flesh-and-blood account of the scene from Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in which Cio-Cio San scorns the suit of Prince Yamadori. Last night they converted that scene of rejection into one of the uninhibited raw passion of a forbidden encounter, once again bringing lightning bolts to their performance."
-San Francisco Examiner, 8/17/2014, Stephen Smoliar
Five singers offered impressive arias that included soprano Maria Fasciano blowing the room out in “Un bel di” from Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
-Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Eric E. Harrison, 9/24/14
"Maria Fasciano was a compelling Nedda during a scene from I Pagliacci."
-A Beast in a Jungle, John Marcher, 8/17/14