Pietro Di Bianco to make US Debut in Minnesota

Pietro Di Bianco as Thoas in Iphigenie en Tauride at the Opéra national de Paris (left)

Italian barihunk will make his long-overdue US debut on January 26th at the Minnesota Opera in Nino Rota’s The Italian Straw Hat. The 2014 Paris Opera Awards Competition winner has sung to great acclaim at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra national de Paris, Wexford Festival Opera and the Innsbrucker Festwochen.

In this absurdist farce by the composer of the music for The Godfather films, groom-to-be Fadinard gallops around Paris on his wedding day in search of a straw hat to replace the one his horse has inadvertently eaten. The bright and breezy score captures the increasingly ridiculous situation that rides on the edge of chaos. Di Pietro will sing the role of the jealous husband Beaupertuis, who suspects that his wife Anaida is having an affair.

The Straw Hat from Milan's La scala with Juan Diego Florez:

The opera premièred at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo on April 21, 1955 and had its first US performance at the Santa Fe Opera in 1977.

Di Pietro wraps up today as Vincenzo Biscroma in Donizetti's Viva la Mamma! in Geneva. This season he will also appear as Pistola in Verdi's Falstaff at The Grange Festival and in Cesti's La Dori in Innsbruck.