Thursday 10 November 2011

Sola, perduta, abbandonata

After taking several months off during 2005 to clean up the mess left behind from Lisa-Lee's last recording deal, she was considering quitting the music industry for good, but luckily for Lisa-Lee she got introduced to the 'Moggi' brothers, they ran their own independent opera company in Italy, and they were interested in working with Lisa-Lee; they were trying to launch their opera group in the UK and Ireland and they wanted to set up their own record label, and Lisa-Lee not only had the vocal talent to go into opera, but she had the contacts to set up a label.

The Moggi brother decided to give Lisa-Lee several months to train her opera voice, ready for an audition, which happened in July 2006. They were all more than happy with what Lisa-Lee could do, so they asked her to start training for three operas, they assisted Lisa-Lee's development by arranging voice lessons once a month.

Lisa-Lee's early opera voice is her copying the Italian opera diva 'Renata Scotto', the opera group didn't have a problem with that, as the plan was to gradually break Lisa-Lee into the opera world; it was planned that for the first five years Lisa-Lee would do semi-professional opera performances, these semi-professional opera performances were corporate events, and a small amount of critics would be invited to hear Lisa-Lee's performances, gradually becoming more as the events grew. After the five years, the plan was to gradually build Lisa-Lee's profile on the professional opera stage, they were planning on getting Lisa-Lee to do a few opera festivals and open air concerts, and continue her corporate concerts for another two years, then for her to move into the touring part of the opera group.

In 2007 Lisa-Lee starred in her first opera, she was to play the part of Liu in Puccini's opera 'Turandot'. Lisa-Lee didn't get paid for these two performances, as all the money was going to charity but it was a good introduction into the 'real' opera world, the European critics that were there said that Lisa-Lee's performance was 'truly beautiful'. The second opera that Lisa-Lee starred in later on in 2007 was Puccini's 'Sr. Angelica', with Lisa-Lee playing the lead / title role (sister Angelica); this was just a one off performance, Lisa-Lee didn't feel too happy with her performance, as she said that she made lots of little mistakes, but no one noticed, as the one critic that was there wrote that Lisa-Lee gave another beautiful performance. Lisa-Lee says that she was more nervous about this performance, as it was the first one that she was getting paid for.

In 2008 the Moggi brothers decided that Lisa-Lee had to do the opera role of 'Madama Butterfly', this was the role that Renata Scotto was best known for, and although Lisa-Lee was nervous about doing this role, she agreed, it was the best decision she made, as the critics really began to pay attention to her, at first some were stand-offish as Lisa-lee was copying another soprano, but after seeing her in Butterfly, they didn't care too much; at the start of 2008 Lisa-Lee did two performances of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly. The few critics wrote that Lisa-Lee's performance brought everyone to tears, they said that she has one of the most beautiful and pretties voices in opera, one of the critics even wrote that Lisa-Lee was one of the most exciting young female opera voices to come along for years.

This lead to the release of Lisa-Lee's debut opera recital album, titled, 'Sola, perduta, abbandonata'. The translation of this is, 'alone, lost, abandoned'. This 2008 release contained Lisa-Lee's debut opera performance in Puccini's Turandot, plus several other recording Lisa-Lee made during the last four years. The reviews of this album were good and it slowly built up to become a success, it wasn't a huge success but gradually it built up enough sales to be considered a hit in the opera world. This album was not a mainstream release, it was kept as a special limited edition release, the record company only planned to promote it for 18 months before withdrawing it, during this time, the album went on to sell just over 20,000 copies over Europe.

Later in 2008 Lisa-Lee was due to perform in her fourth opera, this time a Verdi opera, 'Nabucco', it was reported that the Moggi brothers were asked to put on this opera for a Russian billionaire who's partner was dying, they were fans of Renata Scotto but never got to see her in an opera, so they were hugely interested in Lisa-Lee, they paid the opera group £250,000 for them to stage this opera, on the strict instruction that Lisa-Lee was to play the role of Abigail. Unfortunately this opera got cancelled due to the Russian billionaires partner falling very ill, she later on died.

Later in 2008 Lisa-Lee did one more performance in 'Madama Butterfly'; career wise 2007 and 2008 turned out to be very good years for Lisa-Lee, she was finally getting some where in the opera world

No comments:

Post a Comment