WORLD-RENOWNED OPERA SINGER COMING TO UT MARTIN
WORLD-RENOWNED OPERA SINGER COMING TO UT MARTIN
MARTIN, Tenn. – Kallen Esperian will bring her world-renowned vocal talents to the campus of the
University of Tennessee at Martin at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 12, in the Harriet Fulton Theatre in the
Fine Arts Building.
The performance is the fall semester’s performance for the university’s Ed Sargent Guest Artist
Series. There is no admission charge.
Steve Barnett, the interim chair of the department of music, said having such a famous singer
come to Martin is an outstanding opportunity.
“It means the world to us to bring a world-class-caliber performance,” he said. “Kallen Esperian
has toured all over the world and had recordings with some of the greatest opera singers of all
time.”
Esperian catapulted to the world stage in 1985 at the age of 24 as a winner of the Luciano
Pavarotti International Voice Competition, becoming one of the world’s leading sopranos.
Onstage, she has partnered many times in leading roles with Pavarotti – her teacher, mentor and
friend – as well as with the other members of the famed Three Tenors, Placido Domingo and
Jose Carreras, and has performed with renowned conductors such as James Conlon, Sir Colin
Davis, James Levine, Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti.
She made her debut in 1987 at La Scala in Milan, Italy, and is said to hold the record for the
greatest number of curtain calls, 17, after her performance of the title role in Verdi’s “Luisa
Miller.”
That same year, she sang Mimi to Placido Domingo’s Rodolfo in Puccini’s “La Boheme” at the
Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Esperian has performed at the Vienna Staatsoper, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden,
Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper, Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San
Francisco Opera, Opera National de Paris, Barcelona’s Gran Teatro de Liceu, Teatro Comunale
di Bologna, Arena di Verona, Orange Festival France, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Los
Angeles Opera and the Washington National Opera.
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