Washington October 21, 2020. The Embassy of Italy opened today the “Embassy Series”, a series of virtual concerts organized by the Washington National Opera (WNO) in collaboration with diplomatic missions in Washington. In the coming months, the concerts will be organized with the Embassies of Australia, Austria, Chile, Japan and New Zealand.
The series of exclusive concerts is aimed at a select group of donors from the Washington National Opera, the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) and the Kennedy Center. Baritone Paolo Bordogna performed for the occasion arias from Lucrezia Borgia and L’Elisir D’Amore by Donizetti, from Don Giovanni and Nozze di Figaro by Mozart.
Ambassador Armando Varricchio, Tim O’Leary, General Manager, and Francesca Zambello, Artistic Director of the WNO, recently awarded the Order of the Star of Italy, gave introductory remarks. Ambassador Varricchio underlined “the fruitful collaboration with the Kennedy Center, the WNO and the NSO, leading institutions in the American cultural landscape, testified by the decision to open the “Series” in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy” .
The Ambassador recalled how “the start of the series coincides with the XX Week of the Italian Language of the World, an appointment that reminds us of the profound connection existing between the opera tradition and our language which here in the USA has had a prominent point of reference in the figure of Da Ponte”.
