Patrizia Ciofi

Patrizia Ciofi, born in Casole d'Elsa, Siena, on June 7, 1967, is an Italian operatic soprano. She studied at the Istituto Musicale Pietro Mascagni in Livorno, and subsequently took part in master classes at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena, with Carlo Bergonzi and Shirley Verrett. She made her debut in Gino Negri’s Giovanni Sebastiano at the Teatro Comunale, Florence, and her La Scala debut in 1997 with La traviata, conducted by Riccardo Muti, and she returned to La Scala in L'elisir d'amore in 1997 and 2001. She has sung in most of the major Italian opera houses as well as the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and at the Martina Franca Festival. She has also sung in Paris, at the Châtelet, the Opéra de Paris and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, in Lyon and Marseille. She made her Covent Garden debut in 2002 with Rigoletto, her Chicago debut in 2003 with La Traviata and Wiener Staatsoper debut in 2008 with La Sonnambula. Her major roles on stage include Amina in Vincenzo Bellini's La sonnambula, Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata, Gilda in Rigoletto, Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, and Lucia in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (in both the standard Italian version and the French version Lucie de Lammermoor of 1839). Ciofi has also made a number of recordings, perhaps most notable of which was the Le nozze di Figaro conducted by René Jacobs, which won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Another example is the recording of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Opera Il crociato in Egitto together with the Male Soprano Michael Maniaci at La Fenice in Venice.