BIOGRAPHY

Chiarastella Onorati gained her piano diploma with full marks at the S. Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. She began her music career as a pianist and she has often performed, both as soloist and in chamber groups, specialising in the Italian 20th century repertoire.

In 1993 Chiarastella received her diploma as a singer having studied with Corinna Vozza e Margherita Rinaldi. A dark-timbre mezzo-soprano, she possesses a range from G² to C⁵ allowing her to perform a repertoire from the seventeenth century to the present, specialising in dramatic roles. Her substantial training as instrumentalist enables her to realise the complex vocal qualities of modern and contemporary music (Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Glass, Razzi, Filotei, Rihm, Petrassi, Nono, Manzoni, Vescovo).  In 1994 she won the “Giovani promesse” competition in Taranto; in the same year she also won the fifteenth “Mattia Battistini” competition and made her début as Mamma Lucia in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana at the Flavio Vespasiano Theatre in Rieti; she was among the finalists at the 1st “Città di Roma” Competition in 1995 and at the 8th International Opera Festival in Sanremo, for the Sanremo Classical Music Prize in 2002.

Chiarastella’s artistic activity ranges from opera and the vocal-symphonic repertoire to vocal chamber music. She has performer among the others, as Suzuki in Madam Butterfly, Zia Principessa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Azucena in Trovatore, Federica in Luisa Miller and Maddalena in Rigoletto, Lola and Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana, Fidalma in Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto, Cecri in Alaleona’s Mirra, Amalia in Giordano’s Mala vita.

In the sacred and vocal-symphonic repertoire Chiarastella has sung in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater and in Verdi’s Requiem. She has worked, among the others, with Peter Maag (Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s St John’s Passion), Lu Jia, Marcello Panni, Reynald Giovaninetti, Will Humburg and Ennio Morricone. She has sung in premieres of contemporary works such as Alterazioni by F. Razzi, Il sogno di Arsenio e Traghetti by M.Filotei, Sul passaggio del tempo and Al di qua dell’improvvisa barricata by G. Manzoni (world premiere in the concert season 2004/05 of the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia in Rome), L’acqua assomiglia all’anima dell’uomo by I. Vescovo. She specialises in particular in vocal chamber music, ranging from the German Lieder to Russian, French, Italian and Spanish works. She contributed to the recording of the complete cycle of G. Carissimi’s Oratorios for Musicaimmagine Records, broadcast by RAI Radiotre and now available in a new edition by Brilliant Classics.  She has worked with the National Committee for the Pietro Metastasio celebrations and for Fonè in a live recording of Giuseppe Riconosciuto by P. Anfossi and the first modern complete performance of La passione di Gesù Cristo by A. Salieri, both performed in Vienna in the year 2000.

In 2006 she recorded for a CD published by Tactus  containing the complete cycle of vocal chamber music by Giuseppe Martucci (1856 - 1909) and in 2011 the CD “Italia, sogno d’amore”, with the two versions of Liszt’s Tre Sonetti del Petrarca and other Lieder by Franz Liszt in Italian and German language.

Since 2005 she has been attending the Meeting/Course “La Voce Artistica” (www.voceartistica.it) , which is regularly held in Ravenna (Italy) every two years, enlarging her competences both in the field of didactics and singing performance.

Recently she has also perfected and became an expert in Artistic Vocology attending the High Formation Course at “Alma Mater Studiorum” Bologna University, head  Prof. Angelo Pompilio, scientific direction by Prof. Franco Fussi.

Chiarastella Onorati is frequently called to teach in Voice Masterclasses, is teacher of Vocal chamber music and, as an expert of Artistic Vocology, she has created and  teaches, at the Conservatorio “Francesco Morlacchi” in Perugia, in a workshop called “Parlare bene e (è) cantare bene”, of Italian pronunciation for a good singing in vocal performing. She is also Professor of Piano at the Conservatorio “Francesco Morlacchi” in Perugia.

Chiarastella Onorati has recorded for Musicaimmagine Records, Foné, RaiTrade, Tactus and Brilliant.