19th-annual "Christmas in Italy®" at Lincoln Center

Date & Time

Sat Dec 17 2022 at 02:30 pm to 04:15 pm

Location

Bruno Walter Auditorium | New York, NY

$19th-annual "Christmas in Italy\u00ae" at Lincoln Center$

Details

Award-winning singer, Cristina Fontanelli's, beloved annual NYC charitable concert preserving the great songs of Italy and Christmas.
About this Event

SAT, DEC 17 at 2:30 p.m. (Evening performance also available at 7:00 p.m.)

Beloved Italian Christmas charitable 501 c-3 concert/event, produced by The Cristina Fontanelli Foundation, Inc. (www.thecristinafontanellifoundation.org/donate) and now in its’ 19th season, features award-winning Soprano Cristina Fontanelli (www.cristinafontanelli.com) singing traditional Italian songs including Torna a Surriento, Mamma, O sole mio and Ave Maria, plus Christmas classics such as White Christmas and beloved opera arias. This annual Holiday favorite will take place in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center within walking distance of many of New York City's finest restaurants and just steps away from the Metropolitan Opera.

Guest tenor, Matthew Cerillo, will join Ms. Fontanelli to sing the famous duet “Brindisi,” from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata and a crowd-pleasing tenor opera aria. The Christmas in Italy® Choir will sing “Silent Night”, a children’s choir/youth will sing the traditional Italian Christmas carol “Tu scendi dalle stelle” (“You came down from the stars”) and the children/youth of Staten Island’s Dream Studio for the Performing Arts (taught/choreographed by Melissa Ottaviano) will dance to “Dominick the Donkey” and more. If the supply chain “issues” are resolved there may even be the annual visit from Santa Claus once again!

Accompanying Ms. Fontanelli are world-class musicians from The Metropolitan Opera: mandolinist Joyce Balint, Matthew Hayden on piano and additional musicians playing mandolins, guitar and accordion.

Cristina Fontanelli has appeared often on television speaking about “Christmas in Italy®”. Here is a CBS-TV Weekend interview and a performance of the well-known Neapolitan folk song “O sole mio”:

Hailed a “Vocal Genius” by the New York Sun, Cristina Fontanelli’s “Christmas in Italy®” show is a love letter to her Italian heritage. Ms. Fontanelli says, “I began this beloved annual Holiday tradition to preserve Italy’s great classic and popular songs and to teach them, and more importantly the values and joy they represent, to younger generations. [HEADLINE]: “Cristina Fontanelli, Preserving Values Through Opera,” The Epoch Times, January 2014.

“We have been blessed to have held our beloved show in important music venues such as Carnegie Hall in the past and now at the world's top music complex, Lincoln Center. It is miraculous that we have not missed one performance and have been able to go forward during this dreadful Covid pandemic by performing in wonderful and historic churches.”

Audiences and critics alike LOVE Cristina Fontanelli ("Vocal genius" - the NY Sun) and “Christmas in Italy®” - “A feast for the eyes as well as the ears.” “She (Cristina Fontanelli) has the kind of gift, and the kind of skill, that’s liable to make you feel like a piker no matter what you do in life. If you’re a plumber, you’ll say “I’m okay at my job — but I sure wish I was as good at plumbing as she is at singing.” On the other hand, she has this down to earth personality that seemed to shrink the large auditorium down to the size of a family kitchen. Her aunt was there; Fontanelli dedicated a song to her, and got us all to join her in “Happy Birthday”. She greeted old friends in the audience. She grieved for the loss of her mother, who passed away this year. There were hundreds of us in the audience, but the distance between us seemed very small.” TRAVALANCHE Trav SD (2016) and https://www.theepochtimes.com/cristina-fontanellis-13th-annual-christmas-in-italy_2200737.html?slsuccess=1

A portion of the ticket sales will be donated to childrens' causes such as St. Jude's Childrens' Hosptial and the Casa Famiglia Orphanage in Naples, Italy and various NYC food pantries.