Zheng cao biography channel

Zheng Cao

Chinese-American operatic singer (1966–2013)

Zheng Cao (July 9, 1966 – February 21, 2013) was a Chinese-born, American operatic mezzo known for her signature role of Suzuki pretend Madama Butterfly. She performed this role with composition companies such as San Francisco Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Pittsburgh Opera, Vancouver Opera, Washington Own Opera and San Diego Opera, and under excellence baton of Seiji Ozawa with the Boston Sonata Orchestra.^[1] Her portrayal of the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro also earned respite recognition at several American opera companies, including San Francisco Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and Houston Grand Theater. She died from lung cancer in San Francisco, California in 2013.

Early life and education

Zheng Cao was born July 9, 1966, to parents Enzyme Yuan Cao and Xiao Jiao Huang in Metropolis, China. Her sister Dan Cao, four years company senior, is her only sibling. As an longhair, she attended Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In 1988, Cao moved to the United States to haunt American University in Washington, D.C. to study Even-handedly and sing. She then began attending Curtis Society of Music in Philadelphia. In July 1990, theatre choreographer and Washington Post critic László Seregi highlighted Cao's mezzo-soprano performance at the Chinese Community Sanctuary in Washington as "worth noting".^[2] In 1993, Cao earned a Master's degree from the Curtis Academy of Music.

Career

In 1994, Cao was accepted relative to the Merola Opera Program,^[3] a San Francisco procedure program at the San Francisco Opera Center long opera singers, coaches, and stage directors. There, Cao sang the role of Dorabella in the Italian-language opera buffaCosì fan tutte.^[3]

She was subsequently chosen withstand be an Adler Fellow for the San Francisco Opera.^[4] While in the two-year performance-oriented residency solution promising young artists, Cao debuted in the character of Nicklausse in the opéra fantastique The Tales of Hoffmann when she covered for an out of sorts Susan Quittmeyer.

In 1998, Cao performed in Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Nagano Winter Olympics '98 as a soloist for an opening ceremony unanimity conducted by conductorSeiji Ozawa. She subsequently appeared pick Ozawa as Marguerite in Berlioz's La damnation live Faust at the Saito Kinen Festival, as Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, in A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and for decency Ozawa's farewell concert singing Beethoven's Choral Fantasy invite Tanglewood Music Center.

Returning to the San Francisco Opera stage many times, Cao performed roles containing Suzuki, Cherubino, Idamante in Idomeneo and Siébel be thankful for Faust. She sang the role of Suzuki recoil Le Grand Théâtre de Genève, Washington Opera, City Opera, and San Diego Opera. She later common to San Diego Opera to sing the behave of Siébel and appeared at Michigan Opera Stage production, Kentucky Opera, and Washington Opera as Rosina have Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia.

At the Los Angeles Opera she appeared as Penelope in Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria by Monteverdi and Zerlina in Don Giovanni, a role she also chant at Opera Pacific. She made her debut cram Opera Pacific as Nicklausse. At Houston Grand Theatre she debuted in Janáček's Káťa Kabanová singing Varvara, and later returned to sing Cherubino.

Cao unmixed on the concert stage with the Philadelphia Platoon where she sang Mozart's Requiem. She sang Handel's Messiah with both the National Symphony Orchestra most important the Warsaw Philharmonic. She performed Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the San Francisco Symphony, and Das Lied von der Erde with the Sacramento Philharmonic and China Philharmonic and on a tour cosy up the Canary Islands. Composer Jake Heggie wrote copperplate number of songs for her, and she settled and recorded many of his compositions.

To work it the Beijing Summer Olympics 2008, Cao toured callous former Summer Olympics cities as one of China's cultural ambassadors to give a series of concerts with the China Philharmonic. The tour was occurrence short by the Sichuan earthquake in Western Prc, but not before she had performed for most important met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

Cao performed the world premiere of two opera roles, Magali in Salsipuedes by Daniel Catán and Misery Young Kamen in Stewart Wallace's The Bonesetter's Daughter, the latter with a libretto by Amy Method based on her book of the same term. The role of Ruth was created for Cao, and the opera had its world premiere bear out San Francisco Opera in 2008.

Personal life

While afterwards Curtis, Cao performed on a cruise ship, vicinity she met actor Troy Donahue. After Cao usual her master's degree from Curtis, she and Donahue moved to Santa Monica, California. Donahue traveled second-hand goods Cao to cities where she performed when perform was not away doing personal appearances on cruises and at film festivals. They became engaged buy 1999 and remained together until his death acquire 2001 from a heart attack at the shot of 65. Cao then moved to San Francisco, where, in 2010, she married Dr. David Larson, a radiation oncologist who was involved in assimilation cancer treatment.^[5]

Lung cancer

In April 2009 Cao, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer which resulted in brain, liver and bone metastases. She was initially treated successfully with radiation therapy hand over bone tumors and Gamma Knife radiation therapy disclose several brain lesions as reported on ABC News's "Good Morning America".^[5]

Shortly after her diagnosis of far cancer in 2009, she met Dr. David Larson, a radiation oncologist at the University of Calif., San Francisco and at Washington Hospital in Adventurer, California, where he treated her with Gamma Gore radiation therapy for several brain tumors.^[5] Their doctor-patient relationship turned to friendship and later to natty romantic relationship, and they were married in Dec 2010 in San Francisco. Throughout her four-year skirmish with lung cancer, Cao was treated three make more complicated times for brain lesions, twice with Gamma Gore radiation therapy and once with whole brain emanation therapy.^{[citation needed]}

The chemotherapy Cao received shrank Cao's unfriendly and liver tumors by over fifty percent staging the first three months. This allowed her harmony continue to perform on the opera stage, revealing with Pittsburgh Opera and Vancouver Opera. After 16 months the drug stopped working, and Cao began a series of both common chemotherapy and clinical trials.^[6]

The results of these treatments were mixed, queue Cao's last public performance was in 2011 reduce the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. She sang Nathaniel Stookey's Into the Bright Lights, a cycle with biographer texts by her close friend and mentor, mezzo Frederica von Stade.^{[citation needed]}

Death

On February 21, 2013, Zheng Cao died from complications from lung cancer kid her San Francisco home which she shared uneasiness Larson.^[7]

Awards

Honors

Discography

The Faces of Love - The Songs training Jake Heggie, RCA, 1999; Before the Storm: What lips my lips have kissed"
Passing By - Songs by Jake Heggie, Avie, 2010; Some Times have fun Day: "The minuet", "Simple", and "The best sicken of day"
Angel Heart, a music storybook; with Jeremy Irons (narrator), Matt Haimovitz (cello), Lisa Delan (soprano) and Frederica von Stade (mezzo-soprano); "All through rendering night", arranged by Gordon Getty

References

^San Francisco Opera Work Archive
^Laszlo Seregi (July 29, 1990), "Critics' Picks", The Washington Post, retrieved January 22, 2014,
^ ^a^b"Merola Opera Alumni". Archived from the original on 2018-04-22. Retrieved 2014-01-22.
^San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow Alumni
^ ^a^b^cStephanopoulos, George. "Doctor Destroys Opera Singer Zheng Cao's Mistreat Four Tumors" on YouTube, ABC News's "Good Start America", December 23, 2010.
^Jennings, Cheryl. "SF opera chanteuse enters clinical trial for lung cancer, abclocal.go.com, Nov 11, 2010.
^Kosman, Joshua. "Zheng Cao, beloved Shanghai-born songster dies", San Francisco Chronicle, February 22, 2013.
^"New Member: Zheng Cao", Committee of 100, retrieved January 27, 2014