Verónica Cangemi: Full schedule and two more weeks to sign up for her Opera Studio at the Colón

From Verona, Argentine soprano Verónica Cangemi recaps the marathon of performing at the Movistar Arena alongside Spanish tenor José Carreras, and from there heading to Venice and Padua, where she taught opera professionals. She now accompanies director and art director Stefano Poda in Verona, who presents his Nabucco , in the monumental production we first saw at the Teatro Colón in 2021. The Arena di Verona is hosting the 2025 Festival these months, with 51 nights of performances, including five operas and five concerts and ballets, to commemorate the third centenary of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."

So far in June, Cangemi has given masterclasses at the Vivaldi Academy, part of the Cini Foundation, in Venice, and at the Guido d'Arezzo Foundation. He is also there for family reasons, visiting his son, the tenor Joaquín Cangemi, who lives in Martina Franca, Puglia, and who won a competition in the historic city of Spoleto, near Perugia.

At the end of May, the media highlighted Cangemi's splendid performance alongside the Catalan tenor at the Movistar Arena, during Carreras's farewell tour. Our columnist, Margarita Pollini, concluded that the Mendoza native had offered "one of the best moments of her performance and one of the most applauded fragments of the evening: the jewel aria ( "Ah! Je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir ") from Gounod's Faust ; this audience enthusiasm would be repeated" with her versions of pieces from The Barber of Seville and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi .

Now the soprano has turned that page and is excited about what's to come. The call for applications for her Opera Studio at the Teatro Colón has been extended for two more weeks . This is the advanced training program for opera singers that she will direct; she has already organized it in her hometown, Mendoza, but until now the Colón has never offered this program. For the first four months of the semester, two artists will be joining as teachers: baritone Mario Cassi and mezzo Sonia Ganassi, both Italian.

In a Zoom conversation, she explains that the call for the Ópera Cangemi singing competition will also be launched very soon, this time in San Juan. "Its name is in honor of my mother, who helped so many young people," she recalls. "We did it before in Mendoza, where we had 152 applicants, several from Latin American countries. María Castillo de Lima, the first trans singer to sing at the Colón Institute, emerged from it ( it was in the 1st International Ópera Mendoza Singing Competition, as it was previously called; she won second prize) . Another winner was a San Juan native, a graduate of the Instituto del Colón, who thanks to the prize was able to travel to Europe to improve her education and currently lives in Rome." According to Cangemi, the San Juan competition will have international juries—from Bologna, Spain, and Chile—and is endowed with a US$5,000 prize. "Both this competition and the Opera Studio program are designed to connect the country's various singing institutes with universities," she says.

"Our Opera Studio," he explains, "will offer highly personalized support for each student, similar to a postgraduate program. We're working on an agreement with the Houston Opera in Texas; they'll also be serving as judges for the San Juan competition. Negotiations are ongoing with a Chilean foundation, which asks for discretion for now, and with the Maggio Foundation in Florence. We'll be able to benefit from the expertise of distinguished individuals, such as the great repertoire singer Susana Cardoné, an Argentine whose classes have included many great artists. Barbara Fritoli, a world number one, will be coming to give a 10-day masterclass."

“Students must learn how to seek out opportunities and how to present themselves on audition day. It's the personalized support of an artist to help them break into the big leagues. Opera singers typically begin their first steps with contracts for small roles; but there's a whole range of training that goes into mastering singing in the various languages ​​of opera. Stage movement, alternating acting and singing, etc., are some of the topics to perfect.”

Spanning three semesters (from August 2025 to November 2026), Opera Studio will be offered in person and consists of individual and group classes held at the Instituto Superior de Arte del Colón and in complementary spaces. The program covers topics such as repertoire and specific challenges posed by language performance, acting, and stage movement. Students will be able to participate in Teatro Colón productions.