Paola Cigna

Paola Cigna is a soprano from Volterra, a pupil of Jolanda Meneguzzer who took her diploma with distinction at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence in 1995 under Walter Alberti. Her repertoire has run through the lyric-coloratura wing of the Italian stage — Norina in Don Pasquale at Sassari and Rovigo, Oscar in Un ballo in maschera at Bari and Vercelli, and Dorliska in Rossini's Torvaldo e Dorliska at the Rossini in Wildbad festival, recorded for Naxos under Alessandro De Marchi. In the summer of 2004 she sang Gilda in three open-air performances of Rigoletto at Volterra and San Gimignano with the I.C.O. Symphony Orchestra and Choir. She is not the same singer as Patrizia Cigna, also a Volterra-born soprano of the Cherubini school: the two have recorded together, notably an album of Viotti cantatas and canzonettas.