Mag.phil. Benedetta Giordano
Lecturer for Italian for Singers
giordano@mdw.ac.at

Benedetta Giordano is Senior Lecturer for Italian in the Department of Vocal Studies and Musical Theater at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She studied Foreign Languages and Literature at the University Federico II of Naples. She went on to receive her training in “Fonetica e dizione italiana per il Belcanto” by Maestro Fabbri at the Accademia lirica voci nel Montefeltro. She has been working in Vienna as an Italian lecturer, language coach and translator since 1991. Her work has comprised lecturing for the department of Romance Studies at the University of Vienna, teaching at the Italian Cultural Institute as well as providing language training for members of the Vienna State Opera Choir. Since 2012, she has been an Italian lecturer at the University of Music and Performing Arts, where she teaches spoken modern Italian, operatic Italian, phonetics and pronunciation for singers. She has also coached students in Italian through several performances at the university including Mozart/Da Ponte Trilogy, Gianni Schicchi, Falstaff, Il viaggio a Reims, Tamerlano. Her principal didactic objective is to further students´ ability to understand and articulate the texts they sing in order to sound emotionally convincing. As such, she has published an online Glossary of operatic italian: „L’italiano del melodramma“. In addition, she is a certified CILS examiner and is responsible for assessing students´ Italian levels to gain CILS Certification - an internationally recognised language proficiency qualification issued by the Università per Stranieri di Siena - at the MDW. Her other professional activities include translations and live subtitling for the Austrian Film Museum, language classes for all levels in adult education, Italian coaching for singers, seminars focusing on Italian opera libretti, Human Rights educational workshops at schools.