Carla Maffioletti
(born
c.1980 in
Porto Alegre,
Rio Grande do Sul,
Brazil) is an
opera
singer.
She was born of
Italian and
Dutch ancestry in the largest
city in southern Brazil; a port town on
Guajará Bay not far from the
border with
Uruguay and
Argentina. As a very young girl
she began playing the
violin before changing to
classical guitar. Her talents
were such that by her early teens she was performing at concerts
throughout the country. While at university she began taking
singing lessons and very quickly developed her outstanding voice.
During the course of her career in music, she became acquainted
with fellow Brazilian singer,
Carmen Monarcha.
Multilingual, Maffioletti decided to study voice
at the
Maastricht Academy of Music in
Maastricht,
Holland as did her friend, Carmen
Monarcha. While attending the academy, she came to the attention
of
André Rieu who hired her as a
vocalist with his Johann Strauss Orchestra.
In addition to global touring with the
orchestra, Maffioletti has performed as a soloist on several of
Rieu's albums and has appeared in his
PBS television broadcasts in the
United States.