Cecilia Bartoli

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File:Cecilia Bartoli 2008c.jpg
Bartoli after a concert performance of La Cenerentola at the Salle Pleyel, 2008

Cecilia Bartoli OMRI (Template:IPA; born 4 June 1966) is an Italian mezzo-soprano, widely known for her renditions of the music of Bellini, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, and Vivaldi, as well as lesser-known music of the Baroque and Classical periods. She has also sung soprano and alto repertory.

Bartoli is considered a singer with an unusual timbre. According to Nicholas Wroe in 2001, her voice was known for its "fully developed sumptuousness of the lower register, the vibrancy of the middle range...the top was limpid and powerful." She has been one of the most popular opera stars of recent years.<ref name="Wroe, The Guardian">Template:Cite news</ref>

Early life

Bartoli was born in Rome. Her parents, Silvana Bazzoni and Pietro Angelo Bartoli, were professional singers and her first music teachers. Cecilia first performed publicly at age nine as the shepherd boy in Tosca.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Wroe, The Guardian" /> She later studied at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome.<ref name="Grove">Blyth, Grove Music Online</ref> At 19, she made her singing debut on the Italian TV variety show Fantastico. She did not win the show's competition, but was asked to sing with Paris Opera for a concert in homage to Maria Callas.Template:Cn

Performing career

Bartoli made her professional opera debut in 1987 at the Arena di Verona. The following year, she undertook the role of Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville at the Cologne Opera, the Schwetzingen Festival, and the Zurich Opera, earning rave reviews.<ref name="Grove" /> Working with conductors Daniel Barenboim and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Bartoli focused on Mozart roles, such as Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Dorabella in Così fan tutte, and, from then on, her career developed internationally.<ref name="Grove" />

In 1990, she made her debut at the Opéra Bastille as Cherubino in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and her debut at the Hamburg State Opera as Idamantes in Mozart's Idomeneo, followed, in 1991, by her La Scala debut as Isolier in Le comte Ory a performance that solidified her reputation as one of the world's leading Rossini singers.<ref name="Grove" />

In 1996, Bartoli debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Despina in Così fan tutte and returned in 1997 to sing the title role of La Cenerentola and, in 1998, as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. In 2000, she sang in another Mozart soprano role, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2001, she made her long-awaited Royal Opera House debut, in the roles of Euridice and the Genio in the London stage premiere of Haydn's L'anima del filosofo.<ref name="Grove" />

She is foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Work in Baroque music

Template:External media In addition to her focus on Mozart and Rossini, Bartoli has also spent much of her career performing and recording Baroque and early Classical era music by such composers as Gluck, Vivaldi, Haydn, and Salieri. In early 2005, she sang Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare. She often performs with the Baroque ensemble Il Giardino Armonico.Template:Efn

In 2012, Bartoli produced Mission, which premiered the works of Agostino Steffani, a lesser-known Baroque composer. She also produced a CD of his works, as well as an extended performance video that portrays her as the priest-composer Agostino in the Palace of Versailles. The video is known for its historic and visual accuracy of the Baroque period, conveyed through her performance, as well as the setting, wardrobe, and cinematography."<ref>Caverly, C. "Bartoli's Mission: A Modern Woman and Baroque Music." MHS 123 Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century, 28 November 2017</ref>

Work in bel canto

In 2007/08, Bartoli studied and recorded the early 19th-century repertoire–the era of Italian Romanticism and bel canto. She especially focused on the work of the legendary singer Maria Malibran, the 200th anniversary of whose birth was celebrated in March 2008. The album Maria was released in September 2007. In May 2008, Bartoli sang the title role, written for Malibran, in a revival of Fromental Halévy's 1828 opera Clari at the Zurich Opera.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In June 2010, she sang the title role of Bellini's Norma for the first time with conductor Thomas Hengelbrock in a concert at the Konzerthaus Dortmund.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In March 2011, she toured five Australian cities with two programs drawn from Sacrificium and Maria.<ref>"Flying visit" by Hugh Canning, The Australian (12 February 2011)</ref>

Administration career

Salzburg Whitsun Festival

File:Salzburger Festspiele 2012 - Giulio Cesare in Egitto.jpg
Bartoli as Cleopatra at the Salzburg Festival, 2012

In 2012, Bartoli became the artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, an extension of the traditional Salzburg Festival, which produces performances during Whitsun (Pentecost) weekend. Forgoing the academic programming of her predecessors, she reformulated the festival's programming—returning to "the old recipe of organizing beautiful programs and inviting great artists"—resulting in record ticket sales and placing the festival on the international opera calendar. In 2012, she sang Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, in 2013 the title role in Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, and in 2014 Rossini's La Cenerentola.<ref name="NYT20140528">Template:Cite news</ref>

Opéra de Monte-Carlo

In December 2019, it was announced that Bartoli would succeed Jean-Louis Grinda as the director of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, effective on 1 January 2023.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She became the first woman to hold the position.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

Bartoli lives with her husband, the Swiss bass-baritone Oliver Widmer, in Zollikon on the north shore of Lake Zurich, Switzerland, and in Rome part of the year. The couple married in 2011 after twelve years together.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Bartoli lived in Monaco in the early 2010s.<ref>Alan Jackson. "Cold Call Alan Jackson calls Cecilia Bartoli.", The Times, London, 10 May 2003</ref>

Awards and honours

Bartoli was appointed Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1995), and Commander of Monaco's Order of Cultural Merit (November 1999).<ref>Sovereign Ordonnance n° 14.274 of 18 November 1999 : promotions or nominations. Legimonaco.mc</ref>

In 2003, she received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at the Classic Brit Awards.

In 2010, she was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from University College Dublin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2011, she won a fifth Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for Sacrificium.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2012, she was voted into the magazine's Gramophone's Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She is the 2012 recipient of the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize.

Discography

Opera

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Recitals with orchestra

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  • Rossini Arias (1989)
  • Mozart Arias (1991)
  • Rossini Heroines (1992)
  • Mozart Portraits (1994)
  • Mozart Arias (1996)
  • The Vivaldi Album (1999)
  • Cecilia and Bryn (1999)
  • Gluck Italian Arias (2001)
  • The Salieri Album (2003)
  • Opera Proibita (2005)
  • Viva Vivaldi! Arias & Concertos (Arthaus, 2005, DVD)
  • Maria (A Tribute to Maria Malibran) (2007)
  • Sacrificium (Arias written for castrati) (2009)
  • Mission (Arias and duets of Agostino Steffani) (2012)
  • St. Petersburg (2013)
  • Antonio Vivaldi (2018)
  • Farinelli (2019)
  • Queen of Baroque (2020)
  • Unreleased (2021)

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Recitals with piano

  • Rossini Recital (1990)
  • If You Love Me – "Se tu m'ami": Eighteenth-century Italian Songs (1992)
  • The Impatient Lover – Italian Songs by Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Haydn (1993)
  • Chant D'Amour (1996)
  • An Italian Songbook (1997)
  • Live in Italy (1998)

Recitals with cello

Sacred

  • Rossini: Stabat Mater (1990)
  • Mozart: Requiem (1992)
  • Scarlatti: Salve Regina, Pergolesi: Stabat Mater, Salve Regina (1993)
  • Rossini: Stabat Mater (1996)

Cantatas

  • Rossini Cantatas Volume 2

Compilations

  • A Portrait (1995)
  • The Art of Cecilia Bartoli (2002)
  • Sospiri (2010)

Notes

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References

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Sources

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