As an endless source of inspiration, Ovid’s Metamorphoses have left a lasting mark on our culture for over two thousand years. Combining some of its episodes with music by Antonio Vivaldi, Stage Director Barrie Kosky creates a pasticcio for our times, a fascinating new work of rich imagination and breathless narratives. With a leading cast of singers assembled by Cecilia Bartoli, and with the participation of actor Angela Winkler, Hotel Metamorphosis stands out as “a panopticon of human emotions”. Vivaldi expert Gianluca Capuano conducts Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco, presenting a unique variety of Vivaldi’s arias, ensembles and choruses, music with a particularly powerful emotional charge. “What a brilliant evening of theatre.” (BR Klassik) / “Checking into this hotel guarantees a luxury stay.” (Kurier) / “…the musical Champions League.” (Deutschlandfunk Kultur)
Così fan tutte
Two pairs of young lovers, a cynical old philosopher and an irreverent maid: the set-up for Così fan tutte could hardly be simpler. But Mozart and Da Ponte’s great comedy of the human heart is open to a thousand interpretations, few more compelling than this 2002 production directed by Jürgen Flimm for Opernhaus Zürich. Flimm’s light-touch staging gives limitless scope to conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt – unrivalled in this repertoire – and a truly glorious cast, with Cecilia Bartoli as a passionate Fiordiligi and Liliana Nikiteanu as her more carefree sister Dorabella. With Agnes Baltsa as Despina and Roberto Saccà as Ferrando, the result is timeless.
Don Giovanni
Mozart’s Don Giovanni is an opera that contains infinities: the adventures of the great seducer, his servant Leporello and the women he has wronged are as eternal (and as fascinating) as human nature itself. Jürgen Flimm’s classic production for Opernhaus Zürich leans into the shadows beneath the comic surface – and in this performance from 2001 Rodney Gilfry is a truly aristocratic Giovanni, with the sublime Italian mezzo Cecilia Bartoli at the pinnacle of her vocal and dramatic form as a mercurial Donna Elvira. Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts, bringing all his unrivalled feeling for 18th-century music to a score that never grows old.
Ariodante
At Salzburg Festival, Cecilia Bartoli shines as Ariodante with her dazzling coloratura in a highly acclaimed new production by the German director Christoph Loy, who is known for his clever psychological stagings. Loy turns Handel’s splendid baroque opera into an exciting and differentiated reflection on gender roles. A high-class ensemble, first and foremost a brilliant Cecilia Bartoli in the trouser role of the knight Ariodante who effortlessly switches between cheerful and lamenting virtuoso singing makes the production a true triumph. At her side perform audience favourite Rolando Villazón as Lurcano and young American soprano Kathryn Lewek, praised by critics as a „true discovery“ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). Gianluca Capuano at the podium of the Musiciens du Prince – Monaco „provides for elegance, richness of colour and a sensitive, stirring realisation of the ingenious score.“ (Kurier). „Cecilia Bartoli is a league of her own!” (Der Standard). “The singing was sensational” (LA Times)
L’Italiana in Algeri
“The role of Isabella is sung to perfection by Cecilia Bartoli – a clever, independent woman with an adventurous streak” (New York Times). Bartoli’s superb performance in Gioachino Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) at Salzburg Festival, directed by the BAFTA-winning stage director duo Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, is a highlight among the Rossini celebrations on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death. The DVD captures Bartoli’s excellent performance in a rare audiovisual recording of the Italian superstar, who is one of the most successful opera singers of our time. In this vibrant comedy, every look, every hand gesture brings Isabella to life: Bartoli presents the spirited Italian woman with fire, finesse and extraordinary acting abilities – “a Rossini masterclass” (Bachtrack). Her Isabella is a strong, independent woman who has no intentions of accepting the advances of the powerful Mustafà. In the staging by Leiser/Caurier, which plays with preconceived notions about clashing cultures, Mustafà is no longer an Ottoman bey, but a kind of local gangster who smuggles electronics at the port of modern-day Algiers. In the colourful sets of Christian Fenouillat, Ildar Abdrazakov sings the leering macho, looking for a love affair with the beautiful Italian, with delight and “great comic talent” (Salzburger Nachrichten). Edgardo Rocha’s bright tenor climbs up without effort, making his performance as Isabella’s lover Lindoro flowing and highly emotional. The conductor Jean-Christophe Spinosi, showing sensitivity to the intricacies and sparkle of Rossini’s score, leads the excellent Ensemble Matheus in a “beguiling performance” (The New York Times).
Recital Cecilia Bartoli
Recorded at London’s Savoy Hotel, this recital by the acclaimed Italian mezzo-soprano includes well-known Arie Antiche by Pergolesi, Caldara, Paisiello and Vivaldi, a selection of arias from the ever-popular Mozart operas Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro, as well as the lesser-known La clemenza di Tito. The highlight of the performance is the selection of songs and arias by Rossini. Miss Bartoli is accompanied by Georg Fischer.
Nina
Crazy in love: Mozart was a fan of the operas of Giovanni Paisiello and in the years after its premiere in 1789, Nina took Europe by storm. Its blend of melody, playfulness and pathos is just as potent today, and in 2002 this stylish new staging by Cesare Lievi for the Zurich Opera brought Paisiello a new generation of admirers. Conductor Adam Fischer brings out all its freshness and emotion, and with a cast that includes Cecilia Bartoli at the height of her powers as the lovelorn Nina, as well a young Jonas Kaufmann, Paisiello has never sounded more compelling.
Il Turco in Italia
A romantic poet, a gypsy girl, a spirited young wife and an Ottoman pasha: throw them together under the blue skies of Naples and the result is an opera buffa that’s precisely as fizzy and as farcical as you’d imagine from Rossini at the absolute top of his game. Il Turco in Italia is exuberant (and distinctly spicy) fun in the sun and Cesare Lievi’s delightful, candy-coloured 2002 staging from the Zurich Opera House has a cast to die for: with Cecilia Bartoli, no less, as the capricious Fiorilla and the veteran Ruggiero Raimondi exuding charisma and warmth as the Turk Selim.
Cecilia Bartoli: Sacrificium – The Art of the Castrati
Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, one of the most successful classical artists of her time, is a passionate musical explorer who regularly uncovers thrilling but little-known chapters of music history. This time her in-depth research takes her on a fascinating expedition into the world of castrato singers. The legendary art of the castratos continues to exert a strong fascination today, and, despite the great human sacrifice it exacted, this extraordinary period justifies the new assessment that she delivers.
Victims & Seducers – The Fate of the Castrati
An expert in the virtuoso and often unjustly forgotten coloratura music of the Baroque era, the great mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli showcased the repertoire of the castrato singers in her successful CD/DVD “Sacrificium – The Art of the Castrati”. She is the face of the present documentary, in which she takes us into the intriguing world of the castrati, and lends her voice to the great Farinelli in performances of rediscovered bravura works. The film features dramatic re-enactments that alternate with information on medical, historical and sociological aspects of the castrato phenomenon.