CECILIA BARTOLI, AN UNUSUAL TIMBRE MEZZO-SOPRANO

Today, The Grandma has been listening to some opera. She has chosen Cecilia Bartoli, the Italian mezzo-soprano opera singe, who was born on a day like today in 1966.

Cecilia Bartoli (born 4 June 1966) is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist. She is best known for her interpretations of the music of Bellini, Handel, Mozart, Rossini and Vivaldi, as well as for her performances of lesser-known music from the Baroque and Classical period. She is known for singing both soprano and mezzo roles.

Bartoli is considered a coloratura mezzo-soprano 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, and she was one of the most popular opera singers of recent years.

Bartoli was born in Rome. Her parents, Silvana Bazzoni and Pietro Angelo Bartoli, were professional singers and gave her her first music lessons. She first performed publicly at age nine as the shepherd boy in Tosca.

Bartoli later studied at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. At the age of 19, she made her singing debut on the Italian television show Fantastico. She did not win the competition but was asked to sing with Paris Opera for an homage concert for Maria Callas.

More information: Cecilia Bartoli

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. 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.

In addition to Mozart and Rossini, Bartoli has 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.

In 2012, Bartoli produced a project entitled Mission, which premiered the works of Agostino Steffani, a lesser-known Baroque composer. Bartoli produced the music of the composer in CD form as well as an extended music video that portrays her as the priest-composer Agostino in the palace of Versallies. The video is known for its historic and visual accuracy of the Baroque period. Cecilia Bartoli's performance and production of Mission reflect the music and aesthetic of Steffani's time period through the setting, wardrobe, and cinematography.

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.

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).

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.

In 2011, she won a fifth Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for Sacrificium.

In 2012, she was voted into the magazine's Gramophone's Hall of Fame. She is the 2012 recipient of the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize.

More information: Cecilia Bartoli

The voice will guide you-will tell you what to do.
In order to do that, you must be quite sensitive
with the instrument and accept
this daily conversation with your voice.

Cecilia Bartoli