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.[1]
Early life
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.[2][1] Bartoli later studied at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome.[3] 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.[citation needed]
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."[4]
Work in bel canto
In 2007/08, Bartoli devoted her time to studying and recording the early 19th-century repertoire – the era of Italian Romanticism and bel canto – and especially 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.[5] 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.[6] In March 2011, Bartoli toured five Australian cities with two programs drawn from Sacrificium and Maria.[7]
Administration career
Salzburg Whitsun Festival
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.[8]
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.[9][10] She became the first woman to hold the position.[11]
Personal life
Bartoli lives with her husband, Swiss baritone Oliver Widmer, in Zollikon on the Goldcoast shore of Lake Zurich, Switzerland, and in Rome, part of the year. The couple married in 2011 after twelve years together.[12] Bartoli lived in Monaco in the early 2010s.[13]