Prima donna shakes up music world
Print Edition
Italian mezzo-soprano, prima donna Cecilia Bartoli, who made her long-awaited debut appearance in China last week in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, is a risk-taker who is not afraid of embracing ideas that are bold, even shocking, for the classical music world.
One of the most celebrated mezzo-sopranos in the world, Bartoli has won five Grammys for Best Classical Vocal Performance, 10 Echos, a Bambi, two Classical Brit Awards and the Victoire de la Musique among other prizes.
Her seven solo CDs including “The Vivaldi Album,” “The Salieri Album,” “Maria,” “Sacrificium” and “Mission,” had extraordinary sales that makes her one of today’s best-selling classical artists, with more than 10 million copies of audio and video released internationally and often occupying the pop charts for over 100 weeks.
In 2009 her album “Sacrificium” demonstrated her bold nature — it featured arias written for castrato stars of the 18th century. A castrato was a male singer castrated before puberty so as to retain a soprano or alto voice.
And last year, her album “Mission” was another surprise when she interpreted the music by Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), an Italian composer not well known by the public.
On the provocative cover, Bartoli is seen as a bald-headed priest. (She didn’t actually shave her hair for this — it was done by computers.) The image is very different from typical classical album covers.
“I wanted to tell a story from the beginning, and to tell the story of Steffani in beautiful dress and makeup doesn’t match the life of Steffani, so I wanted to give a message from the beginning,” she said, explaining the idea behind the cover design.
Going a little bit against the cliche of a diva, which many people think has to be beautiful all the time, Bartoli said sometimes beauty is empty and can’t really tell the stories one desires to share. Steffani was not just a composer, but also a politician, diplomat and priest. Bartoli described him as a link, that his music sounds a little bit Renaissance, like Monteverdi, but already projected into the beginning of baroque.
“I think Steffani was a composer who loved to experiment with music,” she said. The composer’s life, according to Bartoli, was mysterious. So was her album: Months before its release, DECCA imposed an embargo on naming the composer.
A mission of her own and one of her most intriguing projects, “Mission” was a success.
Music producer, reporter and blogger Tom Huizenga of NPR Music wrote, “There are undoubtedly questions yet unanswered about the mysterious life of Agostino Steffani, but not about the essence of his music. Bartoli has brilliantly resolved that. She can chalk ‘Mission’ up as another fascinating success in her keen and continuing musical archeology.”
Bartoli was born in 1966 in Rome to mother Silvana Bazzoni and father Pietro Angelo Bartoli, both professional opera singers. The young Bartoli started studying singing with her mother and attended the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
When she was just not much older than a tot, her mother discovered her musical talents. “When she was three or four years old, she went to a movie and liked the music. When she came back home she started to play the melody on the piano herself, and at that moment I learned about her talent in music,” said Bazzoni, who traveled to China with her daughter.
At a very early stage, Bartoli’s talent was noticed by conductors like Herbert von Karajan, Daniel Barenboim and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Working with many renowned conductors, pianists and orchestras since she was in her 20s, she has performed in the most important concert halls and opera houses in the world, from Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London to La Scala in Milan. In 2012 she became the artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.
Bartoli started her career as a Rossini singer, and she also was successful in interpreting his compositions as well as Bellini, Mozart and lesser-known baroque music.
Her recent tour included works mostly by Rossini and Bellini, a repertoire she thought as the best to make her debut here in China.
“Rossini is always in my heart since I was 19 years old,” Bartoli said.
She described her China tour as a huge success with passionate audiences, especially a young audience, that made her feel like she was performing at “a rock concert.”
Her 2007 recording “Maria” tributes to Maria Malibran, who was the first opera diva in the 19th century and also sang a lot of music by Rossini and Bellini. Bartoli wanted to go back to the two composers after a long journey in baroque music.
This time she brought something new: performances on period instruments.
“I think this is a big challenge, because baroque music is usually performed on period instruments, but not the pre-romantic music,” she said, “This was definitely a new step, and the sound is so different when you play the music on period instruments. This was also a challenge.”
She pays a lot of attention to musical archaeology, saying it is important to cultural heritage. “I appreciate the music by Mozart more when I know where Mozart is coming from. I think this is very important. I go back to the root and discover this is the way music developed, the structure changed,” Bartoli said.
“For me to go back, slowly, step by step to move into the 18th and 19th century repertoire, is an important voyage. It’s important for every musician to understand where the music is coming from,” she said.
Her new album this year, “Norma,” the bel canto opera by Bellini, was also based on the opera’s original sources.
“To sing a beautiful opera, one not only needs the techniques, but also how to tell the story hidden behind the music using your own voice and skills,” Bartoli said.
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