Intermezzo

Cecilia's new baby

The Salzburg Whitsun Festival opens on 17 May with a new Leiser and Caurier production of Norma starring the Festival's artistic director, Cecilia Bartoli. Leiser and Caurier revisit their beloved 1950s in the sombre palette of Italian neorealism.

La Ceci has insisted the musical side reflects Bellini's own era instead of reverting to post-Verdian cliche. Her digging around has resulted in a revised score that reverses habitual cuts. The casting of Norma and Adalgisa has been rethought, and Zurich Opera's period orchestra, La Scintilla, has been drafted in.

Naturally the Decca marketing machine has not missed the opportunity to crank into action. A Norma CD follows hot on the heels of the performance, but with a slightly different cast. Read more and listen to the album on the Guardian website.

Could new Pope answer Cecilia Bartoli's prayers?

While researching Mission, her recent Agostino Steffani recording, Cecilia Bartoli discovered many of the composer's documents were taken to the Vatican on his death. Frustratingly, she couldn't get her hands on any of them. Speaking to journalist Ljubisa Tosic recently, she said "I definitely wasn't prepared to wait until the doors of the Vatican opened to me. The CD would probably still not have appeared." So she completed her Steffani investigations without a visit to the Holy See.

A planned concert for Pope Benedict, called off when La Ceci rightly refused to answer an overly-personal question, may not have helped her cause.

However her Vatican dreams are not yet over: "I believe there are still scores by Monteverdi undiscovered in the Vatican but it is not easy to get access to the documents. You need the right connections and as yet I don't have them".

Could opera-loving Pope Frank turn out to be Cecilia's inside man?

La Scala boos La Ceci

A shocking story from Milan.

La Scala's infamous loggionisti revealed they're still the least civilised audience in operadom at Cecilia Bartoli's first appearance there in 19 years last night.

Her concert with Daniel Barenboim and the La Scala orchestra went down well until the very end, when a small group in the upper galleries began booing and whistling and shouting “You don’t sing Rossini like this”, “Shame on you”, etc.

Graham Spicer, who was there, believes the attack was premeditated. Read his report (with photos) here.

A warm hand for La Ceci

Sadly I couldn't be there to witness Cecilia Bartoli's triumph at the Barbican last night, but Kyoko's curtain call video shows how London rocked to the sound of Steffani.

Cecilia Bartoli's exorcise class

I was going to direct you to www.deccaclassics.com/mission for an explanation, but it appears the Powers of Evil have bust the link. 

More hair here.

Cecilia Bartoli in Giulio Cesare - watch it live here

Tomorrow (Sunday 27 May) evening's performance of Giulio Cesare will be streamed from Salzburg by ARTE TV - and you can watch it right here.

Or on ARTE's own website if you prefer.

The new Leiser and Caurier production - photos here - features Andreas Scholl as Giulio Cesare, Cecilia Bartoli as Cleopatra,  Anne Sofie von Otter as Cornelia, Philippe Jaroussky as Sesto and Christophe Dumaux as Tolomeo. 

The live performance begins at 17:00 CET, and the streaming at 20:42 (7.42pm UK time). The video will remain available on demand for 2 months.

Warning - may not be available in all countries.

Cecilia Bartoli's Sacrifice

As this year's Salzburg Whitsun Festival kicks off, the first under Cecilia Bartoli's artistic leadership, the details of next year's programme have been revealed.

The theme is Sacrifice. Or should that be Controversy? The centrepiece is Norma, with Bartoli in the title role. Read the programme to find out why she thinks Norma is really a mezzo. 

Leiser and Caurier direct and a new critical edition of the score has been produced, reinstating old cuts and implementing some of Bellini's annotations.

More controversy - La Ceci will also perform in Brahms' Deutsches Requiem alongside Rene Pape and Daniel Barenboim's West Eastern Divan Orchestra.

To round off the weekend, Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky perform an all-Stravinsky programme, and Andras Schiff gives a recital.

Carry on Cecilia

Most singers with a job on the side say they wear two hats. Cecilia Bartoli sees her joint role as star and artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in more intimate terms.

Responding to Anna Netrebko's late withdrawal she said “For the first time in my career, I feel two hearts beat in my breast: the familiar singer’s heart, and the new heart of the artistic director. Who, if not I as a singer, can understand better how Anna feels? Due to an illness, one is forced to disappoint the audience and cancel an important concert. At such moments, one feels miserable and lonely…"

Mojca Erdmann will now take Netrebko's place in the world premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s Cleopatra and the Snake – a piece she must learn in two days. La Ceci herself will add bonus star power to the evening with two Mozart works - on top of a solo recital and two five-hour Giulio Cesare performances - all in four days. Now that's dedication.

Anyone around Austria way can watch a recording of Giulio Cesare on 28 May on the ORF2 channel.

See Philippe Jaroussky grappling his asp and more in the production photos below.

Cleopatra's supper club

While Egypt gets its first taste of democracy, guests at Salzburg's Whitsun Festival will be treated to a taste of Egypt.  After they've watched Cecilia Bartoli as Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare in Egitto on 27 May, the privileged section of the audience who stumped up the €€€ will decamp to the splendid Karl-Böhm-Saal for an Egyptian feast.  Traditional Egyptian music will accompany the  goat cheese-stuffed dates, pita bread and tahini, and belly dancer Nabila has been recruited for the purpose of "spreading oriental flair".

Forget the traditional spaghetti - this opens up a whole raft of opera-themed dinner possibilities. How about a nice platter of Schwartenmagen after your Salome for starters?

Bartoli in Otello?

It's the Rossini version of course, from Zurich Opera, and it's being streamed on Medici.tv tomorrow (Thursday) at 6pm. Free!

Cecilia Bartoli doubles up

Cecilia Bartoli yesterday unveiled her uncannily accurate double at the Musée Grévin in Paris. Ceci #2 joins a wax pantheon that includes Maria Callas, Roberto Alagna and Luciano Pavarotti.

The real diva pronounced the dummy, which sports a costume created for her Sacrificium concerts, as "more beautiful than me". Not sure about that, but it certainly looks an inch or two taller...

  

Cecilia Bartoli's first Salzburg Festival programme announced

Next May, Cecilia Bartoli takes the reins from Riccardo Muti to curate her first Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Its theme: the many facets of Cleopatra.

The centrepiece is Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, featuring La Ceci herself as the Egyptian queen. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier direct, Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico provide the music, and the cast includes Anne-Sofie von Otter, Andreas Scholl and Philippe Jaroussky. After its two Whitsun performances, the production will be seen again at the main summer Festival.

A concert performance of Massenet's Cléopâtre features Sophie Koch, Ludovic Tézier and Véronique Gens with Vladimir Fedoseyev and the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg.  Vesselina Kasarova and Piotr Beczala join Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for Schumann's Julius Caesar Overture, Berlioz's La mort de Cléopâtre and Brahms's Rinaldo. Valery Gergiev's programme with the Mariinsky Orchestra includes works by Rubinstein, Shchedrin, Gounod and Prokofiev, and Anna Netrebko will sing Massenet's Dis-moi que je suis belle from Thaïs.

Somehow, Bartoli will also squeeze in an evening of baroque arias.

Tickets go on sale on 14 June (full subscriptions), with remaining individual tickets sold from 1 August. For more details, check out the press release or the full programme.

Cecilia Bartoli proves Handel has no rivals

Cecilia Bartoli - Barbican, 9 December 2010

On a cold, damp winter's night with the Barbican totally bereft of sandwiches (again), half its ladies loos out of action (still) and bar staff who chuck ice into into your essential V&T without even asking - that's when you need Cecilia Bartoli, reliable bearer of warmth and sunshine and seasonal cheer.

Bartoli's Salzburg plans revealed

Prompted by last week's premature leak, incoming Salzburg Festival Intendant Alexander Pereira was yesterday pushed into a formal announcement of Cecilia Bartoli's appointment as artistic director of the offshoot Whitsun Festival. At the press conference in Salzburg, the pair revealed their plans for La Ceci's first season in 2012.

It's not quite the sudden lurch into Domingo-like world domination it might seem. Under Pereira's leadership in Zurich, Bartoli has already enjoyed substantial artistic control (and success) with projects like Halévy's Clari. 

But she won't be tackling anything quite that obscure to begin with. Departing also from the rarities showcased by Muti at recent Whitsun Festivals, 2012's offering is the best-known baroque opera of all, Handel's Giulio Cesare.

If Handel alone isn't enough to put bums on seats, Bartoli will sing the part of Cleopatra, and she'll be joined by Andreas Scholl. Her longtime collaborators Leiser and Caurier are to direct, with Giovanni Antonini's Il Giardino Armonico providing the music. Pereira means the opera to pay its way too - it will play twice at the Whitsun Festival, with a further five performances to follow at the main summer Festival. Bartoli has a better chance to show an inventive hand with the thematically-related concert programme

Future seasons will cast their net wider - Pereira promises exploration of the classical and bel canto areas as well as the baroque.

Muti passes the baton to ...... Cecilia Bartoli

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Riccardo Muti, who steps down as artistic director of Salzburg's Whitsun Festival in 2012, will be succeeded by none other than Cecilia Bartoli.

A weird choice? Not really. La Ceci's track record in truffling out rarities makes her the ideal candidate to continue the classical/baroque festival in Muti's spirit. And on top of her painstaking musicological investigations, she has the knack of presenting these obscure and overlooked gems in a way a modern audience can understand. Without sterile, reverent 'historical practice' dogma. With celebratory wit, panache, and optional thigh boots.

What a career move.

never mind the bollocks here's Cecilia Bartoli

Sacrificium - Cecilia Bartoli / Il Giardino Armonico - Barbican, 24 November 2009

Cecilia Bartoli's annual trip to the Barbican was this year tied in with her new CD of rare castrato arias, Sacrificium. Fortunately she didn't try and replicate the cover look (does she regrette rien, I wonder).

Instead, with Il Giardino Armonico's sprightly strings sawing away behind her, she sprang on mid-intro in full highwayman gear - well it is panto season - and launched into straight into a fearsome stretch of trademark coloratura like a runaway sewing machine, thigh boots planted manfully, cloak swirling behind her. A layer came off each couple of songs until she was left standing in nothing but shirt, boots and leggings. Then it was time for a costume change - a golden frock with its red skirts hitched up to show the man-pants still in place.

Last year she was so confident in the power of her bel canto offerings, she didn't even bother to buy a new frock, sporting the same one as the year before.

Were this year's theatrics a tacit acknowledgement that the material on the new CD is less strong than her previous offerings? A selection of display arias by Handel's less talented contemporaries, their original purpose was to showcase the talents of the greatest castratos - rapid coloratura, trills, long-breathed phrases, messa di voce and so on. In the writing at least, the art took second place to the craft. When la Ceci gave us Handel's simple yet touchingly lovely Lascia la Spina as an encore, the difference between sound workmanship and true genius was made painfully obvious.

Nevertheless, she gave the flawed offerings her considerable all, and as a display of her skills it was hard to fault.  Fantastic breath control and agility are combined with unmatched warmth and expressiveness. Once or twice the tuning went awry in the faster passages, but it hardly mattered. A tendency to close her eyes and shut out the audience in the slower arias was more of a problem than it might have been with stronger material. In the faster ones, the exhilarating vocal gymnastics and Bartoli's sheer exuberance were enough disguise for any lack of inspiration in the writing. No-one can match her for commitment to her material, nor for the passion she puts into every note. But I was pleased to see from the programme that her next project is the considerably more worthy Giulio Cesare.

After the short-change divas of the South Bank, it's worth pointing out that there were two full hours of music, at least half of it (probably more like three quarters) featuring the headline singer - and the tickets were cheaper, too.

Say what you like about Cecilia Bartoli, she knows her audience, she knows exactly what they expect, and she gives it to them time after time.

*******   more photos, and programme, on next page   *******

 

six yards of fioriture and a top C pls

The Barbican has started selling tickets for the 2009-10 season. Top of the shopping list will be Cecilia Bartoli on 24 November 2009 and Juan Diego Flórez on 7 May 2010.

It sounds beyond bonkers to buy tickets for something nearly a year and a half away, but past experience suggests if you don't move soon on these two, you'll end up just another statistic in the returns queue.

Plenty of other stuff to look forward to without panic buying as well, including the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Phil, and the UK premiere of Hans Werner Henze's Phaedra from the Ensemble Modern.

Cecilia Bartoli - the credit crunch diva

Cecilia Bartoli / Sergio Ciomei "Soirée Rossiniana" - Barbican, 17 December 2008

Rossini La regata veneziana - Three songs in Venetian dialect;  Bellini L’Abbandono, Il fervido desiderio, Vaga Luna, La Farfalletta, Dolente immagine,  Malinconia, ninfa gentile, Ma rendi pur contento;  Rossini Or che di fiori adorno, Beltà crudele, Canzonetta spagnuola, La danza;  Donizetti Il barcaiolo, Amore e morte, La conocchia, Me voglio fà‘na casa;  Rossini Ariette à l’ancienne, L’Orpheline du Tyrol, La grande coquette;  Viardot Havanaise, Hai luli!;  García Yo que soy contrabandista;  Malibran Rataplan

Encores:  Ernesto de Curtis Ti voglio tanto bene;  Montsalvatge Canto Negro;  Ernesto de Curtis Non ti scordar di me

This is fast becoming a regular annual date. If it's December, it must be Cecilia Bartoli time at the Barbican.

With no new album to promote this year, she chose instead a selection of salon music that she's sung for years. Her frocks too were old favourites - for the second half the thrifty Ceci wore the same red dress as last year, and before the break the same design in blue. And why not? Getting more from ur couture is a lesson every diva should learn in these creditcrunchy times.

Her accompaniment was economical as well - just the sweet cuddly pianist Sergio Ciomei. Did she bring her own sandwiches too? A flourish of twinkly diamonds proved she's hardly down to her last pennies though.

The songs were drawn largely from Rossini's Péchés de vieillesse, a huge collection of piano and vocal music he wrote after retiring from opera. (The piano works too will surprise anyone who thinks they 'know' Rossini - many have moments of greater 'orchestral' invention than the often hurriedly-written operas). Mr and Mrs Rossini hosted sparkling soirées where they would regale lucky guests with this music in a convivial atmosphere of food, drink and song. 

The songs may not be of the very first rank: as with bel canto opera, the texts often let them down and the harmonic progression can be pedestrian. But La Ceci treated every one like a favourite child, with love and tenderness, its character proudly displayed, its flaws utterly denied. Beaming at the audience, sensitive to every slight lapse in attention, every degree of response, she radiated the sheer joy of performing.

The electrifying coloratura of songs like La farfalletta and the tarantella La danza predictably generated the most ecstatic audience response. Cecilia Bartoli still has no peer in this - the grace, the agility, the effortlessness are beyond mere mortals.

But in dramatic narrative like the three songs of La regata veneziana, where a gondolier's girlfriend urges him to race victory, she did more - totally inhabiting the songs - she was that girl at the canalside, egging him on. And all without any unmusical effects - the line was beautiful and musically shaped.

Humour is perhaps her greatest strength. Not many classical musicians can make songs funny - even when they're written with that purpose in mind. But La Ceci's naturally sunny personality combines with wit and timing to devastating effect. Could there be anything sillier than the rolled Rs of Malibran's Rataplan? And could anyone else make them sound like the crowning peak of comedic genius?

Although she (sweetly) checked her running order with a piano-top copy of the same programme that was handed out free to the audience, her preparation was immaculate, and made everything sound like the innovation of a moment. As Sir John Tomlinson once said about rehearsing, "get it right until you can't get it wrong" and anything is possible.

Anyone who's ever nit-picked her recordings needs to get out more. Heard live, her charisma and spontaneous joy and embedded musicality create an experience 1000% greater than any recording. She simply personifies the argument that in the face of CDs, DVDs, films, downloads, streaming, whatever - live performance will never die.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La Ceci vs. JDF - who's the coloraturest ?

Bootlegs hit planet opera!

A YouTube gem - Cecilia Bartoli and Juan Diego Flórez  - whose skillz are maddest?

On the tables: Ah non potrian resistere + Cessa di più resistere + Non più mesta

Cecilia Bartoli breathes life into Clari

Clari - Opernhaus Zürich, 29 May 2008 

(Go here for loads more photos, including curtain call.)

Fromental Halévy's Clari was in its day little more than a showcase for legendary 19th century diva Maria Malibran. The resuscitation of this almost beyond-obscure opera - its first since its 1828 debut - is down to Cecilia Bartoli's ongoing interest in Malibran's repertoire.

Produced for the Théâtre Italien, the home of Italian opera in Paris, and unlike Halévy's better-known La Juive, it respects the prevailing house style with a massive stylistic debt to Rossini.

Of course, as ever, we must bow down to la Ceci for locating this morsel and cranking the mighty wheels that have transformed it from score to show. But make no mistake, this is no lost masterpiece. The style may be Rossini's, but Clari displays little of the maestro's inventiveness, or his melodic gifts. The plot is slim, the libretto borderline cringemaking. It's amenable enough, but even so, it's no surprise that this is its first revival. It requires a mezzo of superhuman abilities and three good octaves to display its one redeeming virtue, a number of spectacular arias. Step forward Cecilia Bartoli.

This Clari's other saving grace is a flamboyant production, effervescent with wit, courtesy of producers Leiser and Caurier, and the talented cast and technical crew. The intelligence, artistry and craftsmanship behind this show flatter Halévy's modest offering almost beyond belief. Technically it's an opera semi seria, but most of the seria is wisely sacrificed in favour of comic momentum, the libretto's bald spots creatively combed over with sumptuous sets and arresting stage business.

The story in brief - Clari is the tale of an innocent peasant girl. Seduced and promised marriage by a louche Duke, she finds herself his kept woman instead. A play staged at her birthday party seems to her to echo her predicament, and makes her realise the shame and distress her father must be suffering. She leaves the Duke and returns to her parents in the country. The Duke meanwhile realises he truly loves her. He follows her and reaffirms his promise of marriage, and everyone lives happily ever after.

And here's how Leiser and Caurier attack it, with Zurich Opera's own photos. Act I begins with the Duke, a moustached and suspiciously camp playboy in tennis whites and glitter hairgel, preparing for Clari's birthday. This guy has cash, and he's spent it on a couple of supersized lime Florence Knoll settees and a corridor full of Matisses and Picassos.

Uniformed in bumblebee stripes, the servants Germano and Bettina rehearse the play they plan to present at the party, and the Duke shows everyone the whopping great scarf-sized diamond necklace he plans to give to Clari.

Off they troll, leaving the stage to Clari. How many divas could pull off a sparkly blue knitted suit with matching shoes and pillbox? Bartoli, in a surprisingly flattering blonde wig, just about manages it, a mere micron away from tranny airhostess. She reminisces about her old life in the country. A tragic aria, beautifully sung of course, but dramatically ohso dull, is subverted by the preposterous slide illustrations that appear framed behind her like thought bubbles.   

The Duke re-enters, now in a hideous gold lame suit and white robe. He tries to interest Clari in some romantic action, but she's starting to have doubts.

The wall behind them rises to reveal a room full of party guests. Some truly fabulous fifties and sixties style costumery here - sourced from vintage suppliers, or faithfully recreated? Who knows. Lucky chorus, anyway.

Clari has changed into a pink prom dress, an iconic complement to la Ceci's figure and personality. And matching shoes - Rene Caovilla? - I couldn't quite catch the sole logo, even with opera glasses. The room's main decoration is a gigantic incongruous King Kong head, studiously ignored by all present.

The servants' play begins. A poor country girl is whisked away to a Duke's castle, while back home, her father laments. It's the 19th c equivalent of reality TV, and even Clari can see the Lesson to be learnt here. She throws herself weeping on the servant acting the father's part, to everyone's surprise. Then she scales the King Kong, which, mysteriously, slides slowly forward. So it's not just a useless piece of ugly furniture after all! Act I ends with her standing on King Kong's shoulder.

Act II is set in a hyper-real and timeless hospital waiting room, complete with institutional chairs, water fountain, and coffee machine. Pyjama-clad oldsters wander in and out. Nurses sit behind a window. Clari's behaviour at the party has embarrassed the Duke, and he leaves her here under Germano and Bettina's observation to detox or rehab or whatever.

Everyone leaves Clari except Bettina, who falls asleep. Alone, Clari despairs of her situation. This is the only truly tragic section of the production, and to be honest, it drags just a weeny bit. The only moments of light relief are a clever touch where a nurse behind the window appears to be playing the harp (which is actually being played in the pit), and Clari's suicide attempt, an attempted injection from a half-gallon syringe.

Clari seizes her opportunity and sneaks out. Germano returns, Bettina wakes. Where is Clari? Bettina was supposed to be watching her. Panic! When the Duke finds she's gone, he decides he really loves her after all, and he'll follow her and find her. Aaahhh.

Act III opens with that surefire crowd pleaser, a real car. Less risky than animals, less overdone than underpants. A good old fashioned coup de théâtre. Coated in sand, it rolls in front of the deliberately crudely-painted mountain backdrop, carrying the Duke and the faithful Germano and Bettina. The Duke is now in a floor length white fur-collared coat. Pure Gunter Sachs 1968, and utterly fabulous.

The Duke sings about how much he loves and misses Clari. This is such a tricksy JDF-test of an aria, and so brilliantly sung by John Osborn, that it almost threatens to upstage everything Clari's done so far. But not quite.

Off rolls the car, and a swift scene change reveals two grim, cell-like rooms. On the left, welly-clad peasants sing their love of the country life. On the right is a kitchen housing Clari's parents. Mother watches the cooking. Father watches TV, with a pig asleep at his side. The peasants leave and the parents bemoan Clari's fate. Clari appears in wellies and overall, and reveals herself to her surprised mother.

She hides from her father, but when she hears he's about to hang himself out of shame, she rushes out and stops him. The Duke and his retinue arrive, and the Duke seals his favourable intentions towards Clari with a suitcase of money offered to the grateful parents (not in the libretto, but a splendidly cynical touch).

A screen with a cutout heart descends. Clari steps through the heart and sings behind a cardboard cut out bride and groom. The Duke appears and embraces her. Curtain and screen draw back to reveal a stage full of happy peasants and - cutout cows! So Clari must be Swiss! For many in the Zurich audience, this is the happiest part of the happy ending.

Musically and dramatically, this was a performance of incredibly high standards, capped by Bartoli's effortless perfection in the title role and conductor Adam Fischer's empathetic response to her featherweight pianissimos and daring rubato. Warm and engaging, her comic turn never overstepped into buffoonery.

As the Duke, John Osborn's brilliant coloratura and no-stretch high notes made his difficult part sound easy. Eva Liebau's silvery bell-like soprano made for an enchanting Bettina. With stout support from Oliver Widmer as Germano, Carlos Chausson as Clari's father, and Stefania Kaluza as her mother, it was impossible to pick fault with any performance on stage, and the cast quite rightly got numerous curtain calls and (unusually for Zurich) a standing ovation.

The woodwind intonation could have been more accurate - a lot more accurate - but at least Orchestra Scintilla (Zurich Opera's specialist period ensemble) played with verve and enthusiasm, and Fischer never allowed the pace to flag.

lt was one of the best nights I've experienced all year, and a perfect demonstration of just what can be achieved when first rate talents are applied to second rate material. Despite this, I can't see Clari making its way into the repertoire - no-one less than Bartoli could at present do credit to the title role, and this has to be the definitive production. But wouldn't it be wonderful if one of the smaller houses could take this production (and Bartoli) up? It certainly deserves to be seen by more than the four housefuls who caught it in Zurich.

Thanks to the generosity and common sense of Zurich Opera House, I got loads of curtain call and other non-performance pics - find here.