“THEThe real empowerment will have when … we will no longer have to talk about Empowerment. We will not have to underline: “The first woman” ». Cecilia Bartoli explodes in a contagious laugh, capturing us unprepared: from a mezzosoprano, accustomed to impersonating the cleopatra of Julius Caesar in Egypt or the sixth of The clemency of Titoyou don’t expect an open character and sunny.
Challenges & creativity
Unfortunately, however, the moment you hope for is not (still) arrived. And thus, here the obligation runs to underline that In 2012 he was the “first woman” to the artistic direction of Pentecost Festival in Salzburg (predecessors: Herbert von Karajan and Riccardo Muti) and, In 2023, “The first woman” to direct the Monte-Carlo opéra. Where, however, he was already in charge of the Musiciens du Princeorchestra she herself created in 2016. Which does not mean that he stopped performing, on the contrary: the next Italian appointment is a Cremona on 11 June for the Monteverdi Festival.
Where does this energy find?
Maybe they are my Emilia-Romagna genes: I was born in Rome, but my mom is from Parma and my dad was from Rimini (smiles). And, however, the challenges maintain creativity alive.
Cecilia Bartoli at the work of Monte-Carlo (photo Fabrice Demessence).
Cecilia Bartoli, artist and manager
Different skills will need for an artist and a manager.
Two are common: sense of discipline and competence. Having debuted at 19 and immediately sung with Von Karajan and then with several great (Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Nikolaus Harnoncourt), I would say that the cultural background and experience were solid. My work also consists in choosing the cast, in creating collaborations and this implies knowledge of the repertoire and voices.
40 years of career
Cecilia Bartoli with Gianluca Capuano (photo © Carmen Würth Forum/Ufuk Arslan).
Something pragmatic will also be asked, such as: delay the accounts. Or not? Let’s imagine the artist with the head in the air.
Of artists with the head by air I meet more men, I don’t know how it is … you have to choose a good administrator, and knowing how to delegate. That, for us women, it is not very simple: to be used to having everything on our shoulders (the family, the children, the work – I have no children, however I see the colleagues!) Has made us Control Freakobsessed with control.
Is there any female features that help in managerial roles?
Perseverance, sooooo female, as Mozart highlighted in his work. There is only one person who can save Don Giovanni: Elvira. It provides for its terrible destiny and feels a baroque angel who went down to earth to save him.
Speaking of Baroque: she contributed massively to the relaunch.
I consider myself a little pioneer of the “rediscovery” of Antonio Vivaldi. Let’s talk clearly: until the 90s it was synonymous with The four seasonsof some concerts and yes, of the Stabat Mater. Since ’99 – when I engraved The Vivaldi Album With Aries never performed – there has been his revaluation as a workshop. One of the greatest satisfactions in almost 40 years of career. Mamma mia, 40! (Risatona)
The ba-rock is fashionable
Cecilia Bartoli at the work of Monte-Carlo (photo Fabrice Demessence).
Today the Baroque is so fashionable that have coined a neologism: ba-rock.
It will depend on its “modernity”, on the rhythmic wealth and on allowing that improvisation that is familiar to us thanks to jazz: in the score, when there is the “offender” and the melody returns, this melody must be varied. And the arias are clean, clear, naked: the effectiveness lies precisely in simplicity, in going to directly affect the hearts of people. It is no coincidence that composers such as Georg Friedrich Händel or John Dowland are worshiped from someone who Sting.
In Cremona he opted for Christoph Willibald Gluck, Orpheus and Euridice.
This edition of the Festival is dedicated to the heroes of mythology and Orpheus seemed perfect to me! It is a role of a touching, shocking beauty, and I love singing it: I find that in this case the voice – magical tool, perhaps the closest to the soul – manages to calm the minds and suffering in particular.
With her on stage i Musiciens du Princeled by Gianluca Capuano. How did the idea of this orchestra come to her?
It was the consequence of another idea, in truth. I was thinking of a project linked to the Italian composers of the 18th less known (Domenico Cimarosa, Giovanni Paisiello) and I started looking – in vain – the handwritten scores. Until a musicologist warned me: “You will find them in Russia where they were invited by the various Tsarins, who remained owners of the creations. The Library of the Mariinsky Theater was the source for the album St. Petersburgin ’14.
So?
During that stay, a flash: “Wow, it would be great to create a group of European musicians in a European court”. I talked about it with Jean-Louis Grinda, then superintendent of the Monte-Carlo Opera: “The proposal is so mad that we have to try!”. Prince Alberto and Princess Carolina married her instantly. The characteristic of the ensemble is to propose “historically informed music” (Historically Informed Performance or Hip, editor’s note), based on the original scores and played on vintage tools or faithful copies.
“The female force”
Cecilia Bartoli as Orpheus in “Orpheus and Euridice” (photo quim vilar).
Why is it important?
To offer an experience similar to the original. An example: once the violins had budelle strings and, consequently, sweeter sounds. Now I am metal and that “velvet” is missing, while the voice has not changed: the singers must strive to let themselves be heard.
The program of the next season of the Opéra “is inspired by the timeless strength of the female figure”.
Yes, in the different facets! There will be a tribute – in the fiftieth anniversary of death – to Joséphine Baker, a wonderful artist very close to Princess Grace. Corage and sensitive, he lent himself as a spy for French resistance, was an activist for civil rights, adopted 12 children of different origins … he called them his “rainbow tribe”. There will be Aida (there are two strong women, both Aida and Amneris), Valchiria, Pelléas et mélisandeand a musical: Cats.
Don’t you believe a rigid distinction between “high” music and pop music?
No, I believe the distinction between well -performed music and music performed. (laugh)
He grew up among the notes: his were tenor and soprano in the choir of the Rome Opera Theater.
I saw the first Aida At four years old in Caracalla, but for me and my brothers the funny thing was to play on the sphinx and the lions … at school I am amazed that the parents of the companions did not sing, unlike mine and their friends. (smiles) They soon understood that I had a special ear: at nine I debuted in the role of the shepherd Tosca.
Never a moment of impatience, refusal? Not even during adolescence?
And how! At 13 I had put myself in my head to become flamenco dancer: I entered a semi -professional group, I wanted to consecrate myself to that. In 1982 I even performed with my companions a Ready, Raffaella?. (laughs) And there the tour of Boa.
In what sense?
My mother decided: “You can continue dancing, but you have to enroll in the Conservatory”, and so it was. Pian Pianino was clear: I was certainly more equipped with the vocal strings than with my feet! (Risatona)
Appointment at the Monteverdi Festival
The evening with Cecilia Bartoli e Les Musiciens du Princeled by Gianluca Capuano, anticipates the 42nd edition of the Monteverdi Festival (Cremona, 13-29 June). Among the other unmissable events, the two works Return of Ulysses at home and Hercules lover. Info: MonteverdiFestivalCremona.it
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