A long round of applause, three encores and four standing ovations greeted the tribute to Farinelli by mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, Artistic Director of the Salzburg Festival and conductor of Opéra de Monte-Carlo, at Prague’s Obecni dum on Sunday 7 May.
The concert, which was sponsored by the Italian Embassy in Prague, was organised by Nachtigall Artists, in cooperation with Opéra de Monte-Carlo and the Italian Cultural Institute of Prague as part of the celebrations for the centenary of its foundation.
In the acclaimed performance, the indefatigable and determined Cecilia Bartoli, accompanied by Les Musiciens du Prince from Munich, conducted by Maestro Gianluca Capuano, performed arias and orchestral works by G.F. Handel – the great populariser of Italian melodrama in Europe -, Nicola Porpora, Johann Adolph Hasse, Georg Philipp Telemann and Antonio Vivaldi.
Farinelli, born Carlo Broschi, was a legendary performer, a kind of baroque rock star who sang the most virtuosic music ever written for the human voice. Cecilia Bartoli is an absolute star of the 20th and 21st century: over the course of her career, she has sold more than twelve million audio and video recordings, making her the best-selling living classical artist ever. Both are performers of exceptional talent and admirable expressiveness.
