Farinelli News
Italian opera singer
Commemorations 2025 (Birth: Farinelli)
- viola d'amore, voice
- castrato
- opera
- Kingdom of Naples, Papal States
- opera singer, viola d'amore player, actor, stage actor, theatrical director
Last update
2024-03-28
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2022-07-17 14:42:47
Baroque gem: Hasse's early serenata gets an intriguing modern staging in Buxton with some stylish singing.
[…] of a sequence of da capo arias ending in a duet. Unusually for opera seria, it eschews the exit aria convention, what we have is an operatic dialogue as Antonio and Cleopatra, after their defeat at the battle of Actium, rehash the past and decide their futures. The piece might have been small of scale, but it was written for two of the stars of the day, contralto Vittoria Tesi (who sang Antonio) and castrato Farinelli (who sang Cleopatra). Quite why the cross-dressing, we don't know nor do we know whether the original was staged.At the Pavilion Arts Centre, Satoko Doi Luck and her ensemble were stage-right, and the rest of the stage was set to suggest a modern hotel room. Ellie Neate's Cleopatra and Thalie Knights' Antonio appeared in modern dress, lovers and fantasists fleeing some unspecified catastrophe. Their luggage formed something of a dressing-up box, as the two […]
2022-07-15 15:45:00
Reviews of Buxton International Festival operas 2022
[…] of duets, one to close each act), with all those repeats. The vocal music is extremely taxing, though, and the quality of the two singers – Thalie Knights, as Antonio, and Ellie Neate, as Cleopatra – is what the audience has come to hear. They are top-class young artists, well able to embellish their repeats tastefully, and in Ellie Neate’s case making the most of her frequent bursts of high-powered top notes (originally written for Farinelli). The first-act closing duet, “Un solo sospiro”, verges on the Handelian in its variety of emotive resource and showed the two both at their best. Musical direction from the harpsichord is by Satoko Doi-Luck, with a tireless in-period string quintet beside her. Viva la DivaDonizetti after Sografi, English version by Kit Hesketh-HarveySalzburg State Theatre in association with Buxton International FestivalBuxton Opera House10, 14, 19, 21 and 23 July 2022, 2 hours 55 minutes It’s good […]
2022-04-03 04:12:00
Classical Music News of the Week, April 3, 2022
[…] Handel's RadamistoPhilharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale (PBO) brings its 2021/22 season to a full-bodied crescendo with Handel’s opera Radamisto, with a new staging by French director Christophe Gayral at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall. This marks two firsts: the first time PBO has ever presented Radamisto and the first ever fully-staged historical opera at Bing.Internationally acclaimed countertenor Iestyn Davies, who just finished a successful run of Rodelinda at the Metropolitan Opera this week (and also of Farinelli fame on Broadway) takes on the title role of Radamisto. On the heels of a run of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor with Deutsche Oper Berlin, star soprano Liv Redpath joins the cast as Radamisto’s wife Zenobia. Bass-baritone Aubrey Allicock returns to the role of the tyrant Tiridate, having performed this role with Juilliard Opera and Juilliard415 at Lincoln Center in 2013. British soprano Ellie Laugharne plays his faithful wife Polissena, pursued by baritone Morgan Pearse […]
2022-02-14 07:43:59
Vivaldi: Bajazet - Gianluca Margheri - Irish National Opera (Photo Kip Carroll) Vivaldi Bajazet; Gianluca Margheri, Eric Jurenas, James Laing, Niamh O'Sullivan, Claire Booth, Aoife Miskelly, dir: Adele Thomas, Irish Baroque Orchestra, cond: Peter Whelan; Irish National Opera at the Royal Opera House Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 12 February 2022 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★) A vividly theatrical evening as the cast of Irish National Opera's production combine brilliant virtuoso singing with highly theatrical performancesVivaldi's Bajazet (also known as Il Tamerlano) was premiered at the end of his operatic career, in 1735 in Verona. It is in fact a pasticcio, Vivaldi combining elements from his back catalogue and arias from other composers to create a new work, a sort of greatest hits piece where the arias from other composers were ones principally associated with two of the greatest singers of the day, the soprano castrato Farinelli and […]
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