Giovanni Carestini News
Italian sopera singer
Commemorations 2025 (Birth: Giovanni Carestini)
- soprano
- Italy
- opera singer, stage actor
Last update
2024-03-24
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2022-02-07 09:01:50
[…] there was a coolness about Askvik’s performance, something of the observer. She dealt with Morgana’s infatuation with amused tolerance, but it was not all plain sailing and the cool observer found herself drawn in, her lover torn between herself and Alcina, unable to leave. Handel: Alcina - Nick Pritchard, Ffur Wyn, Mari Askvik - Opera North (Photo James Glossop) The role of Ruggiero was written for the mezzo-soprano castrato Giovanni Carestini, so it lies somewhat high for a counter-tenor. Once the sole preserve of female mezzo-sopranos, counter-tenors have more recently started to sing the role. It was clear that it sat high for Patrick Terry, but he used this to give a sense of otherworldly uncertainty to the character. He conveyed well the sense of Ruggiero being completely absorbed in Alcina’s enchantment. Even when the spell was a broken, it lingered so that the whole […]
2020-11-21 11:59:34
Despite lockdown, Handel's Ariodante returns to the main stage of Covent Garden
[…] Christian Curnyn conducted the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, with Paula Murrihy as Ariodante, Chen Reiss as Ginevra, Sophie Bevan as Dalinda, Iestyn Davies as Polinesso, Ed Lyon as Lurcanio, Gerald Finley as the King of Scotland, Thando Mjandana as Odoardo. The performance was intended to be the first of two live performances, but lockdown meant that the performance was streamed. In 1735, the title role was sung by the mezzo-soprano castrato Giovanni Carestini and Polinesso by the contralto Maria Caterina Negri, but in 2020 we had what has become conventional modern casting with a female mezzo-soprano as Ariodante and a counter-tenor as Polinesso (though it is still occasionally allowed for contraltos, I vividly remember Felicity Palmer in the role). The plot is one of the most accessible to modern audiences, it is a simple love story without magic elements, comedy or heroics, perhaps this was why 18th […]
2019-03-11 13:52:59
Ariodante, Telemann 2019
[…] names and singing in Italian, are placed somewhere in Scotland where two lovers, a prince and king’s daughter, are almost driven to death and madness by a villainous duke, but of course everything ends well: the duke is punished, and the lover happily marry. The premier took place at the Covent Garden; it was the first opera ever staged in the newly-built theater. The role of protagonist, prince Ariodante, was sung by the famous castrato Carestini, who replaced Senesino, for many years Handel’s favorite, after they parted ways and Senesino joined the competing Opera of the Nobility. The bad Duke Polinesso was sung by a contralto, Maria Caterina Negri. At the Lyric, the genders were reversed: Ariodante was sung by a mezzo, while Polinesso – by a countertenor. Both were wonderful. Alice Coote, a prominent interpreter of Handel’s music, needed some time to warm up, but her famous Act II […]
2017-05-01 16:28:50
One Handel, one heart
[…] be having surgery following next Sunday’s starry Met gala. The Bicket-English Concert-Handel series continues next season at Carnegie Hall with Rinaldo starring Iestyn Davies as the good guy and Luca Pisaroni as the bad guy. Meanwhile Ariodante remains a popular favorite with star mezzos, although occasionally a countertenor like Franco Fagioli a few years ago in Karlsruhe and Yuri Minenko last season in Lausanne has tackled the high-lying title role written for the great castrato Carestini. Following her celebrated mezzo sisters like Janet Baker, Anne-Sofie von Otter, Lorraine Hunt Leiberson and Ann Hallenberg, Cecilia Bartoli,who has eschewed trouser roles for nearly her entire career, takes on Ariodante for the first time next month at her Pfingsten Festival in Salzburg where she repeats it during the summer festival with Rolando Villazon announced as Lurcanio (yeah, right!). After having already performed both Alcina and Orlando, next season William Christie and his Les […]
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