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In the late '90s, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli was one of the world's most popular singers, for several years eclipsed in album sales only by Luciano Pavarotti, and she remains a beloved figure. Her repertory runs from the Baroque through Mozart and the bel canto roles of the first third of the 19th century. Bartoli's performances and recordings are well-researched as well as beautifully sung, and for a singer of her stature, she has recorded a good deal of little-known music. A new Bartoli compilation, Casta Diva, appeared in 2024.

Bartoli was born in Rome on June 4, 1966. Her parents were both professional singers, and she made her stage debut at nine as a shepherd boy in Puccini's Tosca. Bartoli attended the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, studying trombone and flirting with a career as a flamenco dancer; her only long-term voice teacher had been her mother. She made her Zurich Opera House debut in 1989 as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro under conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, a frequent collaborator. That year also saw the release of Bartoli's debut album, Rossini Arias, on the London label. Her star rose rapidly in the early '90s; her debut in New York, where she remains extraordinarily popular, came at a 1990 Mostly Mozart Festival concert. In 1992, she would return to that festival for three sold-out shows.

Charismatic, musically intelligent, and vocally agile (singing both mezzo-soprano and soprano roles), Bartoli made her debut on the coveted stage at Milan, Italy's La Scala, in 1991. Bartoli has called herself a child of the 18th century and has been able to combine vocally spectacular Baroque roles, several times in Vivaldi's comparatively underexposed operas, with limpid Mozart melodies and bel canto through much of her career. Bartoli's Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1996 as Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte, returning in 1997 in the lead role in Rossini's La Cenerentola, and once again in 1998 as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. In the mid-2000s, she devoted herself mostly to Baroque opera, appearing as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, and then to bel canto toward the end of the decade, issuing the album Maria, which investigated the career of famed soprano Maria Malibran. The pace of Bartoli's stage appearances and recordings slowed somewhat in the 2010s but remained vigorous. Bartoli became the artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in 2012; her appearances there as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare (2012) and in the title roles of Bellini's Norma (2013) and La Cenerentola (2014), as well as her programming decisions, resulted in record ticket sales for the formerly academically oriented festival.

On recordings, Bartoli has been associated mostly with the London and Decca labels; crossover albums have been notably absent from her large catalog. Bartoli's 2011 album Sacrificium won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance; it was her fifth Grammy. Some of her albums have included music by lesser-known composers such as Antonio Salieri and Agostino Steffani; her concept album Mission (2012) covered the music and career of the latter. On Decca, she released Antonio Vivaldi, a collection of arias, in 2018. The following year saw the release of Farinelli, an homage to the 18th century castrato singer, on the cover of which Bartoli appeared in drag. Bartoli's 2021 album Unreleased consisted of an unissued 2013 album featuring arias by Beethoven, Josef Mysliveček, Mozart, and Haydn, all written for leading divas of the era. Her 2024 release Casta Diva was a collection of classic and newly recorded Bartoli material; by that time, her recording catalog comprised well over 50 items, many of them complete operas. Bartoli was inducted into the French Order of Arts and Letters in 1995. She has lived with her husband, baritone Oliver Widmer, in Switzerland on Lake Zurich, in Rome, and in Monaco. ~ James Manheim

Vincenzo Bellini was one of the most important composers of Italian opera in his time. Bellini developed a reputation for fine craftsmanship, particularly in the way he forged an intricate relationship between the music and the libretto. To perform one of his operas, singers required extremely agile voices. His music was inspired by the Romantic ideal and his flowing, exquisitely sculpted vocal lines represent the epitome of the bel canto style. His abilities and talent earned him the admiration of other composers, including Berlioz, Chopin, and even Wagner. While not a prolific composer in terms of his total output, he wrote a quantity of instrumental works, sacred vocal pieces, and an oboe concerto in addition to his operas.

Bellini was born in 1801 in Catania, Sicily, to a family already steeped in music; his father and grandfather were both career musicians. He began composing before receiving any formal music education. Bellini entered the Royal College of Music of San Sebastiano, now the Naples Conservatory, in 1819 after receiving a scholarship from his native city. Bellini chiefly studied with noted composer Niccolo Zingarelli, a musician who staunchly disapproved of Gioachino Rossini's highly popular brand of opera. Zingarelli instead encouraged his students to compose with a style based around lyrical melodies, and without Rossini's limitless use of ornamentation and other compositional devices. Bellini's first opera, Adelson e Salvini, was chosen to be performed by the conservatory's students in February 1825. It was never performed outside of the conservatory, but it did serve as a source of material for at least five other operas Bellini composed. Shortly thereafter, Domenico Barbaja of the San Carlo Opera offered Bellini his first commission for an opera, which resulted in Bianca e Fernando (1826). That was followed Il pirata (1827), which was premiered at Milan and received much enthusiasm and critical acclaim. Written with librettist Felice Romani, who would collaborate with Bellini on numerous works, it served as the composer's defining moment, establishing him as an internationally acclaimed opera composer. He toured extensively throughout Europe as a result and increased his popularity and reputation each time he offered his latest opera to eager audiences. As Bellini gained experience, he settled into a working method that stressed quality instead of quantity. He composed fewer operas than others, for which he commanded higher prices. He was not, however, immune to the pressures of production. In 1829, Bellini produced two new operas, La Straniera and Zaira, premiered at Milan and Parma respectively. The latter was a sound failure, but the resourceful composer was later able to transplant its music and use it for his next work, I Capuleti e I Montecchi (1830), based on the celebrated story of Romeo and Juliet. The year 1831 proved most successful for Bellini as two of his most famous operas, La sonnambula, with a story based on a ballet of the same name, and Norma, were produced. Although Norma was unenthusiastically received, many critics and Bellini himself believed it to be his finest work. Its aria "Casta diva" is one of the evergreens of the classical vocal repertory. These were followed by a less successful composition, Beatrice di Tenda. This opera was premiered at La Fenice, Venice, on March 16, 1833, a month later than scheduled; the failure led to the falling out of Bellini and Romani. Bellini spent the summer of 1833 in London directing performances of his operas. He then moved to Paris, where he befriended several respected artists including Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. He also met Rossini, who served as a mentor to Bellini, despite the opinions expressed by Zingarelli. Bellini composed and produced his last opera, I puritani, which premiered on January 24, 1835, with a libretto written by the exiled Italian poet Count Carlo Pepoli. Unlike Bellini's previous two operas, I puritani was enthusiastically received. At the height of his career and only 33 years old, Bellini died of a chronic intestinal ailment on September 23, 1835, in a small town near Paris. Rossini, in addition to serving as a pallbearer at the funeral, also made all the necessary arrangements. ~ TiVo Staff

Gioachino Rossini's chief legacy remains his extraordinary contribution to the operatic repertoire. His comedic masterpieces, including L'Italiana in Algeri, La gazza ladra, and perhaps his most famous work, Il barbiere di Siviglia, are regarded as cornerstones of the genre along with works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi. He was revered from the time he was a teenager until his death.

Rossini's parents were both working musicians. His father played the horn and taught at the prestigious Accademia Filharmonica in Bologna, and his mother, although not formally trained, was a soprano. Rossini was taught and encouraged at home until he eventually enrolled at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna. After graduation from that institution, the young musician was commissioned by the Venetian Teatro San Moise to compose La cambiale di matrimonio, a comedy in one act. In 1812, Rossini wrote La pietra del paragone, for La Scala theater in Milan and was already, at the tender age of 20, Italy's most prominent composer.

In 1815, Rossini accepted a contract to work for theaters in Naples, where he would remain until 1822, composing prolifically in comfort. He composed 19 operas during his tenure, focusing his attention on opera seria and creating one of his most famous serious works, Otello, for the Teatro San Carlos. While he served in this capacity, Rossini met and courted Isabella Colbran, a local soprano whom he would eventually marry. Other cities, too, clamored for Rossini's works, and it was for Roman audiences that he composed the sparkling comedies Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville, 1816) and La cenerentola (Cinderella, 1817).

In 1822, Rossini left Naples and embarked on a European tour. The Italian musician was received enthusiastically to say the least, and enjoyed fame and acclaim everywhere. Even Beethoven, at the opposite stylistic pole in the musical scene of the day, praised him. The following year, Rossini was commissioned to write Semiramide, a serious opera, for La Fenice, a theater in Venice. This work was less successful in its own day than some of his previous efforts, but spawned several arias that remain part of any vocalist's songbook. In 1824, Rossini traveled via London to Paris where he would live for five years and serve as the music director from 1824 to 1826 at the Théâtre Italien. The composer gained commissions from other opera houses in France, including the Paris Opéra. Rossini composed his final opera, Guillaume Tell (1829), before retiring from composition in that genre at the age of 37. Its overture is not only a concert favorite, but an unmistakable reflection and continuation of Beethoven's heroic ideal. The catalog of work Rossini had written at the time of his retirement included 32 operas, two symphonies, numerous cantatas, and a handful of oratorios and chamber music pieces. After moving back to Italy, Rossini became a widower in 1845. His marriage to Isabella Colbran had not been particularly happy, and shortly after her death, the composer married Olympe Pelissier, a woman who had been his mistress.

In 1855, Rossini, along with his new bride, moved once again, this time settling in Passy, a suburb of Paris. He spent the remaining years of his life writing sacred music as well as delectable miniatures for both piano and voice (some of which he called "sins of my old age"). Rossini was buried in Paris' Père Lachaise cemetery in proximity to the graves of Vincenzo Bellini, Luigi Cherubini, and Frédéric Chopin. In 1887, Rossini's grave was transferred from Paris to Santa Croce, in Florence, in a ceremony attended by more than 6,000 admirers. ~ David Brensilver

Gaetano Donizetti was among the most important composers of bel canto opera in both Italian and French in the first half of the 19th century. Many of his more than 60 operas are still part of the modern repertoire and continue to challenge singers with their musical and technical demands. Donizetti stands stylistically between Rossini and Verdi; his scenes are usually more expanded in structure than those of Rossini, but he never blurred the lines between set pieces and recitative as Verdi did in his middle-period and late works. Often compared to his contemporary Bellini, Donizetti produced a wider variety of operas and showed a greater stylistic flexibility, even if he never quite achieved the sheer beauty of Bellini's greatest works.

Donizetti was educated in Bergamo, Italy, the town of his birth, studying with the opera composer Simon Mayr from 1806 to 1814. His youthful works include chamber operas, religious works, and some chamber music. Donizetti's first opera of note was La Zingara, which was premiered in Naples in 1822. He continued to work in Naples throughout the 1820s and 1830s, where he was active as both a conductor and composer. In 1830, Donizetti finally achieved international fame with his opera Anna Bolena; notable for its expressive music and more extended scenes, it established Donizetti as one of the leading contemporary opera composers. The comic opera L'elisir d'amore (1832) and the tragic Lucrezia Borgia (1833) came shortly after. His next work was Maria Stuarda, followed the same year by Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), which became an internationally recognized masterpiece. The Elizabethan tragedy Roberto Devereux (1837) completed his trilogy of operas that chronicle the English court from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I.

Donizetti's operas from the late 1830s were unable to match the success of Lucia, and he was often frustrated by the royal censors. When he was passed over for the directorship of the Naples Conservatory in 1840, he moved to Paris. There he composed the opera comique La fille du Régiment (1840), which was celebrated immediately for its charm and virtuosity. Later that year, he completed La favorite (1840), another major contribution to the French repertoire. In 1842 Donizetti was appointed kapellmeister of the Austrian court in Vienna, but he retained his association with Paris, traveling between the two cities and Italy several times.

Among Donizetti's last operas are Maria di Rohan (1843), an important historic opera, and his French tragedy Dom Sébastian (1843). Caterina Cornaro (1843) is also one of his finest works for its strong dramatic content. These late operas, although rarely performed, are serious works that set the standard for Verdi. Around the time of these operas, the effects of Donizetti's syphilis infection, with which he had suffered since the late 1820s, started taking a real toll on his health. He was confined to an institution outside of Paris in early 1846, but released to friends who moved him back to Bergamo in the fall of 1847. He died in April 1848, and although initially buried in the Bergamo cemetery, his remains were later moved to the Santa Maria Maggiore Cathedral along with those of his teacher, Mayr. ~ Steven Coburn

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was not only one of the greatest composers of the Classical period, but one of the greatest of all time. Surprisingly, he is not identified with radical formal or harmonic innovations, or with the profound kind of symbolism heard in some of Bach's works. Mozart's best music has a natural flow and irresistible charm, and can express humor, joy or sorrow with both conviction and mastery. His operas, especially his later efforts, are brilliant examples of high art, as are many of his piano concertos and later symphonies. Even his lesser compositions and juvenile works feature much attractive and often masterful music.

Mozart was the last of seven children, of whom five did not survive early childhood. By the age of three he was playing the clavichord, and at four he began writing short compositions. Young Wolfgang gave his first public performance at the age of five at Salzburg University, and in January 1762, he performed on harpsichord for the Elector of Bavaria. There are many astonishing accounts of the young Mozart's precocity and genius. At the age of seven, for instance, he picked up a violin at a musical gathering and sight-read the second part of a work with complete accuracy, despite his never having had a violin lesson.

In the years 1763-1766, Mozart, along with his father Leopold, a composer and musician, and sister Nannerl, also a musically talented child, toured London, Paris, and other parts of Europe, giving many successful concerts and performing before royalty. The Mozart family returned to Salzburg in November 1766. The following year young Wolfgang composed his first opera, Apollo et Hyacinthus. Keyboard concertos and other major works also came from his pen.

In 1769, Mozart was appointed Konzertmeister at the Salzburg Court by the Archbishop. Beginning that same year, the Mozarts made three tours of Italy, where the young composer studied Italian opera and produced two successful efforts, Mitridate and Lucio Silla. In 1773, Mozart was back in Austria, where he spent most of the next few years composing. He wrote all his violin concertos between 1774 and 1777, as well as Masses, symphonies, and chamber works.

In 1780, Mozart wrote his opera Idomeneo, which became a sensation in Munich. After a conflict with the Archbishop, Mozart left his Konzertmeister post and settled in Vienna. He received a number of commissions and took on a well-paying but unimportant Court post. In 1782 Mozart married Constanze Weber and took her to Salzburg the following year to introduce her to his family. 1782 was also the year that saw his opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail staged with great success.

In 1784, Mozart joined the Freemasons, apparently embracing the teachings of that group. He would later write music for certain Masonic lodges. In the early and mid-1780s, Mozart composed many sonatas and quartets, and often appeared as soloist in the 15 piano concertos he wrote during this period. Many of his commissions were for operas now, and Mozart met them with a string of masterpieces. Le nozze di Figaro came 1786, Don Giovanni in 1787, Così fan tutte in 1790, and Die Zauberflöte in 1791. Mozart made a number of trips in his last years, and while his health had been fragile in previous times, he displayed no serious condition or illness until he developed a fever of unknown origin near the end of 1791. ~ Robert Cummings

One of the great masters of 18th century opera, Gluck is known for his elegant synthesis of the French and Italian operatic traditions, exemplified by such remarkable works as Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste. A native of the Upper Palatinate, Gluck first studied with the Czech cellist and composer (and Franciscan friar) Bohuslav Cernohorsky, later continuing his studies with Sammartini in Italy. Already known as an opera composer in the 1740s, Gluck visited Paris and London, where he met Handel. He married in 1750, settling in Vienna as an opera conductor.

In 1762, Gluck wrote his Orfeo ed Euridice, heralding a new era in the history of opera. Combining the Classical ideals of beauty and simplicity with an innate sense of dramatic impetus, it broke down many of the overwrought formal conventions of the Baroque and set the standard for a whole generation of operatic composers. In many ways, opera in the 19th century had its conception in the works of Gluck.

While Gluck achieved wide fame in his own time, his works are rare in opera houses today; he is primarily remembered as a reformer and revolutionary. In his dedication to Alceste, Gluck wrote that he "sought to confine music to its true function of serving poetry by expressing feelings and the situations of the story without interrupting and cooling off the action through useless and superfluous ornaments." This statement has often been interpreted as a desire to subordinate music to poetry; however, what inspired Gluck's reform was his belief that music gains in expressiveness when it is properly balanced with poetry. Thus, for example, by abolishing the traditional strict separation of recitative and aria, Gluck used music as a means of maintaining an uninterrupted flow of the dramatic action. Gluck's librettist for Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste, and Paride ed Elena -- the three works best representing his reformist ideas -- was Raniero de Calzabigi, a poet and critic who anticipated some of the composer's fundamental ideas concerning poetry and music. For example, Calzabigi opposed the traditional poetic approach to mythology, exemplified by Pietro Metastasio, the greatest librettist of the opera seria tradition. While Metastasio's mythological figures appear as thinly disguised 18th century characters, Calzabigi's poetry strives to create an atmosphere of timelessness, which perfectly suited Gluck's artistic intentions.

After bringing his reforms to fruition, Gluck had several new works produced in Paris. The most remarkable of these works is Armide (1777), based on an old libretto by Philippe Quinault, which Lully used for his eponymous work in 1686. Viewed by conservatives as an attack on the French musical and literary traditions, Gluck's operas were targeted by a literary cabal, which decided to embrace Niccolò Piccinni, a respected composer of comic operas, as a standard-bearer. In a literary squabble reminiscent of the "quarrel of the buffoons" in 1752, the traditionalists proclaimed the superiority of traditional (that is: Italian, or, more precisely, Metastasian) opera over French opera, represented by the iconoclastic Gluck. It should be noted that the two composers, who respected each other, refused to participate in the war of words, leaving the polemics to Parisian pseudo-intellectuals.

In essence, Gluck's victory over his adversaries was the triumph of music. His works are regarded as seminal contributions to musical drama, and his ideas were gradually accepted, first by Piccinni himself, and later by Cherubini, who flourished as an opera composer in the 1790s and early 1800s. In the 19th century, Gluck's approach to opera was adopted by Spontini, who, in turn, influenced Berlioz as an opera composer. ~ Zoran Minderovic

Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's "Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music, and perhaps bits of Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely known in his own time, are the province mainly of specialists in Baroque music, and the events of his life, even though they reflected some of the most important musical issues of the day, have never become as familiar as the careers of Bach or Mozart. Perhaps the single word that best describes his life and music is "cosmopolitan": he was a German composer, trained in Italy, who spent most of his life in England.

Handel was born in the German city of Halle on February 23, 1685. His father noted but did not nurture his musical talent, and he had to sneak a small keyboard instrument into his attic to practice. As a child he studied music with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, and for a time he seemed destined for a career as a church organist himself. After studying law briefly at the University of Halle, Handel began serving as organist on March 13, 1702, at the Domkirche there. Dissatisfied, he took a post as violinist in the Hamburg opera orchestra in 1703, and his frustration with musically provincial northern Germany was perhaps shown when he fought a duel the following year with the composer Mattheson over the accompaniment to one of Mattheson's operas. In 1706 Handel took off for Italy, then the font of operatic innovation, and mastered contemporary trends in Italian opera seria. He returned to Germany to become court composer in Hannover, whose rulers were linked by family ties with the British throne; his patron there, the Elector of Hannover, became King George I of England. English audiences took to his 1711 opera Rinaldo, and several years later Handel jumped at the chance to move to England permanently. He impressed King George early on with the Water Music of 1716, written as entertainment for a royal boat outing. Much of his keyboard music, including the suite with the famous melody "The Harmonious Blacksmith" dates from just before his going to Italy and his first decade in England. For 18 months, between 1717 and 1719, Handel was house composer to the Duke of Chandos, for whom he composed the 11 Chandos Anthems for chorus and string orchestra. He also founded the Royal Academy of Music, a new opera company in London, with the support of the Duke and other patrons. Through the 1720s Handel composed Italian operatic masterpieces for London stages: Ottone, Serse (Xerxes), and other works often based on classical stories. His popularity was dented, though, by new English-language works of a less formal character, and in the 1730s and 1740s, after the Academy failed, Handel turned to the oratorio, a grand form that attracted England's new middle-class audiences. Not only Messiah but also Israel in Egypt, Samson, Saul, and many other works established him as a venerated elder of English music. The oratorios displayed to maximum effect Handel's melodic gift and the sense of timing he brought to big choral numbers. Among the most popular of all the oratorios was Judas Maccabeus, composed in 32 days in 1746. His Concerti grossi, Op. 6, and organ concertos also appeared in the same period. In 1737, Handel suffered a stroke, which caused both temporary paralysis in his right arm and some loss of his mental faculties, but he recovered sufficiently to carry on most normal activity. He was urged to write an autobiography, but never did. Blind in old age, he continued to compose. He died in London on April 14, 1759. More than 3,000 mourners were present for the funeral of the famous composer. He was buried at Westminster Abbey and received full state honors. Beethoven thought Handel the greatest of all his predecessors; he once said, "I would bare my head and kneel at his grave." ~ TiVo Staff