Antonio Bernacchi News
Italian opera singer (1685-1756)
Commemorations 2025 (Birth: Antonio Bernacchi)
- castrato
- Italy
- opera singer, voice teacher, composer
Last update
2024-04-20
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2018-01-17 08:03:21
Handel's Lotario recorded live at the Göttingen festival
[…] which includes Sophie Rennert, Marie Lys, Ursula Hesse von den Steinen, Jorge Navarro Colorado, Jud Perry and Todd Boyce. Lotario is a strange piece. Premiered by Handel in 1729 as part of the so-called Second Academy, the re-launch after the demise of the original Royal Academy of Music, it was written for a new company including soprano Anna Strada (for whom Handel would write the title role in Alcina) and a new castrato, Antonio Bernacchi. There was clearly a degree of nervousness about the reception of the opera, Lotario is one of a group of Handel operas where the recitative is cut back to the bone. Winton Dean in his masterly book on Handel's operas is completely scathing but Michael Pacholke in his CD booklet note describes the it as masterly compression. This perhaps reflects the way Handel's later operas are being re-assessed in the light of performances. (At […]
2015-10-27 17:06:42
[…] Leon, Guanajato, the wildly popular Cervantino Festival , an annual event dedicated to the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. Farinelli, the singer who is inspiring tributes almost three centuries after his career, was born into a family of musicians in 1705 in Andria, which is now Apulia, Italy. He made his first appearance in 1724 in Vienna, then subsequently appeared in Bologna in 1727, where he met the famous castrato Antonio Bernacchi. He had an illustrious and prosperous career in Europe and eventually retired in Bologna. Besides being a singer, he was also a harpsichord player and occasionally composed music. He had an enviable collection of keyboard instruments, especially a piano made in Florence in 1730 (called in the will cembalo a martellini), and violins by Stradivarius and Amati. The threads of Farinelli’s life came together in the “Tributo a Farinelli ” (Tribute to Farinelli) on […]
2013-10-17 16:45:35
[…] deliver the rapid divisions and ornamentation in the vocal line with pinpoint accuracy. While there is a bite to Hansen’s voice that makes it very attractive, when required he can spin the most delicate legato line and he demonstrates the ability to modulate both the colour and timbre of his singing to great effect. The original castrati who inspired the music on this disc not only include Farinelli and his ‘rival’ Caffarelli but also Scalzi, Bernacchi and Carestini. These and others created some of the greatest roles and music in Baroque and early classical opera and Hansen performs each and every aria with consummate musicianship. The opening aria In braccio a mille furie from Vinci’s Semiramide riconosciuta was originally written for a castrato by the name of Carlo Scalzi, whom Metastasio rated and compared to Farinelli himself. The aria bears all the fingerprints of a showstopper for any castrato – […]
2013-07-29 23:28:19
Belief in a higher power
[…] a collection of long-familiar chestnuts, it presents 12 arias, nine of which have never been recorded before, along with some rare instrumental pieces. Those nine had probably never even been performed since their premiere, and Roberts’s notes provide fascinating glimpses into the origins of these unknown pieces, many written as alternatives for singers coming into revivals of existing operas. Three of the best are arias that Handel wrote in 1716 for the famous castrato Antonio Bernacchi for his appearances in London in Alessandro Scarlatti’s 1694 Pirro e Demetrio. While Handel also composed leading roles in Lotario and Partenope for Bernacchi, these arias may be the only time he ever wrote arias to be inserted into another composer’s work. “Hidden Handel” opens with “Sento prima le procelle” a brilliant aria for Demetrio using the familiar simile of being tossed about by the roiling waters of a storm at sea which shows […]
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