Both Bartoli’s parents were singers: her father was a member of the chorus of the Rome Opera, and her mother, her first teacher, sang in the chorus of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. She herself first sang in an opera while still a child, as the Shepherd Boy in Tosca. Going on to study singing at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, she won an Italian State Television competition and at just nineteen sang in a televised commemorative concert for Maria Callas in Paris. Following concerts given throughout Italy, Bartoli made her professional operatic début at the Verona Arena in 1987. She sang Rosina/Il barbiere di Siviglia in the version for coloratura contralto at Cologne, Schwetzingen and Zürich in 1988, earning considerable attention and critical praise. In the same year she also appeared in Rossini’s La scala di seta at the Pesaro Festival, and as Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro in Zürich in 1989.

Carefully chosen repertoire and locations consolidated Bartoli’s early success: in 1990 she sang Cherubino in Paris and Idamante/Idomeneo in Hamburg. This was followed by Isolier/Le comte Ory at La Scala, Milan in 1991, a performance that sealed her reputation as a Rossini singer of the first rank. In addition to her operatic work, she sang in Bach’s B minor Mass at the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of Herbert von Karajan, and participated in the bicentenary performance of Mozart’s Requiem conducted by Sir Georg Solti in Vienna in 1991. The following year she sang Angelina/La Cenerentola at Bologna and appeared at the Salzburg Festival as Despina/Così fan tutte (1993) and Zerlina/Don Giovanni (1994). In Vienna she repeated her Despina in 1994 and sang Euridice in Haydn’s Orfeo ed Euridice there in 1995. After appearing in the USA with the Houston Opera as Rosina (1993) and Angelina (1995) she made her Metropolitan Opera début in 1996 as Despina, returning to sing Angelina (1997) and Susanna/Le nozze di Figaro (1998).

Bartoli’s taste for unusual repertoire now began to come to the fore: she appeared in Paisiello’s Nina, ossia La pazza per amore in Zürich and in Haydn’s Armida at Graz in 1998, and the next year sang in Handel’s Rinaldo in Amsterdam as well as adding Donna Elvira/Don Giovanni to her stage repertoire, in Zürich, prior to scoring a hit in this rôle in Berlin in 2000. She made her Covent Garden début in 2001 in the first staged performances in London of Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo.

By 2005 Bartoli’s voice had filled out and matured, making her one of the finest mezzo-sopranos of her generation. Her vocal distinctiveness was further emphasised by her individual choice of repertoire: after exploring the Baroque repertoire of Gluck, Handel, Haydn, Salieri and Vivaldi in concert and on record during the earlier part of the decade, from 2007 she began to devote herself to the music of the Romantic era and in particular music associated with the great singer Maria Malibran, the bicentenary of whose birth was celebrated in 2008. In 2007 a recital disc devoted to music written for Malibran was released, followed by a complete recording of Bellini’s La sonnambula, in the version composed for Malibran: both were well-received.

Bartoli’s voice possesses, in addition to a rich tone, an extraordinary flexibility which, allied to her unusually wide vocal range, makes her singing distinctive. Her recording career has been carefully nurtured by the former Decca producer, the late Christopher Raeburn, and covers a field of complete operas, recitals with orchestra (often arranged thematically around a particular composer), recitals with piano, and sacred music.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Singers, Naxos 8.558097-100).