Roberta Invernizzi es sin duda una de las voces más destacadas de la música barroca, contribuyendo desde hace ya algunos años, gracias a su cristalina voz de soprano y un infalible sentido dramático, al redescubrimiento de muchas músicas olvidadas, especialmente las procedentes de su país natal. Nacida en Milán, sus estudios musicales se centraron en un principio en el piano y el contrabajo, antes de decidirse por el canto bajo la tutela de Margaret Heyward, especializándose más tarde en los repertorios barroco y clásico.
El especial talento de Invernizzi a la hora de caracterizar a sus personajes ha quedado sobradamente demostrado a lo largo de la multipremiada serie de grabaciones de cantatas italianas de Haendel junto al director Fabio Bonizzoni, en las que retrata de forma visceral y vívida a toda una galería de figuras arcádicas, desde diosas y ninfas hasta simples pastoras. Sus formidables habilidades han inspirado a Fabio Bonizzoni –en un pasticcio operístico creado en torno a una serie de arias en italiano de André Campra, Gli strali d’Amore– a escribir una serie de recitativos pensando especialmente en ella. También Antonio Florio, protagonista en los últimos años del formidable revival de la música barroca napolitana con su conjunto I Turchini, ha quedado prendado de la voz de Invernizzi y colabora con ella de forma regular. En escenarios operísticos, hemos visto a Invernizzi en Rinaldo y Agrippina de Haendel, en Ercole sul Termodonte de Vivaldi y en L’Orfeo y L’incoronazione di Poppea de Monteverdi (y en Mozart, Grétry y Berton). La prensa internacional subraya su intensidad y delicadeza, su gran control de la afinación y del fraseo y su “resplandor tímbrico”, además de alabar su gran sensibilidad, refinamiento y sutileza.
Además de su presencia en la mencionada serie de cantatas italianas de Haendel (una selección se puede escuchar en Handel in Italy, editada en la colección “Portrait”), la larga colaboración de Invernizzi con Fabio Bonizzoni y La Risonanza ha conducido a un disco de arias operísticas de Vivaldi en las que la soprano se erige en la protagonista principal. Invernizzi también trabaja regularmente con otros directores especialistas en la música vivaldiana, como Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alan Curtis y Fabio Biondi, entre otros.
A disc of Handel opera arias from Roberta Invernizzi is remarkable in its own right because it breaks new ground for the Milanese soprano. True, she has taken part in complete operas on disc as on stage, and has recorded plenty of arias by other composers of the time such as Vivaldi, Leo, Porpora, Feo or Mancini. This new release from Glossa, however, sees Invernizzi reflecting Handel’s special brand of emotional investigation and making her selection from the many regal characters which pepper Handel’s operas – Cleopatra, Berenice, Arianna and Alcina, among them – and their ardent, affecting, distraught and stately feelings. [read more...]
The collective artistic endeavours of Glossa have recently been recognized with an award of Label of the Year for 2014 by a Europe-wide panel of classical music media organizations – print and online magazines, as well as radio broadcasters – who form the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) jury. This is to be presented at the Award Ceremony and Gala Concert in the Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw in April 2014. The Glossa adventure began back in 1992, led by two pioneering Spanish instrumentalists – brothers José Miguel Moreno and Emilio Moreno – who set about creating a treasure trove of recorded excellence, notably in the ever-developing field of “early music”. To this day, the label remains focused on its artists, supporting their musical journeys and inclinations, with the artistic direction entrusted to Carlos Céster. With a small team around him Céster operates from San Lorenzo de El Escorial, surrounded by the abundant natural riches of the mountains around Madrid and with an austere Monasterio in sight to ever encourage him in the rigour of his work. [read more...]
Having entranced audiences across Europe with their performances of the music which Georg Frideric Handel wrote during his time in Italy – mainly in Rome – between 1706-9, and having also delighted record buyers with the seven-volume series of “Le Cantate Italiane di Handel”, released on Glossa, Fabio Bonizzoni and his singers and musicians of La Risonanza have now gone on to impress the jury of the 2011 Gramophone Classical Music Awards. On October 6, at a ceremony held in The Dorchester hotel in London, the British magazine bestowed upon the Italian musicians a prestigious Gramophone Award in the Baroque Vocal category, for the final volume in the Handel series, Apollo e Dafne (a recording which contains two further cantatas, Agrippina condotta a morire and Cuopre talvolta il cielo as well as the title work). The singers on this disc were soprano Roberta Invernizzi and the two basses Thomas E. Bauer and Furio Zanasi. [read more...]
Fabio Bonizzoni’s attention on record to the music of Handel - which has, thus far, yielded seven discs devoted to the early Italian-texted cantatas - has just now had the good fortune to receive this year’s Stanley Sadie Handel Recording Prize for Apollo e Dafne, the final release in the present series for Glossa. This is the third time that Bonizzoni and his period-instrument ensemble La Risonanza have won this prestigious prize for their series of “Le Cantate Italiane di Handel” (previous winners were the first release, Le Cantate per il Cardinal Pamphili and the fifth, Clori, Tirsi e Fileno); three other recordings have also featured as runners-up. [read more...]