Roberta Invernizzi is very clearly one of the finest sopranos to be heard today in the Baroque - and especially the Italian Baroque - repertory, as evidenced by the beauty that she brings not only to operatic roles and vocal roles which have been essayed by many other famous singers both on record and in performance, but also by her sense of clarity in and characterization of unknown music from the 17th and 18th centuries. The rediscovery of so much Italian music is a reflection of the labour and artistry of numerous musical minds but as a kind of prima donna inter pares the Milanese soprano stands out from many others for the intensity of her approach, to the point that she is emerging as a new muse for other distinguished modern-day practitioners of the Italian Baroque such as Fabio Bonizzoni and Antonio Florio who contribute here their own thoughts on the artistry of Roberta Invernizzi, adding to the soprano’s own considerations about her musical life.[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...]

As talented as Fabio Bonizzoni is in performing music from across the Baroque spectrum – witness his Glossa recording of Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge – he has become increasingly celebrated for his interpretations of music from Italy. This embraces not only the music of native composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti (the Serenate a Filli album) but, of course, the series of Handel Cantatas in Italian, Lully’s Ballets et récits italiens and now there is a pastiche opera with music by André Campra (born in Aix-en-Provence, but whose father was from Turin). The new recording, Gli strali d’Amore sees Bonizzoni and La Risonanza joined by haute-contre Cyril Auvity and bass Salvo Vitale as well as Bonizzoni’s fellow Milanese musician, the soprano Roberta Invernizzi, whose career as a solo star – as opposed to as her being an ensemble singer – is now starting to blossom (as they say, watch this space...). [read more...]