Cecilia Bartoli's new CD features a collection of music that could not be heard in her native Rome at the start of the 18th century due to Papal censorship. Theaters, the Church felt, were places of evil and corruption and operas led people to immorality. But some music-loving senior members of the priesthood asked composers to write oratorios and cantatas–indeed, operas without staging, essentially–for their own private entertainment. Call it what you will, the music is sensational–by turns virtuosic, gentle, and playful–and always expressive: just right, it seems, for Cecilia Bartoli's temperament. The opening aria on the CD, a call for peace in the name of Jesus, is, in fact, a dazzling martial air with trumpets blaring and the voice going through an amazing array of coloratura fireworks.

In this tribute to the great nineteenth century mezzo-soprano, Maria Malibran, Cecilia Bartoli sings selections from the repertoire for which Malibran was known. Malibran also ventured into soprano roles, and Bartoli bravely and entirely successfully follows her into that territory. In fact, the primary impression the CD creates is astonishment and awe at the extraordinary range of these selections, and Bartoli's ease, absolute security, and seamless delivery, from above the treble staff to the middle of the bass staff.

A collection of the very best of Bartoli's treasured recordings of musical delights and discoveries of the 17th and 18th century. Featuring two previously unreleased world premiere recordings of forgotten jewels by Leonardo Vinci and Agostino Steffani. With guest appearances from Philippe Jaroussky, June Anderson, Franco Fagioli and Sol Gabetta.

The overwhelming success of the Prague performance of Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) in December 1786, led to the commissioning of a new opera. Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte turned to the Don Juan theme, making this promising material the basis for their new opera. In the spring of 1787 Mozart began to compose it in Vienna, and was able to complete it in Prague by the autumn of the same year. Don Giovanni received its first performance, under the composer’s personal direction, on 20 October 1787 at Prague’s Count Nostitz National Theatre. This production of Don Giovanni at the Zurich Opera House was staged by the highly creative team of conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, director Jürgen Flimm and set-designer Erich Wonder. Rodney Gilfry and Cecilia Bartoli lead a first-class group of singers.

Mozart's third and final opera with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, the hugely ambitious dramatic comedy Così fan Tutte (roughly translated as "They're All Like That"), is brought passionately to life in a first-class production conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and featuring one of the great starring roles for Cecilia Bartoli. Filmed live at the Zurich Opera House in February 2000 on a set that visualizes the subtitle "The School for Lovers," the plot revolves around two army officers arguing about the fidelity of their brides, then setting out to test their chastity.

Cecilia Bartoli ('breathtaking vocal fireworks' Oper Aktuell) and Javier Camarena ('irresistibly funny') take the leads in Rossini's boisterous farce, wittily transposed to post-war France in Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's 'scintillating production' (Opera Today) for the Zürich Opera House.

Cecilia Bartoli and John Osborn star in Rossini's Otello, a rarely performed opera that has been brought to new life by directors Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier. First presented in Naples in 1816, Rossini's Otello is a gripping musical drama, with a finale no less tragic and disturbing than in Shakespeare's original play. 'Ms Bartoli radiates a kind of charismatic diligence. It is obvious that she has plotted out every musical and dramatic moment: every subtle diminuendo, every gesture.' New York Times

This was to be the end of the line for Italian word-setting by Viennese composers: once the confident sentiments that belonged to the poet Metastasio's opera seria felt the chill and threatening wind of Enlightenment and Revolution, their time was up. Even we, for the most part, prefer to remember the German-speaking Beethoven, Schubert and Haydn. So it is good to be reminded of their responses to the Italian muse (usually as part of their craft-learning student work) in this particularly well-cast recital. Central Europe, in the person of Andras Schiff meets Italy, in Cecilia Bartoli, to delightful, often revelatory effect.

The triumphant release of Mission in autumn 2012 drew rave reviews and was followed up in September 2013 with Steffani’s Stabat Mater, alongside his greatest sacred works for chorus, orchestra and soloists, and a further disc of dances and overtures with the celebrated I Barrochisti conducted by Diego Fasolis. On the Stabat Mater, Bartoli leads an array of internationally celebrated singers including countertenor Franco Fagioli, the bass Salvo Vitale and the two young German tenors Daniel Behle and Julian Prégardien. The final album of the collection is Danze & Ouvertures’, contains 43 great tracks of enchanting early-baroque music.

Cecilia Bartoli presents a brand-new album of arias by Antonio Vivaldi, two decades after her ground-breaking 'Vivaldi Album'. The original Vivaldi Album was a seminal event, launching a substantial revival of Vivaldi s long dismissed operas and setting a standard for classical concept albums that stands to this day. In the 20 years since, Cecilia Bartoli has recorded less than 5 minutes of additional Vivaldi music, making her return to this composer with a new album a true event. Bartoli is joined on this recording by French baroque experts Ensemble Matheus under the baton of Jean-Christophe Spinosi.

"The age of the castratos was one of the most dazzling and remarkable in European music history. Seldom has there ever been such a complete fusion of sensuousness and splendor, form and content, poetry and music, and, above all, such a perfection of vocal virtuosity, as was achieved in the glory days of the Baroque era. The legendary art of the castratos continues to exert its fascination even today, and despite the great human sacrifice it exacted, a new assessment of this extraordinary period is surely justified." - Cecilia Bartoli Cecilia Bartoli uncovers the extraordinary and cruel world of the `Castrati' and sings the glorious music they inspired. The all-new album consists almost entirely of world-premiere recordings of some of the most virtuosic music ever written for the human voice.

Antonio Salieri is, unfortunately, best known as Mozart's great Viennese rival. Some of his work has appeared on recordings, and he was clearly an interesting composer of well-crafted, entertaining music. But now that a singer with the stature and prodigious gifts of Cecilia Bartoli has undertaken an entire CD of his opera arias, he may just become a quasi-household name. Here he proves himself a composer who wrote for virtuosos; Bartoli is nothing if not a vituoso. And, indeed, this CD opens with an impressive bang: An aria from La secchia rapita features a wild vocal line complete with wild coloratura, huge leaps, a range from low G to high D flat (Bartoli flirts more and more with the soprano range while using her chest register even more forcefully!), and vast dynamic changes accompanied by a full orchestra augmented with grand, martial trumpets.

Cecilia Bartoli and Sol Gabetta – two of the most captivating women in classical music – are joining together for a new album ‘Dolce Duello’ to be released on Decca Classics on 10th November. It is a collection of Baroque masterpieces which showcase the stunning combination of voice and cello in a series of dazzling duels and wondrous arias. To coincide with the release, Bartoli and Gabetta will be performing on a European tour with Cappella Gabetta and conductor and violinist Andrés Gabetta.

Pergolesi's Stabat mater and his C minor Salve Regina were coupled earlier on the Hogwood (L'Oiseau-Lyre) recording, highly praised by NA. The addition of another Salve Regina, this one attributed not quite conclusively to Scarlatti as a late work, provides the new record with a further attraction both on the piece's own merit (irrespective of authorship) and in its affinity with the Stabat mater. Another attraction for many will lie in the identity of the two singers and the conductor.