Monica Bacelli graduated from the Conservatory of Pescara. After winning
the Concorso "Belli", she made her debut in Spoleto as Cherubino and
Dorabella. Since then her career has taken her to major theatres in Italy
and throughout the world including La Scala Milan, Wiener Staatsoper in
Vienna, Salzburg Festival, Covent Garden in London and San Francisco and
to leading orchestras including Berlin Philharmonic, Concertgebouw
Amsterdam and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Conductors
with whom she has collaborated include Abbado, Bychkov, Chailly, Dudamel,
Harding, Mehta, Muti, Ozawa, Pappano, Rattle and Bolton.
Monica Bacelli is the recipient of the Premio Abbiati, a prize awarded by
the Italian music critics.
Her wide repertoire includes all the principal Mozart roles for mezzo
soprano (Idamante, Cherubino, Elvira, Dorabella and Sesto), Rossini,
Baroque (composers such as Monteverdi, Cavalli, Handel) as well as French
operas including Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Werther, Don Quichotte and
L'Enfant et les sortilèges .
Monica Bacelli is recognized as a leading interpreter of contemporary
music both in concert and on the stage. She has sung many world premieres
including the stage monologue Le bel indifferent of Marco Tutino
and the title role in Ivan Fedele's Antigone at the Maggio
Musicale Fiorentino.She was noted for her long collaboration with Luciano
Berio who wrote the role of Marina for her in Outis (La Scala
Milan) and Orvid in Cronaca del luogo as well as the chamber
work Altra voce presented at the Salzburg Festival as part of
the Pollini project, and repeated in New York, Tokyo, Paris and Rome. She
has also sung Berio's Folk Songs many times including at La
Scala Milan, with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Ensemble Intercontemporain
and at the Proms in London.
Her searching interpretative curiosity, her interest in chamber music and
her research into unusual vocal repertoire have led her in recent years
into a wide variety of projects ranging from early to contemporary music,
with a focus on Italian art song of the twentieth century.
Recent engagements include: La Fortuna and Melanto in Il Ritorno di
Ulisse in Patria at La Scala; Ottavia in L'Incoronazione di
Poppea at the Palais Garnier Paris; Isolier in Le Comte Ory
at Grand Théâtre de Geneve; Il re orso at the Opera Comique in
Paris; Pelléas et Mélisande at La Monnaie Brussels and at the
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under Daniele Gatti; Berlioz Les Nuits
d'été at Teatro Comunale di Bologna; Rossini's Stabat Mater
under Gianluigi Gelmetti in Trieste; Moïse et Pharaon and
Le Comte Ory at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro; Il
Matrimonio Segreto in Turin; Colasanti's Requiem in Milan
and Rome; Le Nozze di Figaro in Aix-en-Provence, Royal Opera
Hous Covent Garden in London and in Madrid; Evgenij Onegin in
Naples and La Sonnambula and Roméo et Juliette in
Madrid; Battistelli's Teorema at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin; Suor
Angelica at the Teatro Regio in Turin; Adriana Lecouvreur
in Madrid; Le Comte Ory at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées; and a concert on Shoenberg's Lieder at the Auditorium
Manzoni in Bologna.
Future plans include: Le Comte Ory at the Théâtre des Champs
Elysées and at the Grand Théâtre de Genève; Le Nozze di Figaro at
the Opéra National de Paris; Smetana's The Bartered Bride at the
Teatro Real in Madrid; Berio's Folksongs in Florence and Arezzo
with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra.
May 2025