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 and Suor Angelica at
the Teatro Regio in Turin.
Future plans include: Adriana Lecouvreur and Smetanta's The
Bartered Bride at the Teatro Real de Madrid; Le Comte Ory at
the Théâtre des Champs Elysées and Marcellina in Le Nozze di
Figaro at the Opéra National de Paris.
July 2024