19 Apr 2021

Salzburg Festival Whitsun 2021 ROMA ÆTERNA

Salzburg Whitsun Festival 2021

Start of Rehearsals

The Salzburg Festival congratulates Cecilia Bartoli on winning the Opera News Award, which she received on Sunday as part of an online gala event.

“This honour illustrates once again the great privilege of having the incomparable Cecilia Bartoli by our side as the artistic director of the Whitsun Festival and a friend of our festival,” Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser expresses the high esteem in which he holds her.

Louise T. Guinther describes the reasons for the award in the current edition of Opera News: “How many singers boast a résumé spanning everything from forgotten Baroque opera through Norma, the ultimate bel canto diva vehicle, to Bernstein’s Maria in West Side Story? The miraculous mezzo Cecilia Bartoli has triumphed in all these diverse corners of the repertoire, as well as the perennial classics of Rossini and Mozart. She has carved out her place in music history by marrying her natural lyric gift to insatiable curiosity and a unique vision for herself and her art, controlling her own destiny to an extent that is rare for any performing artist.”

Let it not go unsaid that Cecilia Bartoli premiered the two highlighted roles, Norma (2013 and 2015) and Maria (in the 2016 West Side Story), in Salzburg.

Salzburg’s Festspielhaus, at any rate, has fully geared up for the Whitsun events. Rehearsals for the staged production, George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, have begun. Robert Carsen, who directed Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss at the 2004 Salzburg Festival, is responsible for the staging. Gianluca Capuano, with whom Cecilia Bartoli made the 2019 Alcina a tremendous success, conducts the orchestra Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco, which Bartoli founded.

In this oratorio, Handel set the feelings, thoughts and actions of four allegorical personalities to music: Beauty (Bellezza) – sung by Mélissa Petit; Pleasure (Piacere) – sung by Cecilia Bartoli; Enlightenment (Disinganno) – sung by Lawrence Zazzo; and Time (Tempo) – sung by Charles Workman.

The premiere is scheduled for Friday, 21 May. The decision whether the Salzburg Whitsun Festival can take place at all under the parameters enacted by the political authorities will be made by 30 April 2021 at the latest. Thereby, the Salzburg Festival’s Directorate continues its strategy, so successful during the past year, of implementing an artistically meaningful festival that is economically viable under the primacy of health and safety.

During the summer, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno will be revived on Wednesday, 4 August.

Since 2012 its partner Rolex has financially enabled the Festival to present a staged new production of an opera at Whitsun every year. The Festival is very grateful to Rolex for this partnership, which was extended last year through 2027.