Born in Bozen, Gemma Bertagnolli was a winner of both the AsLiCo and Francecso Viñas Competitions. Her career has already taken her to major Opera Houses and Concert Halls including the Teatro La Scala, Milan, the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, the Rome Opera, the Maggio Musicale, Fiorentino, the Opernhaus Zurich, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sansoucci, and the La Coruña, Pesaro, Salzburg and Wexford Festivals.
Her operatic repertoire includes Carolina Il matrimonio segreto, Norina Don Pasquale, Lisa La sonnambula, Vespina L’infedelta delusa, Narcissa Philemon und Baucis, Despina Così fan tutte, Ismene Mitridate, Re di Ponto, Susanna Le nozze di Figaro, Elisa Il re pastore, Pamina Die Zauberflöte, Dirce Saffo, Amenaide Tancredi, Sophie Der Rosenkavalier, Oscar Un ballo in maschera and Nannetta Falstaff. Her concert repertoire ranges from Bach, Handel, Pergolesi and Vivaldi to Mozartr’s Exsultate Jubilate, the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven and the Second and Fourth Symphonies of Mahler. Conductors with whom she has worked in opera and concert include R. Abbado, B. Bartoletti, M. Benini, S. Bychkov, D. Fasolis, G. Ferro, D. Gatti, G. Gavazzeni, G. Gelmetti, F. Luisi, L. Maazel, Z. Mehta, R. Muti, D. Oren, W. Sawallisch, A. Spering and S. Young.
It is above all as a singer of Baroque Music that she is most celebrated. She sang Piacere in Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno with R. Alessandrini and with M. Minkowski, Emira in Hasse’s Soliman under R. Jacobs at the Staatsoper Berlin, Drusilla in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea under I. Bolton at the Bayerischen Staatsope and Aristea in Pergolesi’s Olimpiade under O. Dantone at the Festival Pergolesi di Jesì and at the Ravenna Festival. In Handel’s Agrippina, she has sung Nerone under G. Antonini with Il Giardino Armonico and Poppea with Europa Galante under F. Biondi. She has recorded several projects in Naïve’s Vivaldi edition, including Ersilla in Orlando finto pazzo with the Academia Montis Regalis under A. Marchi, Rossane La verità in cimento with Ensemble Matheus under J. C. Spinosi, and Vespri per l’Assunzione di Maria Vergine with Concerto Italiano under R. Alessandrini, as well as a volume of Chamber Concertos with L’Astrée. On stage, she has sung Asprano Montezuma under A. Curtis at the Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlo and Megacle L’Olimpiade under A. Marchi at the Teatro Regio, Turin.
Her recordings further include Lisa La sonnambula with C. Bartoli and J. D. Florez (Decca CD) and with E. Mei and J. Bros (TDK DVD), Piacere Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno and Pergolesi Stabat Mater with Concerto Italiano (Naïve CD), Motets by Bonporti (Dynamic CD), Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo (Stradivarius CD), Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 (RS CD) and Respighi Liriche da camera (Stradivarius CD). |
