When the divine enters the Grévin

Energy, generosity, vivacity… The Italian singer’s aura grows apace.  Cecilia Bartoli, as a child, used to play in the wings while her parents, opera singers themselves, were performing.  So music was very much a part of her life from the earliest age.  She was only 19 when she met with success, first in France where she made a brilliant debut in a concert organised by the Opéra de Paris as a tribute to Maria Callas, and later in Italy. This was the beginning of an illustrious international career taking on prestigious parts.  Cecilia Bartoli selects her roles with meticulous care, so that her enthralling mezzo-soprano voice is put to best advantage.  She devotes her time with passion to the baroque repertoire she has made her own, in addition to her signature composers, Vivaldi, Haydn, Salieri, Handel, Gluck, Rossini… and, of course, Mozart.

With Sacrificium, in October 2009, the mezzo-soprano chose to explore the world of the young virtuosos whose lives were a merciless sacrifice to the beauty of music: the castrati.  Sacrificium tells their complex story: the beauty, the charisma, the controversy and the cruelty.  For the first time since the record-breaking Vivaldi album, Cecilia Bartoli and Il Giardino Armonico, the famous Italian instrumental group directed by Giovanni Antonini, are working together.  Sacrificium is a collection of the works of several composers who wrote for the castrati: Antonio Caldara, Francesco Araia, Carl Heinrich Graun, Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci, Riccardo Broschi, George Frideric Handel, Geminiano Giacomelli andNicola Porpora (1686–1768), a Neapolitan singing teacher and impresario, of enduring fame, unparalleled in the 18th century for the voices he ‘created’.

Her October 2010 album, Sospiri, is a compilation of Handel, Bellini, Bach, Mozart, Rossini and Vivaldi masterpieces.  Since then, Cecilia Bartoli continues to charm the world’s music lovers.  She will be in Versailles on 27th and 29th June 2011 for two special concerts ‘Vivaldi Ritrovato’, part of the ‘Venise Vivaldi Versailles’ series, with the Matheus Ensemble, conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi.

On June 17th, 2010, Cecilia Bartoli met the Grévin team in Copenhagen, Denmark, the day after she was performing at a concert for Margrethe II, HM the Queen of Denmark and her husband, HRH Prince Henrik of Denmark, Count of Laborde de Monpezat.

Just like an opera, the making of a wax figure demands perfection: a score with notes providing all the essential information, such as photographs, videos, 3D images, face and body measurements, casts of the hands; a conductor and a host of musicians: sculptor, casters, make-up artist, wigmaker, costumier, ocularist… a band of some 15 performers.  No wrong notes are allowed, the copy has to be perfect for it to be applauded by the Grévin’s 800,000 visitors annually.

Cecilia Bartoli’s wax twin is wearing the Sacrificium concert outfit, designed by Agostino Cavalca and produced in the Zurich Opera House’s workshops, under the direction of the Head Costumier, Dorothea Nicolaï.  The boots were custom-made by Miguel, the Italian shoe designer (Calzature Epoca).

The most appropriate setting for an opera singer is surely the Grévin’s Italian Theatre, the work of Jules Chéret and Antoine Bourdelle. Cecilia Bartoli’s effigy will be placed at the foot of the steps leading to the stage, not too far away from Benoît Poelvoorde, Laurent Gerra, Charles Aznavour, Isabelle Adjani, Jackie Chan…

 *  When the divine enters the Grévin