La Prima Diva – Arie per Faustina Bordoni
Bel canto arias by Giovanni Bononcini, Antonio Caldara, George Frideric Handel, Johann Adolf Hasse, Domenico Natale Sarro, and Pietro Torri
Agata Bienkowska – mezzo, Ira Hochman – conductor, Barockwerk Hamburg
Tactus TC670003
On this new album, Polish mezzo-soprano Agata Bienkowska explores the repertoire of Venetian mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni (1697-1871), who was one of the most acclaimed celebrities in the forerunner of a star system that appeared in the world of Italian opera and thrilled the whole of Europe during the 18th century. One of the great bel canto voices coupled with a marvelous dramatic talent, her 35-year career from 1716-1751, intersected with most of the composers of two or three generations in all the major European opera centers.
Agata Bienkowska studied the piano in her native Gdynia, before taking up singing and acting at the Akademia Muzyczna in Gdańsk and then at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart. She has sung over thirty roles from a list of operas that includes Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, L’italiana in Algeri, Il viaggio a Reims, Tancredi and La donna del lago, Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Berlioz’s Beatrice et Benedict, Massenet’s Werther, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and The Maid of Orleans, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night. She has worked with conductors such as Alberto Zedda, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Nello Santi, Daniel Oren, Zoltan Pesko,Vladimir Jurowski, John Neschling, Daniele Gatti and Josep Caballe-Domenech in venues around the world, among them the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Opera di Roma, Teatro Regio in Turin, Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, Theatre Royal de Wallonie in Belgium, and the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville. She has also appeared at Festival Mozart de la Coruña, the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and, in 2001, at the Wexford Festival Opera. Her recordings include Rossini’s Matilde di Shabran and Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra (Bongiovanni), La pietra del paragone (Naxos 8.660093-95), Luigi Mosca’s L’italiana in Algeri and Massenet’s Sapho (Fone).
[Sources: press release, naxos.com]