The most famous singers of the time were united in Venice in the Carnevale season 1729. Ann Hallenberg brings their “greatest hits” back to life. The second album with the Swedish mezzo-soprano will be released by Pentatone in June 2017.

Like a rare and magnificent stellar constellation on the winter skies, in February 1729, at the peak of the Carnevale season, some of the greatest stars of the baroque opera world sang together and in fierce competition in the various opera houses of Venice. Europe’s finest nobility gathered for luxurious feasts and refined masquerades, but professional singer’s agents and scouts from London, Paris, Vienna were also busy behind the scenes in the attempt to hire the best singers for their patrons or theaters. Every evening an electrified audience had but to walk from one sensation to the other: here Seresino, there Farinelli, here Cuzzoni, there Bordoni, not to speak of Peruzzi, Negri, Gizzi, Giorgi and many others.

Ann Hallenberg brings their ‘greatest hits‘ from February 1729 back to our times, almost all of them rediscovered and first recorded on this CD‚ “Carnevale 1729 – Greatest Hits”, recorded in 2016 with il pomo d’oro under the direction of Stefano Montanari. Thanks to Ann Hallenberg’s great range of voice and her interpretive skills, she can slip into the personas of both castrati and female singers, presenting arias by Giacomelli, Leo, Orlandini, Porpora, Albinoni and Vinci.

ANN HALLENBERG

The Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg regularly appears in opera houses and festivals all over the world. Her repertoire includes a large number of leading roles in operas by Rossini, Mozart, Gluck, Handel, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Purcell, Bizet and Massenet. Equally at home on the concert platform she has built an unusually vast repertoire that spans music from the early 17th century with Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Berlioz to 20th century composers such as Mahler and Waxman.

The last album of Il pomo d’oro and Ann Hallenberg, AGRIPPINA, won the International Opera award 2016 for Best Operatic Recital and the ICMA 2016 Award for Best Baroque Recital.