About
Angelo Manzotti
Angelo Manzotti, sopranist, has dedicated himself to the rediscovery of the historic repertoire of castrati, from Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea to Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira, with particular reference to the eighteenth century composers: Vivaldi, Pergolesi, H�ndel, Scarlatti, Hasse, Mozart, etc.Thanks to a long period of physical training, which had already begun autonomously at the age of twelve, Manzotti has perfected a singing technique which is fundamentally different from that of traditional countertenors; rather than adopting the mechanism of falsetto for reproducing the treble voice of the castratos, he has developed through experimentation upon himself a method of allowing to vibrate when necessary only the front part of the vocal cords, thereby reducing their length to that within a woman's larynx, which is naturally shorter than a man's. In this way he can take advantage of the entire range, flexibility and volume typical of a female soprano (which exceed the traditional limits of the male falsetto voice), and thus exhibit a continuous and homogeneous vocal range which extends from the highest notes (e'''flat) all the way down to the lowest notes of a baritone (it's also interesting to know that his very particular voice was considered so interesting to be scientifically studied by Prof. Franco Fussi who wrote several papers about him).
After perfecting this technique with Rodolfo Celletti, he won the 1992 "Luciano Pavarotti" International Competition in Philadelphia, and was also awarded the "Timbre de Platine" by Op�ra International with his first recording: Arie di Farinelli (Bongiovanni, 1995), a program with which he has toured without interruption since 1994.
Angelo Manzotti's very intense concert activity brought him to perform all around Europe: from London to Istanbul, from Madrid to Tallin, from Venice to Helsinki, always with great acclaim.
He took part in first world revivals of Vivaldi's Teuzzone (1996), Pergolesi's Il prigionier superbo (1997), Cesti's La Dori (1999), and Traetta's Ippolito e Alcria (1999), but performed also modern scores (Humperdink's H�nsel und Gretel, 1998; Orff's Carmina Burana, 1996), such as contemporary ones (Van Der Werf's Errora e Trialo, 1995; Corghi's Rinaldo & C., 1997).
His discography includes, among others, Monteverdi's Il ballo delle ingrate (1996), the anonymous Lamento del castrato (1996), Rossini's Aureliano in Palmira (1997), a Vivaldi operatic recital (1999), the live recording of the concert held at the "Belcanto Festival" of Dordrecht in 1995, the CD on Handel's evil characters "Crude Furie degli orridi abissi" (2001) and a collection of Andr� Campra's Motets (2002).
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Alix Goolden Performance Hall