Julia Lezhneva, Franco Fagioli, Diego Fasolis, I Barocchisti & Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera
Biography Julia Lezhneva, Franco Fagioli, Diego Fasolis, I Barocchisti & Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera
Julia Lezhneva
has been described as possessing an “angelic voice” (The New York Times) with “pure tone” (Opernwelt) and “flawless technique” (The Guardian). They are big claims, and she has been living up to them ever since she created a sensation at the Classical Brit awards at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2010, singing Rossini’s Fra il padre at the invitation of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
Born into a family of geophysicists on Sakhalin Island in 1989, she began playing the piano and singing at the age of five. She graduated from the Gretchaninov Music School and continued her vocal and piano studies at the Moscow Conservatory. At 17 she came to international attention winning the Elena Obraztsova International Competition, and at 18 shared the concert stage with Juan Diego Flórez at the opening of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. In 2008 she began studying with tenor Dennis O’Neill in Cardiff, completing her training under Yvonne Kenny at London’s Guildhall School. She has also attended masterclasses with Elena Obraztsova in St. Petersburg, Alberto Zedda in Pesaro and Thomas Quasthoff in Verbier. In 2009 she won first prize at the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition in Helsinki and the following year she took first prize at the Paris International Opera Competition, the youngest entrant in each competition’s history.
Opernwelt named her “Young Singer of the Year” in 2011 for her debut at La Monnaie in Brussels. In the following year she enjoyed an overwhelming success singing Rossini at the Victoires de la Musique Classique ceremony in Paris, sharing the gala stage with Renée Fleming, Natalie Dessay, Philippe Jaroussky and Nathalie Stutzmann, and appeared at the Salzburg Festival for the third consecutive season, singing Asteria in Handel’s Tamerlano alongside Plácido Domingo and Bejun Mehta. Her 2012/13 season included European tours with Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico, a concert tour of Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo with René Jacobs and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and concert performances of Handel’s Alessandro at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Paris’s Salle Pleyel and the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
During 2014 she appeared in the First International Opera Festival “Opera Apriori” at Moscow State Conservatory, made her Australian debut, and toured extensively with a Handel programme throughout Europe. She made her Royal Opera House debut in June 2015, singing Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni alongside Rolando Villazón as Don Ottavio, and reprises the role on the Royal Opera’s tour of Japan in September 2015. She tours Europe with Siroe, Tamerlano and more Handel programmes October to December. In February 2016 she sings Desdemona in concert performances of Verdi’s Otello at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and also gives a recital at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris. May 2016 sees appearances in Così fan tutte at the Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden and she returns to Australia in October, singing Handel with the Australian Chamber Orchestra under Richard Tognetti.
Julia Lezhneva became an exclusive Decca artist in 2011. Her first recording under the new contract, Alleluia, a coupling of baroque motets accompanied by Il Giardino Armonico under Giovanni Antonini, was released in March 2013, leading BBC Music Magazine to say: “She is like a sun that can’t help but produce warmth and joy when she comes on stage.” The recording won her a 2013 Echo Klassik Award for Best New Vocal Artist. Her collaboration with Max Emanuel Cencic on Handel’s Alessandro led to a Complete Opera CD of the Year prize at the inaugural International Opera Awards in 2013, heralded as the opera world’s own “Oscars”. She joined Cencic again in November 2014 on the world premiere recording of Hasse’s Siroe. The Guardian wrote: “Julia Lezhneva shows that it is possible to negotiate Hasse’s vocal writing with stylishness and beauty of tone as well as accuracy.” She brings the same qualities to a recording of youthful Handel arias, to be released in October 2015, with a selection of sacred and secular arias for the soprano voice, Lezhneva accompanied again by Il Giardino Armonico under the direction of Giovanni Antonini.
Franco Fagioli
is the leading virtuoso counter-tenor of our time. Renowned as much for his artistry as for the beauty of his voice and masterful technique, spanning three octaves, he is the first counter-tenor to sign an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The singer’s new relationship with the Yellow Label reflects his status as one of the brightest stars of Baroque and early 19th-century bel canto opera. His solo début recording for the company, Rossini, with Armonia Atenea and George Petrou, met with universal critical acclaim. His second recording is released this autumn, an album of Handel Arias with Il Pomo d’Oro.
Highlights in Franco’s 2017/18 season include his début at Teatro alla Scala, Milan as Andronico Tamerlano and his début for the Dutch National Opera in the title role of Cavalli’s Eliogabalo. He will also give concert tours with the Kammerorcester Basel, Il Pomo d’Oro and the Venice Baroque Orchestra.
Roles on the stage include the title role in Eliogabalo for the Opéra national de Paris; Arsace in Rossini’s Semiramide for the Opéra national de Lorraine; Idamante Idomeneo for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Piacere in Handel’s Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Opéra de Lille and the Theatre de Caen and the title role in Handel’s Giulio Cesare for the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the Opernhaus Zurich.
Future seasons see him return to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Staatstheater Karlsruhe, and make débuts with the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and the Hamburgische Staatsoper.
He has also achieved distinction as a concert artist appearing at the Halle, Ludwigsburg, Innsbruck and Salzburg Festivals, collaborating regularly with such conductors as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alan Curtis, Gabriel Garrido, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, René Jacobs, José Manuel Quintana, Marc Minkowski, Riccardo Muti and Christophe Rousset.
His impressive discography includes the title roles in Gluck’s Orfeo and Ezio, Pergolesi’s Adriano in Syria, Handel’s Berenice and Teseo, Leonardo Vinci’s Artaserse and Catone in Utica, Caldara’s La Concordia de’ pianeti, Hasse’s Siroe, rè di Persia and the solo albums Arias for Caffarelli and Il maestro Porpora.
