Monologues - Scenes and songs by Donizetti, Rossini, Respighi, etc. Anna Bonitatibus & Adele D'Aronzo

• Gaspare Mollo (1745 - 1823), Niccolò Zingarelli (1752 - 1837): Ero. Monologo (Version for Voice and Piano):
• 1 Mollo, Zingarelli: Ero. Monologo (Version for Voice and Piano) 24:19
• Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848): Saffo. Cantata a voce sola e pianoforte:
• 2 Donizetti: Saffo. Cantata a voce sola e pianoforte 09:23
• Anonymous, Gioachino Rossini (1792 - 1868): Giovanna D'Arco. Cantata a voce sola e pianoforte:
• 3 Anonymous, Rossini: Giovanna D'Arco. Cantata a voce sola e pianoforte 17:01
• Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780 - 1857), Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883): Les Adieux de Marie Stuart, WWV 61:
• 4 Béranger, Wagner: Les Adieux de Marie Stuart, WWV 61 07:46
• Jean-Baptiste Racine (1639 - 1699), Pauline Viardot (1821 - 1910): Scène d'Hermione pour contralto et piano, VWV 1007:
• 5 Racine, Viardot: Scène d'Hermione pour contralto et piano, VWV 1007 06:53
• Mel Bonis (1858 - 1937): Salomé, Op. 100:
• 6 Bonis: Salomé, Op. 100 04:41
• Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822), Ottorino Respighi (1879 - 1936): Aretusa. Poemetto per voce e pianoforte:
• 7 Shelley, Respighi: Aretusa. Poemetto per voce e pianoforte 11:52
• Total Runtime 01:21:55

Info for Monologues - Scenes and songs by Donizetti, Rossini, Respighi, etc.

In drama as well as in musical theater, the monologue is often used to express and illustrate the smallest nuances of emotions - even those that cannot or should not be expressed. In this recording, mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus and her piano accompanist Adele D'Aronzo devote themselves to this very interesting aspect of opera and song culture. Using selected works by Donizetti, Respighi, Rossini, Zingarelli, Viardot and Wagner as examples, the diverse narrative and expressive approaches of the monologue are exemplified.

"The rendition of these mini-dramas by Italian mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus, strikingly supported by pianist Adele d'Aronzo, is simply overwhelming. We experience a singing tragedienne of the old school, a master of dramatic bel canto who illuminates text and music to the finest nuances, not shying away from grand pathos and evoking electrifying effects with each swelling of the voice." (klassik-heute.de)

Anna Bonitatibus, voice
Adele d'Aronzo, piano

Anna Bonitatibus
Winner of The International Opera Awards (2015), for Semiramide – La Signora regale, and Best Female Voice Finalist IOA (2016), the anti-Diva, as she likes to describe herself, Anna Bonitatibus is renowned for the noble passion with which she interprets titles between the most famous of ‘teatro musicale’, as well as the tireless commitment with which she promotes the divulgation of a rarer repertoire. She includes in her performed titles, seventy operas, from Claudio Monteverdi’s masterpieces to titles back to proscenium by Francesco Cavalli (Didone, Ercole amante, Calisto), crossing Händel’s operatic production (Agrippina, Deidamia, Giulio Cesare, Orlando, Tamerlano, Tolomeo, Ottone, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno) and composers from the Neapolitan school, from Pergolesi to Cimarosa, until her beloved Gioachino Rossini: La Cenerentola, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, L’Italiana in Algeri, Le Comte Ory, Il Viaggio à Reims, Tancredi and furthermore Cantate, Masses and the rare and preciouses Péchés de Vieillesse by the ‘pesarese’.

As the embodiment of Cherubino from the Daponteian Le Nozze di Figaro, she has become one of the most acclaimed performers of Mozart. Then follows Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Mitridate Re di Ponto, La Clemenza di Tito, as well as sacred and profane repertoire by the Salzburgian composer. The Mezzo-soprano’s wide repertoire includes also Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi, Ginevra di Scozia by Simon Mayr and Enrico di Borgogna by Donizetti interpreted with great success at the Donizetti Opera di Bergamo (2018). The French repertoire includes Carmen, a role brilliantly debuted in Madrid (2018) and L’Enfant et les sortilèges by Ravel, Roméo et Juliette by Berlioz and Gounod as well as Les contes d’Hoffmann by Offenbach, Werther and Don Quichotte by Massenet.

From first steps at the Teatro alla Scala, to Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, to the Teatro Real in Madrid, La Monnaie in Bruxelles, Staatsoper in Vienna, to Royal Opera House in London, Festivals (Salzburg, Florence, Munich, Bologna, Grange) and to the most renowned international concert halls (from Russia to United States), Anna Bonitatibus has collaborated with the most acclaimed conductors and directors: Sir Charles Mackerras, Riccardo Muti, Sir Antonio Pappano, René Jacobs, William Christie, Ivor Bolton, Myung Whun Chung, Alan Curtis, Roberto Abbado, Ottavio Dantone, Marc Minkowski and Luca Ronconi, Jerome Savary, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Dario Fo, David McVicar, David Alden, Sir Jonathan Miller, Kasper Holten, Emilio Sagi, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, David Pountney.

The Convegno Internazionale Rossini 2017 opened their recent celebrations dedicated to Rossini150 and Anna Bonitatibus has been invited as interpreter for the special concert ‘Rossini e gli altri. La Gran scena’ produced by Fondazione Rossini di Pesaro. For the same celebrations, she participated at the Rossini Opera Festival 2018 and in September of the same year, she has been Rossini’s ambassador at the Seoul National University (South Korea) and at St. John College, Cambridge, with Recitals and Master Classes dedicated to Gioachino Rossini.

Alongside her artistic activity, Anna Bonitatibus is engaged in the research and promotion of Lirica italiana da camera (Italian Art Songs) through the music publishing house Consonarte – Vox in Musica, founded by her and that counts on a collaboration with experts, musicians and scholars from renown European universities. The project seeks to renew appreciation of this immense musical patrimony for which valuable initiatives are undertaken, including the recent performances by the Mezzo-soprano at the Wigmore Hall in London.

Among her most successful recordings: L’Infedeltà costante dedicated to Haydn; Un Rendez-vous, a portrait of Gioachino Rossini’s chamber music repertoire; Semiramide - La Signora regale, a musical itinerary from Porpora to García consecrated to the first Queen of Mesopotamia; La Tempesta, chamber Cantatas by the composer Marianna Martines, released for DHM/RCA/SONY. In DVD Il Barbiere di Siviglia for Hardy-RaiTrade, La Didone and Ercole amante by Cavalli (OpusArte) and Così fan tutte by Mozart (Arthaus), L’incoronazione di Poppea for Virgin Classic. In streaming, Anna Bonitatibus recently appeared in La Clemenza di Tito and Lucio Silla (La Monnaie, Bruxelles) and in L’Italiana in Algeri (Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna). Her latest recording (2018, BR Klassis) is the album ‘en travesti’: the recital, warmly acclaimed by audiences and press, crosses the parable of trouser roles composed for female voices and of which Anna Bonitatibus has always been an interpreter of reference.

Booklet for Monologues - Scenes and songs by Donizetti, Rossini, Respighi, etc.