Sara Mingardo

L'Orfeo

Taped live in Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu on January 31, 2002, this L'Orfeo is both a visual delight and a musically satisfying representation of Monteverdi's opera

Juditha Triumphans

The Vicenza in Lirica 2020 Festival opened its edition with Vivaldi's oratorio “Juditha Triumphans” at the Teatro Olimpico. The performance was conducted by Francesco Erle and featured the Festival's Baroque Ensemble and the Schola San Rocco choir.

Handel: Tamerlano

This majestic production of Handel's vivid tragedy, TAMERLANO, stars a Lear-like Placido Domingo as the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, caught between pride, love, and loyalty. Displaying the uniquely heroic quality of his voice, Domingo heads a superb cast, including Sara Mingardo, Monica Bacelli, and Ingela Bohlin, all magnificently responsive to Paul McCreesh's authentic and luminous musical interpretation of the score. The stunning theatrical staging by Graham Vick provides a splendid setting for the characters and for designer Richard Hudson's extravagant Baroque-Islamic costumes, emphasizing the brilliance of one of Handel's finest dramatic achievements.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem - Claudio Abbado

Mozart did not write the Requiem as despairing funeral music for his impending death. Rather, the piece proclaims eternal light and redemption. Together with a first-class quartet of soloists, the choirs of the Bavarian and Swedish radios and the distinguished musicians of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado uncovers this more hopeful and forgiving essence of the Requiem.

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Composed in 1707 in Rome, Handel's Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno is an oratorio in two parts with a libretto written by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili. Staged by Krzysztof Warlikowski and conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, this sublime performance was presented at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2016.

Adriana Lecouvreur

Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur concerns a doomed love based on a real story about an actress involved in a famous love triangle. Mirella Freni sings the title part in this production that was broadcast on television originally in 1989. Gianandrea Gavazzeni conducts the orchestra. Live from La Scala, 1989

OSN: Biondi-Pergolesi-Bach

From the Toscanini Auditorium in Turin: Pergolesi’s Concerto in G major for flute, strings and bass; Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suite-Overture No. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067, for flute, strings and bass; Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Conducted by Fabio Biondi, with Jennifer O’Loughlin (soprano) and Sara Mingardo (contralto).

Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Staatsoper Berlin 2016)

Bellezza (Beauty) admires herself in the mirror, but knows that her beauty will one day pass. Piacere (Pleasure) tries to cheer her up, promising her eternal beauty if she remains only faithful to pleasure. Bellezza promises never to leave her, or else to accept severe punishment. Piacere warns of the destructive power of useless worry, but now Tempo (Time) and Disinganno (Disillusion) get involved in the conversation. Together they seek to explain the ephemeral nature of beauty, which quickly wilts like a blossom.

Mozart's Requiem - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2019

Relive an unforgettable musical and theatrical experience with this singular production of Mozart's Requiem, staged by the defiantly nonconformist director Romeo Castellucci at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2019. Raphaël Pichon leads his acclaimed ensemble Pygmalion, whose impeccable musicianship and refreshingly original approach to early music have led them to the highest echelon of period-instrument outfits working today. Four magnificent solo voices—soprano Siobhan Stagg, alto Sara Mingardo, tenor Martin Mitterrutzner, and bass Luca Tittoto—blend seamlessly with the choir and orchestra in the most famous of all requiem masses, left unfinished by Mozart at his death. "Mozart's Requiem," writes musicologist Olivier Bellamy, "is resolutely theatrical. From moment to moment, the music alternates between terror, joy, supplication, exaltation, and scriptural piety."

L'Orfeo

Rinaldo Alessandrini, one of the most eminent baroque and pre-baroque music specialist, conducts Monteverdi's Orfeo, performed by singers who have been working with the Maestro for many years, and who now play in the middle of Robert Wilson's fairy sets...