Franco Fagioli
Countertenor Franco Fagioli specializes in the difficult Baroque opera repertory of the castrati, male singers who were castrated as children so that their voices would not change. He has worked with conductors such as Rinaldo Alessandrini and Christophe Rousset, who have striven to rediscover the highly dramatic aspects of castrato roles.
Fagioli was born in San Miguel de Tucumán in northern Argentina in 1981. He started out taking piano lessons, showed musical talent, and was sent to the Instituto Superior de Arte at Buenos Aires' Teatro Colón, one of the country's top music schools. He also took vocal music classes there, and several teachers identified him as a true countertenor even though that vocal specialty was not common in Argentina at the time. Fagioli's range covers three octaves, and he excels in both a powerful top register reminiscent of the actual castrati and at the bottom of his range. He scored a breakthrough in 2003 when he won the Bertelsmann Foundation's Neue Stimmen (New Voices) competition in Gütersloh, Germany. Soon he began to find major bookings in operatic countertenor roles such as the athletic leads in Handel's Giulio Cesare and Ariodante, and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. He has been in demand not only from Baroque operatic conducting specialists such as Alessandrini but from mainstream conductors such as Riccardo Muti, under whom he made his debut at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival in 2007. Fagioli has sung the title role of Handel's Giulio Cesare in a variety of opera houses in many countries, and the castrato roles of Handel are among his specialties. However, he has also inclined toward roles originated by the castrato Gaetano Majorano, called Caffarelli -- a rival to the better-known Farinelli -- and Giambattista Velluti (1780-1861), whose career stretched into the Rossini era. Fagioli's repertory stretches as far back as Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea.
Although Fagioli's public appearances have mostly been in the operatic realm, his recordings have focused on recitals. In 2013, he released Arias for Caffarelli on the Naïve label, and he has since recorded for Dynamic, Deutsche Grammophon, and other labels. In 2020, he was heard as Nerone (Nero) on an Erato recording of Handel's opera Agrippina, with the early music ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Messiah
Classica - Pubblicato da Château de Versailles Spectacles il 17 nov 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel : Opera Arias
Franco Fagioli, Il Pomo D'oro, Zefira Valova
Estratti d'opera - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 12 gen 2018
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Anime Immortali
Franco Fagioli, Kammerorchester Basel, Daniel Bard
Opera - Pubblicato da PentaTone il 14 apr 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Vivaldi: Gloria; Nisi Dominus; Nulla in mundo pax
Julia Lezhneva, Franco Fagioli, Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera, I Barocchisti, Diego Fasolis
Classica - Pubblicato da Decca Music Group Ltd. il 23 mar 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel : Serse
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 2 nov 2018
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Il maestro Porpora : Arias
Musica vocale (sacra e profana) - Pubblicato da naïve classique il 29 set 2014
24-Bit 176.4 kHz - Stereo -
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice / Orpheo - Highlights Of The Versions For Vienna (1762) And Paris (1774) (Live)
Franco Fagioli, Malin Hartelius, Emmanuelle de Negri, Accentus Chamber Choir, Insula Orchestra, Accentus - Laurence Equilbey
Classica - Pubblicato da Archiv Produktion il 11 set 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Veni, Vidi, Vinci
Franco Fagioli, Il Pomo D'oro, Zefira Valova
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 8 mag 2020
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Giulietta e Romeo
Franco Fagioli, Adèle Charvet, Stefan Plewniak, Orchestre de l'Opéra Royal, Philippe Talbot
Classica - Pubblicato da Château de Versailles Spectacles il 27 ago 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Arias for Caffarelli
Franco Fagioli, Il Pomo d'Oro, Riccardo Minasi
Classica - Pubblicato da naïve classique il 9 set 2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Rossini
Franco Fagioli, Armonia Atenea, George Petrou
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 9 set 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Vivaldi: Gloria; Nisi Dominus; Nulla in mundo pax
Julia Lezhneva, Franco Fagioli, Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera, I Barocchisti, Diego Fasolis
Classica - Pubblicato da Decca Music Group Ltd. il 23 mar 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gluck : Orfeo ed Euridice (Live)
Franco Fagioli, Malin Hartelius, Emmanuelle de Negri, Accentus Chamber Choir, Insula Orchestra, Accentus - Laurence Equilbey
Classica - Pubblicato da Archiv Produktion il 11 set 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Serse, HWV 40 / Act 1, "Ombra mai fu"
Franco Fagioli, Il Pomo D'oro, Zefira Valova
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 15 dic 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pergolesi : Adriano in Siria
Classica - Pubblicato da Decca Music Group Ltd. il 1 ago 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel Arias
Franco Fagioli, Il Pomo D'oro, Zefira Valova
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 12 gen 2018
Gramophone Editor's Choice16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Canzone e Cantate
Franco Fagioli, Jörg Halubek, Luca Pianca, Marco Frezzato
Classica - Pubblicato da Carus il 1 nov 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Serse
Classica - Pubblicato da Deutsche Grammophon (DG) il 2 nov 2018
Gramophone Editor's Choice16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gonfio tu vedi il fiume
Franco Fagioli, Riccardo Minasi, Il Pomo d'Oro, Pasquale Cafaro
Classica - Pubblicato da naïve classique il 30 set 2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Pergolesi: Adriano in Siria - "Sul mio cor so ben qual sia Farnaspe"
Franco Fagioli, Capella Cracoviensis, Jan Tomasz Adamus
Classica - Pubblicato da Decca Music Group Ltd. il 1 lug 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice / Orpheo - Highlights Of The Versions For Vienna (1762) And Paris (1774) (Live)
Franco Fagioli, Malin Hartelius, Emmanuelle de Negri, Accentus Chamber Choir, Insula Orchestra, Accentus - Laurence Equilbey
Classica - Pubblicato da Archiv Produktion il 11 set 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo