Federico Fiorio, Maayan Licht & Dennis Orellana

The heroes of the Baroque operatic stage weren’t tenors! Whether brave warriors, ardent lovers or self-sacrificial martyrs: the great male star roles were sung by sopraniste – mostly castrati, and they were besieged by the hearts of the ladies in swarms, both on stage and in the audience. In the Church State it was principally prohibited to have women tread the boards of a stage. This outrageous state of affairs was dodged by theatre people like the two rival arch-enemies Nicola Antonio Porpora and Leonardo Vinci by having male sopranists sing the female roles, and they augmented the repertoire impressively for this exceptional range of voice. Names like Farinelli, Caffarelli, Senesino and Carestini still resound ecstatically in our ears, and this, although their voices have long faded away. And yet today we aren’t in any way deprived of this art. The sopranists Federico Fiorio, Maayan Licht and Dennis Orellana prove with astonishing skill that male sopranos are not things of the past. With technical brilliance, bewitchingly beautiful vocal quality and powerfully expressive interpretive skills the three sopraniste thrill in arias and ensembles composed directly into the male throat by such masters as Handel, Vivaldi, Porpora, Leo, Vinci and more.

With works by George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Nicola Antonio Porpora, Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci et al.