Up-and-Coming Italian Bass-Baritone Luca Pisaroni Is Now Represented by 21C Media Group

21C Media Group is proud to announce that it now represents bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni.  Born in Venezuela and bred in Verdi’s hometown of Busseto, Italy, Pisaroni has already established himself as one of the most captivating singers of his generation – from his debut at the Salzburg Festival at age 26 with the Vienna Philharmonic under Nikolaus Harnoncourt to his successful run as Leporello last summer in a hit new production of Don Giovanni at the Glyndebourne Festival.

Opera News encapsulated the bass-baritone’s talents, saying: “Pisaroni’s vocal personality is akin to the brewing of an inner storm that is then distilled into a well-articulated purity of emotion.  The singer’s dramatic versatility cannot be overstated: his ability to execute written notes with consummate tone, translated directly into the essence of feeling.”

Born in 1975, Luca Pisaroni received his musical education at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, in Buenos Aires, and in New York.  About growing up in Busseto, Pisaroni has said: “You feel Verdi’s spirit all over the place!  My family moved back to Italy when I was four.  As a kid, I used to go to the opera with my grandfather, and when I was eleven, I already knew I wanted to be an opera singer.”  He adds, “I feel like I have a huge musical heritage, coming as I do from the same little town as Verdi – and [tenor] Carlo Bergonzi, too.  As a boy, I used to listen in on Bergonzi’s masterclasses after school.  One day, I hope to pay tribute to the great music of Verdi as well as Bergonzi did.  To me, he set the standard for Verdian phrasing and musical style.”

Pisaroni’s 2010-11 season has been brimful of Mozart, since the bass-baritone is the Figaro of choice for three new music directors: Nicola Luisotti at San Francisco Opera, Philippe Jordan at Opéra National de Paris, and Franz Welser-Möst at the Vienna State Opera.  In April, Pisaroni will make his role debut as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro at Houston Grand Opera.  His concert calendar includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony, Handel’s Resurrezione with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at Vienna’s Musikverein, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Cleveland Orchestra under Welser-Möst, as well as a European recital tour featuring Schubert, Rossini, and Liszt with stops at London’s Wigmore Hall and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.  Pisaroni will conclude the season by singing Argante in a new production of Handel’s Rinaldo at Glyndebourne followed by Leporello under Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, which will be recorded by Deutsche Grammophon.

Pisaroni offered his insights into playing diverse characters in an interview for the Glyndebourne Festival newsletter.  Asked if he was looking forward to his debut in the role of Argante in Rinaldo this summer, the singer replied: “Very much.  He is the Saracen King of Jerusalem plotting with Armida against Rinaldo.  He is a classic anti-hero.  One of the fascinating aspects of being a stage performer is that you are able to ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’ for a couple of hours.  There are two kinds of roles: the ones close to your own personality – in my case that could be Figaro – or are completely different than you.  I love to play the crazy, evil, and broken characters.  In summer 2008, I had the chance to play both Figaro and Tiridate (in Handel’s Radamisto) at Santa Fe Opera.  While Figaro is fun, lively, and in love, Tiridate is abusive, controlling, and violent.  It was great fun to explore such different personalities simultaneously.  When asked if it’s more fun to play the good or the bad guy, I would say definitely the bad guy – in life you never get away with being the bad guy!  On stage, you do and everyone loves it.  So, I am really looking forward to being the ‘evil’ King of Jerusalem at Glyndebourne.”

Commanding a diverse repertoire, Pisaroni has appeared at many of the world’s top opera houses and music festivals.  He has sung his signature role of Mozart’s Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Paris (Bastille), and the Salzburg Festival; Leporello at Teatro Real de Madrid, Opéra Bastille, and – with the Boston Symphony under James Levine – at the Tanglewood Music Festival; Guglielmo in Così fan tutte at Glyndebourne; Papageno in Die Zauberflöte at Théatre des Champs-Elysées; Melisso in Handel’s Alcina at Opéra Bastille; Hercules in Gluck’s Alceste at Salzburg; Conte Dorval in Martin y Soler’s Il Burbero di Buon Cuore at Teatro Real; Alidoro in La Cenerentola for Santiago de Chile; Enrico in Haydn’s L’isola disabitata at Vienna’s Musikverein; Publio in La clemenza di Tito at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; Achilla in Giulio Cesare at Brussels’ La Monnaie; and Douglas D’Angus in Rossini’s La donna del lago at Salzburg.  Pisaroni was awarded the Vienna State Opera’s Eberhard-Wächter Medal as “Newcomer of the Season” for his portrayal of Figaro in 2001.

In recent seasons, the bass-baritone has appeared as the King of Scotland in Ariodante at Theater an der Wien, the title role in Cavalli’s Ercole amante with De Nederlandse Opera, and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas for the Wiener Festwochen.  Of his Santa Fe Opera debut in Radamisto, the Financial Times wrote, “One could hardly imagine a more vibrant villain than the bass Luca Pisaroni’s limber, gorgeously-sung Tiridate.”

In concert, Pisaroni has performed Hasse’s I pellegrini al sepolcro di Nostro Signore at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival and Cherubini’s Missa solemnis for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the baton of Riccardo Muti; Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri with Sir Simon Rattle and the Philadelphia Orchestra, in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall; Zebul in Handel’s Jephtha with the Berlin Philharmonic under Nikolaus Harnoncourt; Haydn’s Il ritorno di Tobia with Adam Fischer at the Vienna Konzerthaus; and Bach’s St. John Passion at the Théatre du Chatelet.  He has also sung in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with John Nelson at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Mozart’s Requiem with Yuri Temirkanov for the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem under Edo de Waart, and Handel’s La resurrezione with Il Giardino Armonico.  Besides his activities in opera and concert, Pisaroni is an ardent and dedicated recitalist, having performed at the Ravinia Festival and at Carnegie Hall, among other top venues.

Pisaroni’s performances as Publio and Masetto appear in the celebrated “Mozart 22” DVD series from the Salzburg Festival features.  Further DVD releases include his warmly-received portrayal of Guglielmo in Nicholas Hytner’s production of Così fan tutte from Glyndebourne; Le nozze di Figaro at Théatre des Champs-Elysées; and Così fan tutte, Figaro, and Ercole amante (his personal DVD favorite) with the Nederlandse Opera.  Most recently, Pisaroni recorded La resurrezione for Virgin Classics.

Luca Pisaroni lives in Vienna with his wife, Catherine (daughter of famed American baritone Thomas Hampson).  Their new golden retriever puppy, Lenny, and miniature dachshund, Tristan, are the singer’s constant traveling companions.