"...when you have a singer of the quality of Roberta Invernizzi, and Alberto Rasi's intelligent direction, the emotional clarity of the performances is deeply affecting."
BBC Music Magazine, 01-10-2024Alberto Rasi, veronese, after his studies in Double Bass and Composition, studied Viola da Gamba and Violone at the Schola Cantorum Basel with Jordi Savall, and at the Conservatoire de Génève with Ariane Maurette.
Since 1978, taking advantage of his training as a Double Bass player, he began playing both the viola da gamba and violone, giving concerts and recordings with the most renowned groups.
In 1981 he co-founded Accademia Strumentale Italiana with the harpischordist Patrizia Marisaldi.
As soloist and with this ensemble he has given concerts throughout Europe and beyond. In 1992 he became Artistic Director of this group and he has recorded several CDs for the Stradivarius label of Milan and various others CD labels winning various prizes including: Diapason d’Or, 10 de Repertoire, Musica 5 Stars, Amadeus and the Midem Classical Award 2007 in the category, Early Music.
He is currently teaching viola da gamba at the Conservatory of Verona.
In 1999 he founded the Baroque Orchestra of Verona, Il Tempio Armonico, which he conducts from the violoncello, and with which he has recorded the complete orchestral music of the veronese Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco.
Roberta Invernizzi has become one of the outstanding voices of Baroque music in modern times, contributing with her crystalline soprano and an unfailing dramatic sense to the rediscovery of much neglected music, from Italy in particular. Hailing from Milan, Roberta Invernizzi’s music studies initially encompassed the piano and the double bass before she took up singing under the guidance of Margaret Heyward, later specializing in both Baroque and Classical era music.
Invernizzi’s talent for characterization has been superbly demonstrated across the Gramophone Award-winning series of recordings on Glossa of Handel’s chamber cantatas in Italian with Fabio Bonizzoni, through her visceral and vivid portrayals of Arcadian characters from goddesses and nymphs to shepherdesses. Her prowess there led Fabio Bonizzoni to write recitatives with her in mind for his creation of a pasticcio opera in Gli strali d’Amore, with arias by André Campra. The flamboyant revival in recent years of music from the Neapolitan Baroque led by Antonio Florio and I Turchini owes much to Roberta Invernizzi’s contributions, whilst on the opera stage diverse roles in recent years have seen her perform in Handel’s Rinaldo and Agrippina, Vivaldi’s Ercole sul Termodonte and Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and L’incoronazione di Poppea (as well as in Mozart, Grétry and Berton). Reactions from the international press have praised her singing for its “intensity and delicacy, her control of pitch and phrase production”, her “great radiance of tone” as well as frequent notes of approval for her sensitivity, refinement and subtlety.
In addition to her presence in the Handel Cantatas series (there is also a “Portrait” release, Handel in Italy) and the Campra Gli strali d’Amore, Invernizzi’s long-standing musical partnership with Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza has led to a disc of both well- and lesser-known opera arias by Antonio Vivaldi with Invernizzi cast very much in the solo spotlight. Invernizzi regularly works also with other leading conductors of the music of Vivaldi such as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alan Curtis and Fabio Biondi, among others.
...when you have a singer of the quality of Roberta Invernizzi, and Alberto Rasi's intelligent direction, the emotional clarity of the performances is deeply affecting.
BBC Music Magazine, 01-10-2024