Barbara Frittoli established a major international operatic career in the 1990s and is rated as one of the leading lirico-spinto sopranos of her generation. The native of Milan studied at that city’s Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music, graduating with honors. Barbara began her operatic career in 1989 at the Teatro Communale in Florence in Bucchi’s Il Giuoco del Barone. She soon appeared at the Festival Donizetti in Bergamo and at the Carlo Felice Theater in Geneva. Major debuts followed, including, Carmen in Philadelphia, La Bohème in Naples, at La Scala in Beatrice di Tenda, at Santa Cecilia in Rome in a rare production of Schubert’s Rosamunde, Micaëla in Carmen, and Mimi in La Bohème at the Vienna State Opera as well as Pergolesi’s Flaminio at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.
Mimì and Micaëla were her roles in her first season with the Metropolitan Opera, and she was Micaëla when she sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She has also appeared in Ferrara, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Teatro Communale of Florence, and the Regio of Turin. She toured in China with the Maggio Musicale of Florence as Liù in Puccini’s Turandot which included the famous performance known as ‘Turandot in the Forbidden City,’ which has been recorded under Zubin Mehta’s direction on the RCA label. Other recordings include Puccini’s Il Trittico on Decca, Il Barbiere di Siviglia on Teldec, Il Viaggio a Reims on Sony, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater on EMI, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater on Decca.
Other leading roles in her repertory to name a few, include, Fiordiligi, Vitellia, Desdemona, Leonora, Amelia, Marguerite, and Alice Ford. Conductors with whom she has worked with include Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Sir Charles Mackerras, Riccardo Muti, Georges Prêtre, Daniele Gatti, Antonio Pappano, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Semyon Bychkov, and Riccardo Chailly.
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