Giulio Cesare in Egitto

Countertenor Carlo Vistoli studied at the Frescobaldi Conservatory in Ferrara and the University of Bologna and made his stage debut in 2012 as the Sorceress ("Dido and Aeneas"). In 2015, he was admitted to the Baroque Academy Le Jardin des Voix under the direction of William Christie, with whom he has worked ever since. In 2017, he took part in John Eliot Gardiner's project "Monteverdi 450," which toured internationally. More recently, he has appeared in "Orlando furioso" at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, as Idraspe in Cavalli's "Erismena" at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, "L'incoronazione di Poppea" at the Salzburg Festival, "Orfeo ed Euridice" in Robert Carsen’s production in Rome, and "Semele" in Paris, London, and Milan. In 2021, he sang Goffredo in "Rinaldo" at the Opéra de Lausanne as well as the role of Tolomeo in "Giulio Cesare" at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées alongside Philippe Jaroussky. Other opera productions include "La rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo" at the Theater an der Wien and "Orfeo ed Euridice" at the Komische Oper Berlin. In 2022, he made his debut as Ruggiero in "Alcina" at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Cecilia Bartoli and under the direction of Gianluca Capuano in Damiano Michieletto’s production. Again together with Bartoli and Capuano, he toured Pergolesi’s "Stabat Mater" and sang the title role in "Giulio Cesare" at the Vienna State Opera. In 2024, he made his American debut as Arsace ("Partenope") at the San Francisco Opera, where he was also honored as a young artist. Carlo Vistoli has recorded several CDs for labels including Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Brilliant, Ricercar, and Arcana.

Cecilia Bartoli has established herself as one of the world’s leading classical musicians with her magnificent stage career spanning more than 40 years. Born in Rome and trained by her mother, the voice teacher Silvana Bazzoni, she was discovered by Daniel Barenboim, Herbert von Karajan and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Milestones included, among others, the very first staging of Rossini’s “Cenerentola” at the New York Met in 1997; the legendary “Vivaldi Album,” which since 1999 has sold millions of copies; the 2008 Paris concert marathon marking Maria Malibran’s 200th birthday; her radically new approach to Bellini’s “Norma” in 2013, which also resulted in a scholarly edition of the reconstructed original score; and a triumphant Rossini Week at the Vienna State Opera in 2022. Since 2012, Cecilia Bartoli has been Artistic Director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, where she has appeared in works by Handel, Gluck, Rossini, Bellini and Bernstein. Since 2023, she has also been the Director of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, the first woman in the history of the house to hold this position. Also in Monte-Carlo, the ensemble Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco was founded in 2016, with which Cecilia Bartoli performs both at its home base and on major tours throughout Europe. Bartoli’s CDs and DVDs have sold more than twelve million copies; she has received the Grammy Award five times. Among the many honours she has received are the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize and the Polar Music Prize. Since 2022 she has been President of Europa Nostra, was appointed Austrian Kammersängerin in 2023, and also runs the Cecilia Bartoli Music Foundation.

Max Emanuel Cencic began his musical training with the Vienna Boys’ Choir. He performs at major opera and concert venues as well as at leading festivals, and collaborates regularly with conductors such as William Christie, René Jacobs, Ottavio Dantone, George Petrou, Emmanuelle Haïm and Riccardo Muti. His repertoire spans all eras from Monteverdi to Aribert Reimann. He has sung at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan, the Opéra de Paris, Teatro Real Madrid, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, the state operas of Berlin and Munich, as well as at the Musikverein Vienna, Carnegie Hall New York, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Barbican Centre London and Suntory Hall Tokyo. As Artistic Director of Parnassus Arts Productions, he revives forgotten works of the Italian Baroque. The recordings of these operas have received numerous awards, including the Echo Klassik, the German Record Critics’ Award and the Diapason d’Or. Since his production of Hasse’s Siroe in Versailles in 2014, Max Emanuel Cencic has also appeared as a stage director. Since 2020 he has additionally served as Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival, which was honoured in Amsterdam in 2024 with an Oper! Award as “Best Festival.” His Bayreuth productions of “Carlo il Calvo” and “Alessandro nell’Indie” were named “Best Opera Production of the Year” in 2020 and 2022 respectively by Forum Opéra. Max Emanuel Cencic is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 2021 received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the German Record Critics in the “Classical Music” category.

The Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter is one of the most recorded artists of our time and has had an unparalleled career, maintaining a leading position in her field for over four decades. Her long-standing collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon has produced numerous acclaimed recordings, including the Grammy-winning performance of Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” with Claudio Abbado and the album “For the Stars” with pop legend Elvis Costello. In 2010, Naïve Classique released “Love Songs” with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau. Among her most important roles are Octavian (“Der Rosenkavalier”), which she has sung worldwide, and Leonora in the premiere of Thomas Adès’ “The Exterminating Angel” at the Salzburg Festival and the Royal Opera House in London. Recent highlights include Marcellina (“Le nozze di Figaro”) at the Bavarian State Opera Munich, Mérope (“Oedipe”) at the Opéra national de Paris, the Countess (“Pique Dame”) at La Monnaie, and Adelaide (“Arabella”) at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Composer Mikael Karlsson wrote the song cycle “So We Will Vanish” for her, as well as roles in the world premieres of the operas “Melancholia” (2023) and “Fanny and Alexander” (2024). In 2025, she performed in Philippe Manoury’s new opera “The Last Days of Mankind” in Cologne. Other engagements have taken her to the Nederlandse Opera, the Metropolitan Opera New York, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Theater an der Wien, as well as to Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne. Her equally successful concert career encompasses works by Berlioz, Bach, and Kurt Weill, as well as songs by Schubert, Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and Mahler.

Kangmin Justin Kim, countertenor, was born in South Korea and raised in Evanston, Illinois. He studied at the local university and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. His first engagements included Orlofsky (“Die Fledermaus”) at the Opéra Comique and Oreste (“La belle Hélène”) at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Since then, he has appeared on major opera stages, singing Nerone (“L’incoronazione di Poppea”) at the Berlin State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Teatro La Fenice, and in New York, Paris, Berlin, Chicago, Edinburgh and Lucerne; Annio (“La clemenza di Tito”) at the Theater an der Wien; Orlofsky at the Cologne Opera; Orfeo in Handel’s “Parnasso in festa,” Epitide in Giacomelli’s “La Merope” and Amanzio in Vivaldi’s “Il Giustino” at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam; as well as Ottone in Vivaldi’s “La Griselda,” Gilade in Vivaldi’s “Farnace,” and Hyacinthus in Mozart’s “Apollo et Hyacinthus” at Teatro La Fenice in Venice. He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in Henze’s “Das verratene Meer,” at the Glyndebourne Festival in “Giulio Cesare,” and at Teatro San Carlo in Naples in Britten’s “Canticles.” In 2019, he attracted significant attention as the first male performer of Cherubino (“Le nozze di Figaro”) in the history of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. Recently he appeared as Natascha (Eötvös’ “Drei Schwestern”) at the Salzburg Festival and made debuts at the opera houses in Boston, Dallas and at the Opéra du Rhin. At the Hamburg State Opera he sang Annio, Despina (“Così fan tutte”), as well as in the world premiere of Unsuk Chin’s “Die dunkle Seite des Mondes.” He has sung Sesto (“Giulio Cesare”) in Vienna, Monte-Carlo, Luxembourg, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne.

Baritone Renato Dolcini, born in Milan, received his vocal training with Vincenzo Manno while simultaneously studying musicology at the University of Pavia. At the Gstaad Vocal Academy, he worked with Cecilia Bartoli in 2009 and 2010. In 2015, he was admitted to William Christie’s academy “Le Jardin des Voix.” The subsequent tour with Les Arts Florissants took him through Europe, the USA, Russia, Australia, Korea, China, and Japan. Since then, he has maintained a close collaboration with Christie. Under his direction, Dolcini made his Salzburg Festival debut in 2018 as Seneca (“L’incoronazione di Poppea”) and performed in Bach’s “St John Passion” on a European tour. Renato Dolcini is especially renowned for his interpretation of 17th- and 18th-century repertoire. He has sung Vivaldi’s “Bajazet” and Caldara’s “Dafne” at La Fenice in Venice, Cavalieri’s “La Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo” at the Theater an der Wien, the title role in “L’Orfeo” in Monte-Carlo and Salzburg, Cavalli’s “Hipermestra” at Glyndebourne, and Landi’s “La Morte di Orfeo” in Amsterdam. His Handel roles include Farasmane (“Radamisto”) on a European tour with Il pomo d’oro, Curio (“Giulio Cesare”) at La Scala in Milan, and Pallante (“Agrippina”) in Hamburg. In the French repertoire, he has sung in “Platée” at the Zurich Opera, “Les Indes galantes” at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Lully’s “Armide” at the Drottningholm Opera in Sweden. His discography includes the recordings “Stravaganza d’amore” (2022) with Raphaël Pichon and Ensemble Pygmalion, as well as “Dido and Aeneas” (2022) and “Dixit Dominus” (2024) with Les Argonautes.

Karima El Demerdasch is a German-Egyptian mezzo-soprano. She studied in Cairo and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with John Evans. In 2024, she was a finalist at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards and in 2023 participated in the Georg Solti Accademia. In Guildhall School productions, she performed roles such as Prince Orlofsky ("Die Fledermaus") and Dido ("Dido and Aeneas"). In a 2023 production by Opera Kipling, she sang the title role in "La Cenerentola" at the Upstairs at the Gatehouse theatre in London. In 2025, she took part in the Young Singers Project of the Salzburg Festival and made her debut at London’s Barbican Hall. Since the 2025/26 season, she has been a member of the International Opera Studio at the Zürich Opera House.