Gianluca Capuano
Conductor
Gianluca Capuano has been principal conductor of Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco since 2019. He studied the organ, composition and conducting at the Conservatory in his hometown of Milan and went on to specialize in early music at the city’s Scuola Civica. He also studied theoretical philosophy at the University of Milan. He has appeared as a soloist and as a conductor throughout Europe, the United States, Russia and Japan. In 2006 he founded Il Canto di Orfeo, an instrumental and vocal ensemble with which he performs a wide-ranging Baroque repertoire, working with some of the finest musicians and singers active in the field of historically-informed performance practice. Gianluca Capuano came to international attention in August 2016, when he stepped in at short notice to conductNormawith Cecilia Bartoli on the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival. Bartoli then invited him to conduct further performances ofNormaat the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and in Baden-Baden as well as a European tour ofLa Cenerentolawith Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco. He has also conducted AriodanteandIl turco in Italiain Monte Carlo,Orfeo ed Euridicefor the Rome Opera,Il matrimonio segretofor the Dutch National Opera,Guillaume Tellat the Chorégies d’Orange,Il barbiere di Sivigliaat the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, L’elisir d’amoreat the Teatro Real in Madrid,La Cenerentola and Iphigénie en Tauridein Zurich. Gianluca Capuano made his Salzburg debut at the 2017 Whitsun Festival, conducting Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco inAriodanteand a concert performance ofLa donna del lago, following this up in 2018 with a recital of arias associated with the legendary tenor Manuel García and sung by Javier Camarena. Highlights from this programme were released on CD. His second CD for Decca, an album devoted to the legendary Pauline Viardot showcasing mezzosoprano Varduhi Abrahamyan and Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco was released april, 2021. Plans include:L’italiana in Algeriat the Zurich Opernhaus;Il turco in ItaliaandDie Zauberflötein Munich;L’eisir d’amorein Hamburg;Il barbiere di Sivigliaand a gala concert at the Salzburg Festival;La Cenerentolain Martigny, Zurich and Vienna;Il turco in Italia, L’elisir d’amore, Don Pasquale, Il barbiere di Sivigliaand a gala concert in Vienna;Alcestein Rome.
Franco Citterio
Director, sets and costumes
Franco Citterio joined the Compagnia Carlo Colla & Figli at the age of 9, accompanied by his older sister, Maria Grazia. He discovered puppet theatre at high school, where Eugenio Monti Colla was his history and geography teacher. Even before developing a passion for the magic of the theatre, he was fascinated by the family’s main activity: wood carving. During his studies at the Cantù Art Institute he accompanied Colla on tour to Fribourg, in France, and Berlin. In 1984, after graduating from high school, he worked regularly with the Compagnia. That same year the Associazione Grupporiani was founded, born from the desire of young puppeteers to culturally explore figure theatre, under the artistic direction of Eugenio Monti Colla. Franco began carving his first puppet heads. In 1994 he joined Eugenio Monti Colla in establishing as part of the Compagnia la Scuola “Fiando”, named after Giuseppe Fiando, the first puppeteer in Milan, a school whose objective is to promote and pass on the disciplines of figure theatre, in particular puppetry. In 2006 he assisted Eugenio Monti Colla in staging Don Giovanni in Treviso, designing and producing the stage sets. Franco is a sculptor with the Compagnia (to date, he has sculpted about 2000 puppets). In addition, since 1995, he has painted around 220 sets for more than 30 productions. In 2017, after the death of Eugenio Monti Colla, whose ideas he had so often visually interpreted, he became artistic director of the Compagnia. For the past few years he has also written texts for puppet shows.
Giovanni Schiavolin
Director
Giovanni Schiavolin’s first contact with the world of puppets occurred when he was at college, thanks to Eugenio Monti Colla. He knew this teacher and joined some of his students. At the end of the 1970s he became a regular spectator at the shows produced by the Compagnia Carlo Colla & Figli. Very soon, not content with just watching the shows, he asked if he could go behind the curtains and meet the artisans working backstage. After graduating from high school he became an apprentice in a woodwork studio. Working with his hands, sculpting and modelling living matter, he developed a passion for this craft, which was also at the heart of the Compagnia’s work. He continued his apprenticeship at the studio during the week, and on Saturdays and Sundays attended all of the Compagnia’s productions. In the early 1980s, aided by Eugenio Monti Colla, he officially joined the Compagnia as an apprentice and puppeteer. After the death of Eugenio Monti Colla in November 2017 he felt the need to preserve this essential tradition and to pass it on to young artisans who, he hopes, will join the Compagnia, just as he and many others have done. Since then, whereas previously he and Franco Citterio had worked together on repeat performances of Eugenio’s productions, they have begun directing new shows together.
Cecilia di Marco
Costumes
After graduating from the Istituto d’Arte, Cecilia Di Marco went on to study scenography at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. There she met Sheila Perego who had been working for some time with the Compagnia Carlo Colla & Figli. While studying at the Accademia, where she had to work on scenography projects, she often contacted the Compagnia in order to visit their workshops, study materials and take photos. She was fascinated by the fact that at the Compagnia the tiniest element is entirely created in their workshops by the puppeteers who give life to the performances. In November 1997, one month after graduating, she began working for the Compagnia and for the first time, during the dress rehearsal of Puss in Boots, she pulled the puppet strings. As a graduate of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, where she had completed projects for stage decors and costumes, she worked firstly as a seamstress and then as stage designer. For the production of Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele in Weimar, European capital of culture in 1999, she began drawing costume sketches. In June and July 1999 she assisted Franco Citterio in making his first painted backdrop for the production of Around the World in Eighty Days. In 2006 she assisted Eugenio Monti Colla in making the costumes for Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Teatro Comunale di Treviso. In 2008 she did the same for The Magic Flute.
Maria Grazia Citterio
Costumes
It was thanks to her high school teacher, Eugenio Monti Colla, that Maria Grazia Citterio was introduced to the world of puppet theatre. She began working with the Compagnia Carlo Colla & Figli in 1980, after graduating from high school. She decided not to pursue a specific branch of studies and instead began learning directly in the field, starting with sewing work. By observing Eugenio’s mother, she also learned how to plait hair to make wigs for the wooden figures. In 1987 Renato Guttuso produced the sketches for the decors and puppets for the La foresta – radice – labirinto show, a short text in the form of a fairy tale that Italo Calvino sent to his friend Antonio Pasqualino. Based on these sketches Franco sculpted the puppets and Maria Grazia made the costumes. The show, directed by Roberto Andò, was presented for the first time at the Teatro della Cometa in Rome, where it enjoyed a huge success on three consecutive days, before touring in Palermo at the Teatro Biondo. In 2009, under the direction of Eugenio Monti Colla and in the company’s studios, Maria Grazia made the costumes for the show Cenerentola all’Opera, created by the CTA, Centro Regionale di Teatro d’Animazione e di Figure, based on the scenes and characters of Francesco Tullio Altan, scenographer, scriptwriter and designer, well-known in Italy for creating the little dog Pimpa. In 2020 she began creating wigs in collaboration with the studios of La Scala Milan.
Renato Dolcini
Baritone | Orfeo
Renato Dolcini made his international debut in 2015 when he won Le Jardin des Voix competition. Since then he has imposed himself on the international Baroque music scene. Appreciated for his dramatic as well as vocal talents, he has worked with leading Baroque conductors, such as William Christie, John Eliot Gardiner, Giovanni Antonini, Fabio Biondi, Christophe Rousset, Gianluca Capuano, Riccardo Minasi, and stage directors including Graham Vick, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, Robert Carsen, Barry Kosky. Recently he sang at the Staatsoper Hamburg (Pallante in Handel’s Agrippina) and Leporello in Don Giovanni at the New National Theater in Tokyo. He has also performed in concerts at Philharmonie de Paris, Bozar (Bruxelles), Barbican Hall (London), Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Lincoln Center (New York), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Philharmonie Berlin and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Future engagements include Aeneas and The Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas at Teatro Real Madrid, Liceu Barcelona and Opéra royal de Versailles, with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants; Orlando paladino (Haydn) with Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico; Platée at Opernhaus Zürich, with Emmanuelle Haïm. His discography includes Don Giovanni (Leporello) with Warner Classics; Il martirio di Santa Teodosia (Scarlatti) with Thibault Noally and Les Accents; L’incoronazione di Poppea (Seneca) with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. The BBC chose to highlight Mr. Dolcini for the radio programme Arts Hour on tour in Milan, for which he sang excerpts of works by Porpora and Mozart.
Carlotta Colombo
Soprano | La Musica / Euridice
Carlotta Colombo began studying singing at the age of 16 and went on to study Baroque and Renaissance singing. As a concert performer she has sung in many music events in Italy and abroad, such as the Bologna Festival, Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Festival MiTo, Roma Festival Barocco, Urbino Musica Antica, Styriarte in Graz, Klangvokal Musikfestival in Dortmund, Printemps des Arts in Monaco, Musica Sacra in Maastricht, Festtage Alte Musik in Basel, Festival Cervantino in Guanajuato and Sastamala Gregoriana. She performs as a soloist or with vocal ensembles at La Scala and Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, Teatro Sociale di Como, Teatro Comunale di Ferrara, Teatro della Pergola in Florence, the Berlin Boulez-Saal, Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Philharmonie in Luxembourg, Philharmonie in Essen. She works with many Italian ensembles, including La Venexiana, Ensemble Zefiro, laBarocca, Il Canto di Orfeo, Fantazyas, Concerto Romano, La Divina armonia, La Lira di Orfeo, in the role of Musica, Ninfa and Proserpina in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Proserpina in Porpora’s Orfeo, Belinda in Dido and Æneas, Venus in f*ck’s Psyche, Magdalena in Handel’s La resurrezione, Maddalena Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo by Caldara, Empress Faustina in Caldara’s Il martirio di Santa Caterina, as well First Lady and Papagena in Mozart’s Magic Flute.
Sara Mingardo
Alto | La Messaggera / La Speranza
One of today’s rare true altos, Sara Mingardo is a highly sought-after and greatly appreciated interpreter. She regularly works with conductors such as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Ivor Bolton, Riccardo Chailly, Myung Whun-Chung, Paul Daniel, Colin Davis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Emmanuelle Haïm, Marc Minkowski, Riccardo Muti, Roger Norrington, Trevor Pinnock, Maurizio Pollini, Christophe Rousset, Jordi Savall, Peter Schreier and Jeffrey Tate and prestigious international orchestras: Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre national de France, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra, Concerto Italiano, Les Talens Lyriques and Academia Montis Regalis. Particularly intense and fruitful was her collaboration with Claudio Abbado, who chose and conducted her in important operas, concerts and recordings. Particularly active in concert, she has a vast repertoire ranging from Pergolesi to Respighi, through Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák and Mahler. Her operatic repertory includes works by Gluck, Monteverdi, Handel, Vivaldi, Rossini, Verdi, Cavalli, Mozart, Donizetti, Schumann and Berlioz. Sara Mingardo studied with Franco Ghitti at the “Benedetto Marcello” Conservatory in Venice, her native town, and completed her studies with a scholarship at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Winner of several national and international vocal competitions, she made her debut inIl matrimonio segreto(Fidalma) andLa Cenerentola(title role). In 2001 she won two Grammys and in 2009, the Association of Italy’s Music Critics awarded her with the prestigious “Premio Abbiati”.
Marco Saccardin
Baritone | Plutone / Pastore 4 / Spirito 3 / Eco
Marco Saccardin was born in 1990 and studied classical guitar with Monica Paolini at the “Francesco Venezze” Conservatory in his home city of Rovigo, graduating in 2013. He went on to study lute with Massimo Lonardi at the “Franco Vittadini” Conservatory in Pavia, graduating in 2017. During his instrumental studies he became a member of the Coro Polofonico Città di Rovigo, under the direction of Vittorio Zanon and Marco Scavazza. With the latter he studied Renaissance and Baroque singing. In 2013 Marco Saccardin became a member of the Coro della Radiotelevisione svizzera under the direction of Diego Fasolis, performing not only in concert works such as Verdi’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s “Lobgesang” Symphony and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, but also in two opera productions at the Salzburg Festival: in Norma under Giovanni Antonini (2013 and 2015), and in the role of a Scythian in Iphigénie en Tauride under Fasolis (2015). In 2017 he appeared in the title role of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. In 2018 he began to work as a theorbist in the ensemble I Disinvolti under the direction of Massimo Lombardi. In 2019 he performed the bass solos in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the ensemble laBarocca in Milan. Since 2017 he has regularly given recitals in which he accompanies himself – as was customary in Italy in the early 17th century – on the lute or the chitarrone. As the winner of the Tullio Serafin International Singing Competition in 2022, Marco Saccardin received acclaim from both press and public in his debut as Leporello (Don Giovanni) at the Teatro Olimpico.
Salvo Vitale
Bass | Caronte
Born in Catania, Salvo Vitale began singing at the Scuola Civica in Milan. He then continued training with Eduardo Abumradi, Edith Martelli and Anatoli Goussev, and specialized in Baroque music with Alan Curtis. At concerts he sings madrigals as well cantatas, oratorios and Baroque operas. As a soloist he works with the most prestigious Baroque ensembles, such as A Sei Voci (Bernard Fabre-Garrus), Athestis (Filippo Maria Bressan), La Cappella della Pietà de’ Turchini (Antonio Florio), Il Complesso Barocco (Alan Curtis), the Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera (Diego Fasolis), Concerto (Roberto Gini), Elyma (Gabriel Garrido), Pian & Forte (Antonio Frigé), Harmonices Mundi (Claudio Astronio), I Madrigalisti Ambrosiani e Il Canto di Orfeo (Gianluca Capuano), Odecathon (Paolo Da Col), La Risonanza (Fabio Bonizzoni), La Stagione Armonica (Sergio Balestracci) and La Venexiana (Claudio Cavina). Admired and appreciated for his deep baritone voice and wide vocal range, he has sung at major international venues, including La Scala in Milan, Opéra de Paris, Dutch National Opera, Opéra de Dijon, Stavovske Divadlo in Prague, Palau de la Música Catalana of Barcelona, Teatro Regio in Torino, Carnegie Hall in New York, Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires, Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Opera City Hall in Tokyo, Opéra royal de Versailles, and Opéra royal de Wallonie (Liège).
Massimo Altieri
Tenor | Apollo / Pastore 2 / Spirito 1
Massimo Altieri was born in Rovigo and graduated in 2004 from the Bologna Conservatory, where he studied classical guitar. He began intensive singing studies the same year as a member of the Coro Polifonico Città di Rovigo. Since 2007 he has worked with leading early-music groups and other prestigious ensembles, including La Venexiana (Davide Pozzi), laBarocca (Ruben Jais), Il Canto di Orfeo and Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco (Gianluca Capuano), La Fonte Musica (Michele Pasotti), Concerto Italiano (Rinaldo Alessandrini) and Accademia Bizantina (Ottavio Dantone). In 2013 he became a member of the Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera. With this group and the ensemble I Barocchisti, directed by Diego Fasolis, he has appeared in a wide repertory, including solo parts. His solo performances since then have included Mozart’s Requiem and Handel’sMessiahwith the Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana, First Shepherd (L’Orfeo) under Ottavio Dantone in Ravenna and Ferrara, and, in the 2022-23 season, Monteverdi’sVespro della Beata Verginewith La Fonte Musica at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Tempo in Handel’sIl trionfo del Tempo e del Disingannounder Fasolis at the Opéra de Lausanne, and Nicola in Vanni Moretto’sDe vernuftige edelman Don Quichot van La Mancha, an opera composed for Opera2Day which has been performed in numerous theatres in the Netherlands. Massimo Altieri is a member of Walter Testolin’s ensemble RossoPorpora, with which he has recorded the albumL’amoroso & crudo stile, dedicated to the music of Luca Marenzio, and Monteverdi’s Sixth Book of Madrigals.
