Barbara Frittoli enjoys a major international career and is considered one of the greatest lyrico-spinto sopranos of her generation.
She was born in Milan and grew up close to the city’s Guiseppe Verdi Conservatoire where she began taking piano lessons as a child. During the conservatoire’s compulsory choral classes her teachers spotted her potential and after some persuasion she switched to singing, studying with Giovanna Canetti (with whom she still works) and graduating with the highest honours.
One of her earliest professional roles was Ines Il trovatore in Florence alongside Luciano Pavarotti and conducted by Zubin Mehta, and Verdi has been at the heart of her repertoire ever since alongside Mozart. Her major roles include Contessa Le nozze di Figaro, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte, Desdemona Otello and Alice Falstaff.
Barbara has probably appeared in every major opera house in the world. In her debut season at the Metropolitan Opera she sang Micaëla Carmen and Mimì La bohème. She was Alice in Falstaff in the first production when the Royal Opera House opened after its refurbishment and she sang Liù with Zubin Mehta in the famous outdoor performance of ‘Turandot in the Forbidden City’.
She has worked extensively with Riccardo Muti and was the soprano soloist on his Grammy-award winning recording of Verdi’s Requiem. The many other conductors she has worked with include Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Mackerras, Sir Antonio Pappano, Semyon Bychkov and Riccardo Chailly. She received the Echo Klassik Female Singer of the Year award in 2001 for her recording of Mozart arias.
Barbara teaches at the Georg Solti Accademia and on the Verbier Festival Atelier Lyrique. Her first visit to Samling was cancelled during the pandemic, so we’re delighted that we’re finally able to welcome her to our Artist Programme in November 2024.
