Biography
Sergio Foresti (1968) is a virtuoso Italian baritone with a special love for music of the 18th and 19th century. His repertoire encompasses opera from baroque to late romantic, sacred music, and art song up until the 20th century. He mostly sings in Italian, French, German, and English. At the moment, he lives in Berlin and Amsterdam.
Foresti graduated in both opera singing and piano at the conservatory of Modena (Italy). A decade later he also graduated in vocal chamber music in Florence (Italy). From the start of his career, Sergio Foresti explored several musical styles in depth. In polyphonic music, he took the bass part in many concerts and recordings of renaissance madrigals with Concerto Italiano for about 15 years. In that period he also worked with the Italian medieval group LaReverdie.
As a soloist, he performed sacred music in all style periods from the early nineties on. His debut in opera in 1998 was as Alcandro in Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade. Since then he worked with important conductors like René Jacobs, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Fabio Biondi, and Jordi Savall. He performed on many stages all over Europe.
Around 2008 Sergio Foresti noticed his voice changing from the bass into the baritone range. He used this natural change to reconsider his vocal technique and choice of repertoire with a fresh look. He decided to study all over again the belcanto style of singing, which came to life with the invention of opera around 1600. He first focused on technical qualities, such as the even placement of the voice, legato singing, flexibility of the voice, and ornamentations, such as trills. After moving from Rome to Berlin in 2012, he expanded his (re)studies to the old treatises for technical and stylistic insights, especially about different styles of ornamentation. He realized that the early recordings of great singers of the past are a treasure trove of examples of how the belcanto principles can be put into practice. He came to the conclusion that music is above all created to move the soul. This is the approach he wants to follow.
From this deepened understanding of belcanto, he restudied and expanded his operatic and chamber music repertoire. Always working from the music score, he looks for meaningful ways to express the harmony between text and music. While maintaining a strong link to baroque music, he has since performed in operas of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Puccini. On stage he loves to portray dramatic and heroic characters, and he has a knack for comical opera.
Sergio has a number of concert programs: operatic and oratorio arias with the Abchordis Ensemble, Italian chamber cantatas with Ensemble Due Venti, and lieder programs with Costantino Mastroprimiano on the historical piano or with Giulia Manicardi on the grand piano. Apart from performing and researching repertoire, Sergio teaches at a conservatory in Italy.