Love Quote by Cecilia Bartoli

Bartoli isn’t just praising Handel; she’s staking a claim in a repertoire economy where “what gets performed” is as political as it is aesthetic. The line reads like a gentle artist’s wish list, but the subtext is strategic: Handel is canon, Vivaldi is brandable, and she’s positioning herself as the singer who can make the case for both without sounding like she’s campaigning.

“I did lots of Vivaldi” carries the faintest whiff of self-awareness. Over the last few decades, Vivaldi has been the baroque composer you can sell as vivid, virtuosic, instantly pleasurable - the red-haired hitmaker with a huge back catalog that modern recording culture loves to mine. Bartoli was central to that revival, and she knows it. By pivoting to “it’s also important,” she reframes repertoire choice as responsibility, not preference. That phrasing flatters audiences and institutions: if you book Handel, you’re not indulging a niche; you’re doing the right thing.

Then comes the rhetorical anchoring: “one of the greatest composers of the 18th century.” It’s a credential, but it’s also a shield against the gatekeeping that sometimes shadows historically informed performance - the suspicion that specialization equals smallness. Bartoli’s intent is to widen the lane for her artistry: more Handel means more dramatic characterization, more text-driven emotional precision, more public-facing opera stakes. In an era where classical musicians must curate narratives as much as programs, she’s quietly arguing that taste can be both adventurous and mainstream, and that the canon still has corners left to rediscover.