…She has a very attractive voice of a high mezzosoprano, produced with a very easy and natural technique. She is exceedingly musical and lively and intelligent as an interpreter. She has an excellent command of German, French and English. Her interest in song repertoire is very keen… – Bob Kettleson, Opera de Paris
She was trained at the Conservatorio “G. Verdi” in Milano, then in London (Hancock, MacSherry), Lugano, Switzerland (L. Castellani), Académie de Nice, France (D. Baldwin) and at the Centre Lyrique de l’Opéra Bastille in Paris. She was winner of the “The Actor-Singer” Competition of the W. Walton Foundation and the As.Li.Co. European Competition. She represented Italy at “Cardiff Singer of the World”.
Thanks to her musicianship, sense of theater and language, her repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary. She’s considered among the finest and most versatile Italian performers in 20th century repertoire. Most successful interpretations include the main female characters in operas by Britten, Debussy, Ravel, Strawinsky, Kurt Weill, Humperdinck, Janáček, Rota, Bernstein, Menotti; Mozart’s Sesto, Dorabella, Cherubino, Annio; world premières by Bacalov, Boccadoro, Colasanti, Corghi, D’Amico, Denisov, Francesconi, Furrer, Glass, Ustwolskaja, Vacchi.
Together with Mozart, Benjamin Britten is the composer she has most performed: The Beggar’s Opera, Albert Herring directed by A. Talevi for MMF, The Turn of the Screw including a Chinese première in Beijing, The Rape of Lucretia in Oper Koeln, Teatro Real de Madrid, Maestranza de Sevilla, Genova, Firenze, Bari; A Midsummernight’s Dream in Bari, Macerata Opera Festival, Palermo with Paul Curren; Peter Grimes with Juraj Valčuha in Teatro Comunale di Bologna.
Italian Britten specialist Gabriella Sborgi has the right theatricality to pull off this especially ribald reading of Auntie, and she delivered her text so cleanly you’d assume she were a UK import – BACHTRACK
She has played the role of Dorabella in Strehler’s production of Così fan Tutte at Piccolo Teatro in Milan with Jonas Kaufmann, at Wexford Festival with Martin Isepp, for AsLiCo, at Menhuin Festival in Gstaad (director Thomas Allen); La Clemenza di Tito – Sesto at Klagenfurt Stadttheater, Reggio Emilia, Modena and Fondazione Petruzzelli in Bari – Annio for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino – Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro at Teatro Regio in Torino, Bari, Verona, iTeatri and at Opera Firenze with M.o Zubin Mehta and Jonathan Miller.
At the Cremona Monteverdi Festival, she was Proserpina in L’Orfeo conducted by A. Marcon (Venice Baroque Orchestra) and, at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Nerone in L’incoronazione di Poppea conducted by Ivor Bolton/Luca Ronconi, Maria Santissima in La Fenice sul Rogo by Pergolesi, Santa Rosalia in La Colomba Ferita by Provenzale with FM°lorio/ Cappella della Pietà de Turchini at Teatro San Carlo in Napoli, at Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao and at Zarzuela in Madrid.
For SKY Television, in the TV project by Francesco Micheli “OFF OPERA”, she played Gluck’s roles of Ifigenia, Clitennestra and Orfeo in the production Le Ragazze della Via Gluck, Dido and Penelope in Donne in Attesa di Eroi.
She’s regularly invited for concerts in most renowned venues such as Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Accademia Chigiana, Biennale di Venezia, Festival di Brescia e Bergamo, Unione Musicale di Torino, Orchestra della Radio Svizzera Italiana, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Orchestra della Rai, Amici della Musica di Vicenza e Firenze, Orchestra Verdi di Milano, Sky Classic Television.
She collaborates with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Wung Chung, Benedetti Michelangeli, Bolton, Fasolis, Neschling, Noseda, Oren, Soudant, Jeffrey Tate, Valčuha, musicians like Deutsch, Baldwin, Lucchesini, Ballista, Brunello, Filippini, Rossi, directors like Abbado, Carsen, Curren, Dodin, Hermanis, Hytner, McVicar, Miller, Ovadia, Pelly, Ronconi, Talevi, Scaparro, Strehler.
She recorded for RSI, conducted by M° Diego Fasolis Galimberti’s Dies Irae (first performance in modern times), Haydn’s Stabat Mater and Rossini’s Cantata La Riconoscenza, Stabat Mater and Petite Messe Solennelle. By Belair France, Verdi’s Otello at (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino – Mehta/Dodin); Giorgio Gaslini’s Il ciclo del tempo-Liederbook, A. Favara’s Canti della terra e del mare di Sicilia, for Clarius Audi, Brahms Lieder op.91 and her latest release Towards Verklärte Nacht around Schoenberg, Berg, Zemlinsky and Brahms Lieder.
Recent memorable interpretations include Il Cappello di paglia di Firenze and La Scuola di Guida by Nino Rota, die Mutter in Hänsel und Gretel in Bozen, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges by Ravel with Jeffrey Tate in Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny by Brecht-Weill for Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti conducted by G. Finzi and by the award winning director Fabio Ceresa; Carmen and Nabucco at MOF; Wesendonck Lieder conducted by H. Soudant, Szymanowsky Stabat Mater with Bologna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Italian premiere of P. Glass’s Akhnaten for MiTo, the première of Oltre la Porta by Ligorio/Boccadoro based on Shakespeare King’s Lear for Stresa International Festival; Janáček’s Jenufa in Palermo with Ferro and Robert Carsen and in Bologna with the award winning production directed by Juraj Valčuha and Alvis Hermanis.