Antonino Fogliani was born in Messina and graduated as a pianist before studying conducting at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He went on to work with Franco Donatoni and Enrico Moricone at the Accademia Chigiana and was an assistant to Gianluigi Gelmetti. His début at the Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival in 2001 was followed by engagements in major opera houses including La Fenice, Teatro dell’Opera, Teatro di San Carlo, the Opéra Comique and La Scala. International engagements have taken him to Monte Carlo, Moscow, Houston, and Barcelona, among others. In 2011 he was appointed music director at Rossini in Wildbad, and is currently Principal Guest Conductor in Deutsche Oper am Rheim in Düsseldorf.

www.antoninofogliani.com

Soprano Silvia Dalla Benetta won first prize at the 2004 Sanremo Opera Competition that led to her international career and collaborations with distinguished directors and conductors. In the 2014-15 season she made her coloratura debut in Nabucco in Malta. She appeared in Catania as Fiorilla and in Nice as Semiramide. In 2016 she sang in Les Huguenots, having appeared the previous autumn in Sassari in Rossini’s Elisabetta and in Lucerne as Norma. Silvia Dalla Benetta has previously appeared as Isabella in Rossini’s L’Inganno felice on the Dynamic label (37760, DVD), in which American Record Guide wrote “Silvia Dalla Benetta brings out the several facets of Isabella’s character – her fear, her caution, her confidence, and her love. She has a fine lyric-coloratura soprano just right for the role.”

www.silviadallabenetta.it

Tenor Maxim Mironov made his debut at the Helikon Opera Theatre in Moscow. Career highlights include performances at the Vienna State Opera, Glyndebourne, Washington National Opera, Las Palmas Opera, the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival, Saxony State Opera and Rossini in Wildbad. Mironov enjoys a particular reputation as a leggero tenor and has collaborated with renowned conductors and directors. He has performed many lead tenor roles in the Rossini in Wildbad recordings, including Count Libenskof in Il viaggio a Reims (8.660382-84) in which Opera News praised his “dulcet timbres, exceptional flexibility and instinctive, enchantingly graceful phrasing.” In his performance as Uberto in La donna dal lago (8.660235-36), MusicWeb International wrote “[Mironov] brings to the role a brilliant technique and a lovely fluency in the fioriture.”

www.maximmironov.com

The Camerata Bach Choir was founded in 2003 by Tomasz Potkowski in Poznań. The members consist mainly of soloists from the Poznań Opera chorus and the Kraków Philharmonic Choir. Its repertoire includes works by Bach, Handel and Mozart. Since 2010 the choir has served as ensemble in residence for the Rossini in Wildbad Opera Festival.

The Virtuosi Brunensis chamber orchestra was established in 2007 from two of the best known Czech orchestras – the Brno Janáček Theatre Orchestra and the Brno Philharmonic. Under the guidance of artistic director Karel Mitáš the orchestra has appeared, among other engagements, at the Bad Hersfeld Opera Festival and at the Rossini in Wildbad Opera Festival, where it has recorded Rossini’s Otello, L’Italiana in Algeri, Semiramide and Guillaume Tell, Vaccaj’s La sposa di Messina and Mercadante’s I briganti for Naxos.