Big voice, big heart

Casually dressed, very easy-going and talkative like a friend in real life, the diva looks every bit a star onstage.

"You have to be noble and serious onstage, that is the art you do. This is the responsibility for an artist to share emotion, to be able to convey emotion. This is what music is about," she says.

When she sang Bizet's La Coccinelle, her voice imitated the sound of beetles.

"That's one reason I love baroque music. You need a flexible voice, like instruments. The voice has to play with the instruments. In baroque music, sometimes you have to make duet with trumpet, or with flute, with oboe or with violin so you play your voice like an instrument. Sometimes, you have to imitate nature. It's fascinating."

Bartoli loves baroque and pre-romantic music, because she started her career with Rossini, Mozart and Handel and then she wanted to know who influenced Mozart, Rossini and wanted to learn the root.

Bartoli has done quite a few operas but never Carmen.

"A good Carmen is very rare to see. Carmen is a very dark piece. In some recent productions, I saw Carmen with flowers here (gestures a flower in mouth), dancing flamingo and smoking cigarette. I think Carmen is more than that. I would love to do Carmen one day with a director who understands the dark side of Carmen," she says.

Obviously, Bartoli is not a simple diva with golden voice and gorgeous performance onstage, but full of interesting ideas. That's why the Salzburg Whitsun Festival chose her to be the artistic director in 2012, on a five-year contract. She is the first woman to hold the position.

"For me it's wonderful to create projects for other musicians. And more important is we must have a theme. The festival is over a long weekend. We have different performances but all follow a red line. It's a huge success. We doubled the sales of tickets this year."

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