Cecilia Bartoli starts a protégé label
mainTo mark 30 years with Decca, Cecilia Bartoli has been given a label of her own on which to develop new talent. It’s called Mentored by Bartoli.
Her first debutant is the Mexican tenor Javier Camarena.
This is a smart move on both sides. Bartoli, the biggest selling female singer since Callas, can start organising her legacy and Decca will continue to benefit from her artistic acuity and entrepreneurial flair.
Didn’t EMI have a similar enterprise involving Martha Argerich and some of her protégés?
The Lugano Festival was founded as a joint project by Argerich/EMI (the greatly missed Jurg (Abdul) Grand) as a seedbed for both talented young artists and established artists, who were able to work together and the results released annually as a box set.
I miss the pre-Universal days of London/Decca and Deutsche Grammophon
However it’s a bit strange to have Javier Camarena under this label . He is quite an established artist and in many ways already a star. So not sure that he needs to be presented on a label that develops new stars. Somehow defeats the purpose
I wondered about that, too.
Javier Camarena has been working many years with Cecilia in many productions – I would consider him as equal and not as a “young singer” who needs a mentor. But it is clear that Cecilia has a lot of power in that business – she decides also about conductor in productions and stage directors. She works a lot with the stage directors Courier/Leiser for many many productions. Wouldn’t surprise me if she presents next soprano Rebecca Olvera or Tenor Edgardo Rocha.