Bonaventura Bottone

 
Bonaventura Bottone (born 19 September 1950 in London) is an operatic tenor who has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses. He trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London. The Academy awarded him a Fellowship in 1998. He is described by the New Grove Dictionary of Opera as ""a superb actor with a strong, lyrical voice" who "excels in comic roles"".
Early career.
Bonaventura Bottone made his professional debut as Count Almaviva in "The Barber of Seville" with Welsh National Opera in 1973. He subsequently sang Arturo in "Lucia di Lammermoor" in Belfast, a Servant in Richard Strauss's "Capriccio" with Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Bardolfo in Verdi's "Falstaff" for Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1976. He appeared at the Wexford Festival for three consecutive seasons (1977–1979) in Smetana's "The Two Widows", Luigi and Federico Ricci's "Crispino e la comare" and Montemezzi's "L'amore dei tre re".
English National Opera.
Bonaventura Bottone has enjoyed a long and creatively rich partnership with English National Opera. He has created more than twenty roles with the company in diverse repertoire. His roles with the company include: Puccini's Rodolfo ("La bohème"), Luigi ("Il tabarro"), Pinkerton ("Madama Butterfly"); Verdi's Duke of Mantua ("Rigoletto"); Weill's Sam Kaplan ("Street Scene"); Gilbert and Sullivan's Nanki-Poo ("The Mikado"); Offenbach's Mercury ("Orphée aux enfers") and Menelaus ("La Belle Helene"); Berlioz' Faust ("La Damnation de Faust") and Tchaikovsky's Lensky ("Eugene Onegin").
Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
Bottone's appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden include: "Der Rosenkavalier" (Italian Singer); "Die Fledermaus" (Alfred); "Les Huguenots" (Raoul); "Otello" (Cassio); "Il viaggio a Reims" (Count Libenskof); "Capriccio" (Italian Singer); "Sweeney Todd" (Pirelli), "L'heure espagnole" (Torquemade), "La fanciulla del West" (Nick)", Adriana Lecouvreur" (Abbé de Chazeuil) and "Le Nozze di Figaro" (Don Basilio). He also took part in Dame Joan Sutherland's farewell appearance at Covent Garden.
Career in Britain.
Bottone has also sung with: Welsh National Opera, where his roles have included Turridu ("Cavalleria rusticana") and "Le comte Ory"; Opera North, where his roles have included Vana ("Katya Kabanova"), Pedrillo ("Die Entführung aus dem Serail") and Nemorino ("L'elisir d'amore"); and Scottish Opera, where his roles have included Jack ("The Midsummer Marriage"), Narraboth ("Salome") and Loge ("Das Rheingold"). For Glyndebourne Festival Opera, he has sung Alfred ("Die Fledermaus"), the Italian Tenor ("Capriccio") and Tzar Berendey (The Snow Maiden).
Career in Europe.
Bonaventura Bottone's European engagements include: "Die Fledermaus" (Alfred) at the Opéra National de Paris Bastille; "Der Rosenkavalier" (Italian Singer) and "Die Fledermaus" (Alfred) at the Bayerische Staatsoper München; and "The Mikado" (Nanki-Poo) at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.
Career in North America.
Bonaventura Bottone's North American engagements include: "Capriccio" (Italian Singer) and "Andrea Chénier" (Incredibile) at the Metropolitan Opera; "Capriccio" (Italian Tenor), "Die Fledermaus" (Alfred), "Das Rheingold" (Loge) and "Sweeney Todd" (Pirelli) at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; and "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" (Pedrillo) at Houston Grand Opera. In 2008, he was selected by Plácido Domingo and James Conlon to recreate the role of Licht in the forgotten Viktor Ullmann opera Der zerbrochene Krug (The Broken Jug) (Kleist).
Roles.
Four major roles amongst Bonaventura Bottone's wide repertoire have brought him international recognition and acclaim:
Loge – Bottone first performed the role of the fire god in Wagner's "Das Rheingold" in Richard Jones' ground-breaking production for Scottish Opera. Writing in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Elizabeth Forbes described his performance as magnificent. Bottone revived the role for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2004 and 2005, receiving critical acclaim from the Associated Press/"The New York Times", "the Chicago Tribune" and the "Chicago Sun-Sentinel".
Alfred – The amorous tenor from Strauss' 1874 comic opera "Die Fledermaus" has taken Bottone to houses as diverse as the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (DVD available) Die Fledermaus, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Opéra de Paris, Glyndebourne, Santiago de Chile and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is renowned for his arch, perfectly timed performance as the ageing roue.
Nanki-Poo – Bottone performed 98 performances as the 'amorous second trombone' and son of the Mikado in the renowned Jonathan Miller production for English National Opera. The production is available both as an audio recording "The Mikado, Highlights" and as a DVD "The Mikado".
Captain/Governor/Vanderdendur/Ragotski – Leonard Bernstein edited his original score of "Candide" for Scottish Opera, performed at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow in 1988. The four portmanteau roles provide a villainous thread, a continual frustration to Candide's advancement. The roles were re-written specifically for Bottone. He has performed the roles at the Royal Festival Hall, La Scala Milan and the English National Opera to critical acclaim.
Concert performances.
Bonaventura Bottone has an extensive concert repertoire, which has taken him to many of the world's leading concert halls. He has sung with numerous prominent international conductors, including: Richard Bonynge, Sir Andrew Davis, Jacques Delacote, Sir Edward Downes, Sir Mark Elder, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Bernard Haitink KBE CH, Richard Hickox, Vladimir Jurowski, James Levine, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Carlo Rizzi and Jeffrey Tate.
Vocal range.
Bottone's vocal range is from C below middle C to D in Alt.
Current activities.
Bottone is unusual amongst modern-day tenors in retaining much of his original repertoire into his seventh decade. To this has been added a wide range of character repertoire, such as Loge (Das Rheingold), Benda (The Jacobin), Torquemade (L'heure espagnole), Nick (La fanciulla del West), Tzar Berendey (Snow Maiden), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni).
In September 2016, Bottone opened the Sarratt Festival of Music. He is a Patron of Bampton Classical Opera and led the jury for the company's Young Singers' Competition in 2019.