...yesterday even more so, the exhibition of Belcanto in it's purest form, offered by Jessica Pratt, was sublime. It was the first time that the soprano rose to the main stage of "Les Artes" to sing an opera, after the brief appearance in the infamous auditorium in 2015 in Mozart's Davidde Penitente, from which we had good impressions, but nothing compared to the master lesson of last night. Jessica Pratt dazzled us with a spectacular vocal brilliance, an uncontested dominance of the upper range and an exquisite and polished vocal line, producing delicate and ethereal sounds without loosing body or presence. A refined singing, adorned with elegant control (sensational, for example, the pianissimi in Giusto Dio che umile adoro); an uncontaminated coloratura in which every note is placed with perfect refinement; every mordente; every trill; every picchiettato; every detail of the score was perfectly heard, transformed in those celestial sounds that the Australian soprano offered us yesterday.

Jessica Pratt, the english soprano (Bristol 1979), living in Australia, who is becoming one of todays reference "belcantista", sang Amenaide, challenging such an inspired Barcelona, and offering us an extraordinary replica that has suspended the physical sensation of space and time, during the second act, with her aria "che Dio Giusto adorano umile". Pratt has a beautiful, clear and penetrating light soprano lyrical voice, both on the high and extremely high registry, of explosive precision. But what I liked most about her performance was in fact this dominion of the voice and of the audience. Only the greatest artists are able to impose the silence. That silence that is overwhelmingly noticeable when a singer distributes pauses to a theater absolutely at it's feet. She did it with great sensibility, with careful and clear musicality, with a dazzling technique, with ornaments, trills and scales at the service of emotions. Stratospheric in the duets with Tancredi, in a joyous alternation of beauty at the service of singing. Belcanto, the most pure, the most beautiful.

Soprano Jessica Pratt had already given us a small taste of her capabilities, two years ago, in a brief appearance for Mozart's Davidde Penitente. Friday she assumed the role of Amenaide and did it with an homogeneous timbre over the whole vocal register and with a projected vocal position. The English soprano received one of the loudest ovations before the curtain call and maintained the quality throughout the opera, refining arias of extreme difficulty with emphasis and elegance. Should we make a ranking, now that the season is ending, Pratt is without any doubt, the great triumpher.

The excellent performance of both the mezzo Barcellona and soprano Pratt add to the brave and passioned musical direction of Roberto Abbado... No less the British soprano Jessica Pratt with a captivating voice and a prodigious agility, has played an Amenaide that fights against adversities... Pratt clearly obtained the favor of the public with the virtuosity with which she sang arias and cavatinas such as "No, che il morir non è", in addition to beautiful duets with Daniela Barcellona. The two protagonists fought the brass with courage, since their respective scores are of a great vocal exigency. They offered evocative moments in which, above all, they emphasized the beauty of their voices.

Amenaide is the fresh and young Jessica Pratt, with silvery voice, and easy coloratura.

It was a moment of great emotional depth by Daniela Barcellona (Tancredi) and a superb Jessica Pratt (Amenaide), emphasized by the orchestra and its director Roberto Abbado with an impressive piano that led to silence, namely death.