Greek, young and talented.

I' ve been thinking about a new section of parsifal's lately,
dedicated to young greek singers that i like.
They 're not many, but they 're quite a few.

First on the list is Mary-Ellen Nesi.

As we learn from her official website :

Born in Montreal, Canada, of Greek parents, Mary-Ellen Nesi studied in Athens under Misa Ikeutsi, graduating with distinction in 1994. She also studied at the Mayer-Lismann Opera Center in London and took voice lessons from Ernst Haefliger in Zurich, Arrigo Pola in Modena, Frangiskos Voutsinos and Kostas Paskalis in Athens.

In opera she has performed the title roles in Handel’s Serse and Oreste, Ruggiero in Alcina, Andronico in Tamerlano, Polinesso in Ariodante, Iside in Giove in Argo, Megacle in the first world revival of Paisiello’s L’Olimpiade, Orfeo in Orfeo ed Euridice, Adalgisa in Norma, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Penelope in Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, Antiope in the first world revival of Vivaldi’s Ercole su’l Termodonte (in Spoleto Festival 2006 under Alan Curtis), Anastasio in Vivaldi’s Giustino, Mitrena in Vivaldi’s Motezuma, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Ramiro in La Finta Giardiniera, Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel, Bradamante in Orlando Furioso, Teresa in La Sonnambula, Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana, Tebaldo in Don Carlos and principal roles in operas by contemporary Greek composers such as Helen of Sparta in The Return of Helen by Thanos Mikroutsikos, Night in Manuel Salinas by Periklis Koukos, and others.

Mary-Ellen Nesi has appeared at major international venues such as the Carnegie Hall, the Avery Fisher Hall (NY), the Places des Arts (Montreal), the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées (Paris), the Teater an der Wien (Vienna), the Arriaga (Bilbao), the Sao Carlos Opera (Lisbon), the Comunale (Florence), the Monumental (Madrid), the Caio Melisso (Spoleto), the Wiesbaden Opera House, the Teatro de la Maestranza (Seville) and festivals such as the Spoleto Festival, the Göttingen and the Halle Händel Festspielen, the Santiago de Compostela Festival, the Athens Festival and she is a regular guest at the Greek National Opera, the Megaron of Athens, the Megaron of Thessaloniki, the Opera of Thessaloniki.

Great CV, huh?

Her last engagement was the role of Andronico (Tamerlano) at the Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich) which is something like the Baroque Mecca.
The performance was broadcast and a recording is available. I hope that later today i will upload some fragments of this and other performances featuring Mary-Ellen Nesi.

But first, here's a wonderfully sung aria (well, two actually) from "Ercole Sul' Termodonte" at the Festival di Due Mondi di Spoleto (yes, it's the famous "naked" production)
with Mary-Ellen as Antiope: