Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage Randall Scotting, Mary Bevan, Academy of Ancient Music & Laurence Cummings

• Riccardo Broschi (1698 - 1756): Idaspe:
• 1 Broschi: Idaspe: Mostro crudel, che fai? 04:34
• Francesco Gasparini (1661 - 1727): Ambleto:
• 2 Gasparini: Ambleto: Porto Piagato in Petto 03:01
• George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759): Rinaldo, HWV 7a (1711 Version):
• 3 Handel: Rinaldo, HWV 7a (1711 Version): Sinfonia 01:01
• Rinaldo, HWV 7a:
• 4 Handel: Rinaldo, HWV 7a: Cara Sposa 09:59
• Nicola Porpora (1686 - 1768): Siface:
• 5 Porpora: Siface: Spiegami il tuo desio 05:55
• George Frideric Handel: Amadigi, HWV 11:
• 6 Handel: Amadigi, HWV 11: Oh notte! - Notte amica 04:47
• Nicola Porpora: Siface:
• 7 Porpora: Siface: Come nave in mezzo all'onda 05:28
• Francesco Gasparini: Antioco:
• 8 Gasparini: Antioco: Per te bell'idol mio 04:48
• Francesco Mancini (1672 - 1737): Idaspe Fedele:
• 9 Mancini: Idaspe Fedele: E vano ogni pensiero 08:56
• George Frideric Handel: Rinaldo, HWV 7a (1711 Version):
• 10 Handel: Rinaldo, HWV 7a (1711 Version): Venti turbini 05:02
• Attilio Ariosti (1666 - 1729): Tito manilo:
• 11 Ariosti: Tito manilo: Nò, non piangete nò 04:42
• Francesco Gasparini: Tomiri:
• 12 Gasparini: Tomiri: Sì, t'indendo o core amante 03:41
• Antioco:
• 13 Gasparini: Antioco: Questo conforto 05:47
• Giovanni Antonio Giai (1690 - 1764): Mitridate:
• 14 Giai: Mitridate: Pensa se ancor 05:17
• George Frideric Handel: Amadigi, HWV 11:
• 15 Handel: Amadigi, HWV 11: Crudel tu non farai 05:30
• Total Runtime 01:18:28

Info for Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage

Divine Impresario is countertenor Randall Scotting’s portrait of the celebrated castrato Nicolò Grimaldi (“Nicolini”), performed with the Academy of Ancient Music and Laurence Cummings. Drawing on arias and duets written for Nicolini by Handel, Porpora, Gasparini, Mancini, Giaj, Broschi, and Ariosti, the album revives music closely tied to his stage career across Italy and London. Many pieces are recorded in new performing editions based on early sources. With contributions from soprano Mary Bevan, the programme highlights Nicolini’s influence as singer, actor, and collaborator, presenting repertoire that shaped early 18th-century opera.

Randall Scotting, countertenor
Mary Bevan, soprano
Academy of Ancient Music
Laurence Cummings, conductor

Randall Scotting
has become a sought-after artist by some of the world’s most esteemed opera houses. Recent years have seen a string of impressive debuts, all highly-praised by the international press, including singing to sold-out audiences at London’s Royal Opera House as Apollo in Britten’s Death in Venice, performing the role of Michael at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Haas’s newly composed opera Thomas, and as Adone (Adonis) at Staatsoper Hamburg in the world premiere of Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone. A dramatically persuasive and intensely musical interpreter, Randall is recognised for winning over audiences with his stunning vocal beauty, stylish singing, and charismatic stage presence. He has worked with the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Carnegie Hall, Sant Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Göttingen Handel Festival, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, Boston Baroque and many others. He has been particularly lauded for the leads in Handel’s Rinaldo, Orlando, and Giulio Cesare; Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Gluck’s Orfeo. Upcoming, he debuts at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice as the Adone in Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone.

In addition to performing on stage, Randall has released a series of acclaimed albums on the Signum Classics label. His debut solo album with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Laurence Cummings conducting was entitled The Crown: Heroic Arias for Senesino (2022). He then collaborated with lutenist and Grammy award winner Stephen Stubbs on Lovesick (2022) recording songs of heartbreak and solitude. His most recent recording was Infinite Refrain (2023), consisting of gay love duets from 17th-century Venice with tenor Jorge Navarro Colorado and the Academy of Ancient Music. These albums have been noted as: ‘ground-breaking‘ (Limelight), ‘highly ambitious’, ‘revelatory and significant‘ (Opera Wire), ‘skillfully planned and beautifully executed‘ (Gramophone), and an ‘enchantment of riches’ (Music Web International). Scotting himself has been recogised on these projects for: ‘ravishing vocalism’ (BBC Music Magazine), and ‘full, darkly mellifluous’ singing (Gramophone) while being ‘virile and layered‘ (Opera Wire), ‘confident and stylish’ (Limelight), and possessing ‘real musical intelligence’(Opera). Upcoming, he releases his next solo album Divine Impresario, once again collaborating with the Academy of Ancient Music and Laurence Cummings, exploring the virtuosic music composed for the famed castrato Nicolini.

Mary Bevan
Praised by Opera for her “dramatic wit and vocal control” in stand-out performances of Baroque, Classical and contemporary repertoire, Mary Bevan appears regularly with leading orchestras and ensembles worldwide.

During the 2025/26 season, Bevan makes her debut with the Dutch National Opera as Neola in a new Michel van der Aa commission entitled Theory of Flames, sings the role of Pat Nixon in John Adams’s Nixon in China conducted by the composer in Rome, returns to the Semperoper Dresden as Michal in Handel’s Saul, and appears in concert as Almirena in Rinaldo on tour with the English Concert (Harry Bicket) and as Galatea in Acis and Galatea with the Early Opera Company (Christian Curnyn). Other concert plans include Handel’s Messiah with the Gabrieli Consort (Paul McCreesh), Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Netherlands Bach Choir (Richard Egarr), John Adams’s Le Livre de Baudelaire with The Hallé (John Adams), Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Aurora Orchestra (Nicholas Collon) and a return to Wigmore Hall for a solo evening recital.

In recent seasons Bevan has sung the title role of La Calisto with the Bayerische Staatsoper, La Folie in Platée for the Opernhaus Zurich, Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare and Morgana in Alcina with Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Morgana with the Royal Ballet and Opera, Eurydice in Orfeo ed Eurydice for Teatro La Fenice, Dalinda in Ariodante at the Bolshoi Theatre, Rose Maurrant in Weill’s Street Scene for the Opera de Monte Carlo and Teatro Real Madrid, and Bellezza in Il Trionfo del tempo e del desinganno and Marzelline in Fidelio for the Royal Danish Opera. Her many roles for the English National Opera include Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Yum-Yum in The Mikado and Despina in Cosi fan Tutte. Elsewhere, Bevan has sung the title roles of Rossi’s Orpheus at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and of Turnage’s Coraline at the Barbican, and appeared as Lila in David Bruce’s The Firework-Maker’s Daughter.

Bevan’s many recent concert appearances have included her Carnegie Hall debut as Dalinda with the English Concert, Creation at the Barbican with the Academy of Ancient Music, Sally Beamish’s The Judas Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and her return to the 2022 BBC Proms with Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Bevan has toured extensively across Europe, Australia, Asia and the US with the Kammerorchester Basel, Australian Chamber Orchestra and English Concert (Harry Bicket), and has performed numerous world premieres, including Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, A. Bliss’s Rout with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Roxanna Panufnik’s Faithful Journey with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She has also sung with the Handel and Haydn Society Boston, Philharmonia Baroque, and the BBC Symphony and BBC Concert orchestras, and appears regularly in recital at Wigmore Hall.

Bevan’s wide-ranging discography includes numerous releases on Signum Records and her most recent, Elegy, is for release in October 2025; also for the label are a recording of orchestral French song entitled Visions Illuminées, art song albums Voyages and Divine Muse with pianist Joseph Middleton, Handel’s Queens, and A Most Marvellous Party featuring the music of Noël Coward with tenor Nicky Spence. Other albums include Handel's The Triumph of Time and Truth and Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No.3 and Schubert’s Rosamunde with the BBC Philharmonic, Arthur Sullivan songs (Chandos), Vaughan Williams folk songs (Albion), and Brahms’s Liebesliederwaltzer (Resonus).

Bevan is a winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist award and UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent in music. She was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list in 2019 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2025.

Laurence Cummings
is one of Britain's most exciting and versatile exponents of historical performance both as a conductor and a harpsichord player. A noted authority on Handel, the Guardian has written of him “he now ranks as one of the composer’s best advocates in the world. Self-effacing on the podium, faithful above all to the score, he matches Handel’s energy and invention with unmistakable lyricism, generosity and dignity.”

He is Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music and Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música in Porto and has previously held positions as Artistic Director of the Internationale Händel-Festpiele Göttingen (2011 – 2021) and Musical Director of the London Handel Festival (1999 – 2024).

Frequently praised for his stylish and compelling performances in the opera house, his career has taken him across Europe, conducting new productions at houses including Royal Ballet and Opera Covent Garden (Jephtha, Bernice), Opernhaus Zurich (Belshazzar, King Arthur), Oper Frankfurt (Hercules), Dutch National Opera (Idomeneo), Theater an der Wien (Saul), Gothenburg Opera (Orfeo ed Euridice, Giulio Cesare, Alcina and Idomeneo), Theater Basel (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Halle Handel Festival (Agrippina), Théâtre du Châtelet Paris (Saul) and Opera de Lyon (Messiah). He has worked with directors including Barrie Koskie, David McVicar, Christoph Marthaler, Deborah Warner, Adele Thomas, Claus Guth, Oliver Mears, Sebastian Baumgarten, John Caird, Graham Vick and Peter Sellars. In the UK he has appeared regularly for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera, Garsington Opera and Opera North.

Equally at home on the concert platform, he is regularly invited to conduct both period and modern instrument orchestras worldwide. In recent seasons this has included Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Netherlands Bach Society, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Tonnkunstler Orchester Graffeneg, Music of the Baroque Chicago, St Paul Chamber Orchestra Minneapolis, St Louis Symphony, and Handel and Haydn Society Boston.

His recordings include orchestral discs on BIS, Sony BMG, Harmonia Mundi and Chandos, as well as a series of live opera and concert performances recorded at the Göttingen International Handel Festival and released on Accent.

In addition to his commitments with Academy of Ancient Musica and Orquestra Barocca Casa da Musica, highlights for 25/26 include productions of Guilio Cesare for Oper Frankfurt and Il ritorno d’Ulisse for Garsington Opera as well as appearances with Manchester Camerata, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

Booklet for Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage