Margherita Maria Sala is the First Prize winner of the 2020 Internationaler Gesangswettbewerb für Barockoper Pietro Antonio Cesti where she also received the Audience Prize and the Special Prize of the Festival Resonanzen at the Wiener Konzerthaus.
Born in Lecco, Italy, Margherita Maria Sala began her musical education as a child under the guidance of her parents, both musicians. In addition to her early violin studies, she studied singing in the polyphonic vocal group ‘Famiglia Sala’ composed of the seven members of her own family.
Margherita Maria Sala has an internationally renown solo career, thanks to which she performed in important venues, working with the most accomplished conductors. Riccardo Muti invited her to sing Vivaldi’s Magnificat with the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra in Lourdes and Loreto. She made her debut at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in 2021 with Handel’s ‘Oreste’ alongside Franco Fagioli and under the baton of Maxim Emelyanychev and has since returned there as Bradamante in Vivaldi’s ‘Orlando furioso’ and Aristea in the same composer’s ‘L’Olimpiade’, both with Jean-Christophe Spinosi.
Margherita Maria Sala is a regular guest at the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik where she sang, under Alessandro De Marchi, Pasquini’s ‘Idalma’, the Italian version of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and Vivaldi’s ‘L’Olimpiade’, and also performed for the Theater an der Wien and Moscow’s Čajkovsky Hall, conducted by Federico Maria Sardelli.
Some past engagements include ‘Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo’ (Piacere) by Emilio de’ Cavalieri in a production by Giovanni Antonini / Robert Carsen at Theater an der Wien and Monteverdi’s ‘Orfeo’ (Speranza) in a production by Ottavio Dantone / Pier Luigi Pizzi at Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna.
Margherita Maria Sala has performed Handel’s Messiah conducted by Franco Fagioli in Versailles and Barcelona, ‘La Resurrezione’ (Cleofe) with Concerto Copenhagen at the Wiener Konzerthaus and ‘Aci, Galatea and Polifemo’ (Galatea) at the Händel-Festspiele Halle.
Recent and future engagements include Handel’s ‘Agrippina’ (Narcissus) at Seine Musicale in Paris under the baton of Ottavio Dantone, Vivaldi’s ‘L’Olimpiade’ (Aristea) with Jean-Christophe Spinosi at the Opéra Nice Côte d’Azur and Handel’s ‘Aci, Galatea and Polifemo’ (Galatea) with Francesco Corti in Montréal. Margherita has performed in concert with Gianluca Capuano at the Bach Festival in Lausanne, with Enrico Onofri in Clermont-Ferrand and Vichy, and with Giulio Prandi at the Musikgebouw Amsterdam, Brussels Bozar and deSingel in Antwerp as well as at the Barokkfest in Trondheim.
Recent and upcoming engagements include the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi under the baton of Riccardo Muti, the ‘Lamentationes Jeremiae prophetae pro hebdomada sancta’ by Jan Dismas Zelenka and Mozart’s Requiem in Dresden, Prague and Paris with Vaclav Luks and Collegium 1704, ‘Cesare in Egitto’ by Geminiano Giacomelli in Innsbruck and ‘Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria’ by Monteverdi with Accademia Bizantina and Ottavio Dantone, ‘Aci, Galatea and Polifemo’ under the baton of Marco Vitale in Victoria. Margherita stars as title role in the sacred Oratorio ‘Gioseffo che interpreta i sogni’ in Turin with Alessandro De Marchi, in Handel’s ‘Rodelinda’ in Kiel, with Alessandro Quarta, in Terradella’s ‘Merope’ at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Theater an der Wien and the Teatro Real de Madrid, conducted by Francesco Corti.