Cecilia Bartoli OMRI (born 4 June 1966) is an Italian mezzo-soprano widely known in the music of Bellini, Handel, Mozart, Rossini and Vivaldi and for lesser-known music of the Baroque and Classical periods. She has also sung soprano and alto repertory. Bartoli is considered a singer with an unusual timbre. According to Nicholas Wroe in 2001, her voice was known for its "fully developed sumptuousness of the lower register, the vibrancy of the middle range...the top was limpid and powerful", and she was one of the most popular opera singers of recent years. Bartoli was born in Rome. Her parents, Silvana Bazzoni and Pietro Angelo Bartoli, were professional singers and gave her her first music lessons. She first performed publicly at age nine as the shepherd boy in Tosca. Bartoli later studied at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome....