The idea of a singer-as-storyteller and the thoughts it provokes about the recipients of my performance have accompanied me for many years -- perhaps even from the time when I started to sing for an audience.

How much does the poetic text and its musical realization, but also my own reception and interpretation of it, influence my narrative style? In which situations do I embody a dramatized personality whose existence is independent of an audience, and when do I deliberately establish contact with the listener(s) as if to tell them a story, thus bridging the gulf between hall and stage?

Leonardo Leo, born in Naples in 1694, studied under Nicola Fago and probably also under Alessandro Scarlatti. He made a name for himself with oratorios and comic operas -- the latter in Neapolitan dialect -- as well as sacred music for the Mass. He taught at two conservatories in Naples in addition to his positions as maestro di capella of the church of Santa Maria dei Turchini and in the royal chapel.

The conflicting loyalties of Neapolitan audiences (some preferring Leo, others his rival Durante) cultivated the flexibility of his style:

As human beings, we have the privilege of making conscious decisions -- indeed, we must make them, but their true consequences often become evident long after the fact. Even lengthy consideration and weighing of the options cannot always guide us properly, so that we sometimes act prematurely or shrink from making a decision at all.