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Vivaldi : Il Giustino
Ottavio Dantone
Full Operas - Released November 16, 2018 | naïve classique
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5 de Diapason -
Gramophone Editor's Choice -
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Beatrice di Tenda
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Classical - Released January 1, 1993 | Brilliant Classics
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Mozart: Don Giovanni
Freiburger Barockorchester
Opera - Released January 1, 2007 | harmonia mundi
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Haendel: Opera Seria
Sandrine Piau
Classical - Released November 2, 2004 | naïve classique
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Vincenzo Bellini : Capulets et Montaigus
Riccardo Muti
Classical - Released January 1, 1985 | Warner Classics
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Louise Bertin: Fausto
Les Talens Lyriques
Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Bru Zane
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The classical best-seller charts are unfamiliar environs for the Palazzetto Bru Zane label, which specializes in forgotten 19th century opera. However, this release achieved best-seller status in early 2024, and this is absolutely no surprise, for Louise Bertin's Fausto is a remarkable work. One wonders how long it will take programmers to present it in a cycle with Berlioz's and Gounod's versions of the Faust tale (and perhaps Arrigo Boito's); the work is colorful in the extreme and is sure to be a crowd-pleaser even though it closed after three performances in 1831 and was shelved for the next 190 years. Perhaps the opera mixed so many influences that audiences just did not know what to make of it. Bertin, who was 25 when the work had its premiere in Paris, wrote the libretto herself in Italian. It has all the trappings of Rossinian opera -- fortepiano-accompanied recitative, aria, scena, preghiera, cavatina, big multi-part finales ending with a fast stretta -- but the effect of the music is completely different, and the settings stand up to the weighty aspect of the material. It is as if Weber had written a Faust opera, sometimes even as if Beethoven had written one. The role of Faust is sung by a mezzo-soprano, which is how Bertin wrote it, although a tenor version also exists. This results in intriguing equal-status duets between Karine Deshayes as Fausto and Karina Gauvin as Margarita. Conductor Christophe Rousset catches the ambition and the drama; his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques uses historical instruments but wisely bulks up to an adequate size for the work. Palazzetto Bru Zane, as usual, does the opera justice sonically with a studio recording. This is a remarkable release, not only for lovers of 19th century opera or those interested in music by women, but for anyone.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Psyché
Christophe Rousset
Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Boulanger, Fauré, Hahn
William Youn
Classical - Released December 15, 2023 | Sony Classical - Sony Music
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Verdi: Rigoletto
Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Opera - Released November 10, 2017 | Delos
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Nashville is rough on the living, but she really speaks well of the dead, says a country song, and opera is the same way. Recordings by the late Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky have soared on the charts since his untimely death. Along with the superb song album Russia Cast Adrift, this one makes a suitable memorial. Hvorostovsky was never a typical Italian opera baritone, and that was what made his performances of Rigoletto over the years so well loved; they stood apart from the crowd. This version was made in Kaunas, Lithuania (in the Philharmonic Hall -- it is not a live recording), in 2016, after the baritone's diagnosis with brain cancer. Cognoscenti may grouse that at certain junctures Hvorostovsky's voice has less power than formerly (which, at his age, would have been true even without his illness), but the essential qualities that made him a great Rigoletto are on full display here. Where Western baritones sing, Hvorostovsky growls, rasps, and snarls, and the role of the exquisitely bitter jester has rarely come alive as it does here. The rest of the cast is decidedly not as strong; soprano Nadine Sierra can't decide whether Gilda should be a wounded innocent or something more substantial, and her pitches are often less than stable. Yet this is how it should be. With a star of Hvorostovsky's magnitude, the focus should be on the star, and that is where it resides. Clean accompaniment by the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra that effectively stays out of his way is another plus. An essential for Hvorostovsky lovers.
© TiVo
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Maurice Yvain: Yes!
Les Frivolités Parisiennes
Classical - Released March 22, 2024 | Alpha Classics
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Casta Diva - Operatic arias transcribed for trumpet
Matilda Lloyd
Opera - Released April 28, 2023 | Chandos
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Five years after her solo debut recording, Direct Message, which programmed 20th and 21st century works for trumpet and piano, trumpet player Matilda Lloyd departs the traditional repertoire (aside from the two Arban arrangements from the Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet). Instead of following more well-worn routes, Lloyd elects to present a program of Romantic period opera arias, mostly in arrangements for trumpet and chamber orchestra (undertaken here by the Britten Sinfonia under Rumon Gamba) by William Foster, who worked closely with Lloyd on this project. Lloyd's skill as a musician is evident throughout, though the two Arban tracks most clearly allow her abilities to shine. The arrangements throughout are good, though how much they add to the performances rather than transcriptions and transpositions is up for debate. Lloyd notes with excitement the decision to include two pieces by Pauline Viardot, and one of the highlights here is the treatment of Viardot's Havanaise. This is certainly a trumpet release aimed at a wider audience than trumpet and brass circles, and it has already found success on the retail market. Chandos delivers just the right atmosphere from the Church of St. Augustine, Kilburn, in London. The future is bright for this trumpeter, and one looks forward to where her path may take her.
© Keith Finke /TiVo
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Dreams (Gounod, Donizetti, Bellini)
Pretty Yende
Opera Extracts - Released October 27, 2017 | Sony Classical
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Soprano Pretty Yende made a big splash with her debut album, A Journey, which musically reenacted her path from small-town South Africa to Europe's major operatic stages. On that album she had both star quality and rough spots, and it was a matter of some interest to learn whether she was just a novelty or a major new voice. As it happens, Yende's second album, Dreams, does not answer the question. There is still the fact that Yende is one of those performers who just transmit; even in the chilly language of digital ones and zeroes, she has charisma. And in Italian bel canto repertoire she's clearly progressing. In both the more ornate Donizetti excerpts from Lucia di Lammermoor (sample "Ohimè! Sorge il tremendo fantasma" to hear Yende's control in quiet passages in the stratosphere) and in the more melodic Bellini, Yende delivers very fetching sounds. In the French music the news is not so good; Yende can't live up to the striking opening gesture in "Ah! je veux vivire" from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and her voice shows strain here. Still, most of the music sounds great, and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano "Giuseppe Verdi" under Giacomo Sagripanti has an ideally subdued way of accompanying her. The indications are at this point that the way to deal with Yende is to play to her considerable strengths. Just before this album's release, Yende pulled out of a Rome production of Fra Diavolo for unspecified artistic reasons. One hopes that vocal problems were not involved.© TiVo
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Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527 (Live)
Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra
Opera - Released August 31, 2018 | Orfeo
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Saying that this is a great Don Giovanni, a great Furtwängler Don Giovanni, and one of the greatest Don Giovanni's of the twentieth century is hardly to exaggerate the importance of this recording. Made on July 27, 1953, at the Salzburg Festival, it preserves a performance by one of the best casts ever assembled for the opera -- Cesare Siepi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Grummer, Anton Dermota, Otto Edelmann, Erna Berger, and Walter Berry -- backed by the best orchestra for the opera -- the Vienna Philharmonic -- and led by surely the greatest German conductor of the twentieth century. Under Furtwängler, the singers and players create a Don Giovanni that is fiery, passionate, romantic, metaphysical, and occasionally hilarious. While some listeners might legitimately prefer a lighter or funnier performance of Don Giovanni, and other listeners might prefer a cleaner or clearer recording of Don Giovanni, anyone who loves the work or the conductor will love this performance and, despite its conspicuous blemishes, this recording. Indeed, for those who love Furtwängler, the question will be whether or not to get a third Furtwängler Don Giovanni. Already in circulation are two performances from the 1954 Salzburg Festival with mostly the same stellar cast, one a sound recording and one a video recording of surprisingly good quality. Of course, for the true Furtwängler aficionado, the opportunity to hear the fabled 1953 Don Giovanni will be irresistible so the question is essentially moot.© TiVo
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Verdi : La Forza del Destino (Remastered)
Thomas Schippers
Classical - Released January 1, 1965 | Sony Classical
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Mio caro Händel
Simone Kermes
Classical - Released February 8, 2019 | Sony Classical
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While the German soprano follows in the footsteps of Cecilia Bartoli, her virtuoso voice separates her fans from the purists who prefer a less fanciful vocal-line. This long-awaited new album from Simone Kermes shows off her masterful voice in almost every register and there is no sign of the excessiveness for which she has previously been criticised. Typically referred to as a “Ba-rock” star, some people are irritated by her gestures and extreme theatrics during her concerts, but those mannerisms are long forgotten here in the absence of any images. The title of the album, “Mio caro Händel”, says a lot about the affinity Simone Kermes feels with the Saxon composer. She has selected his most popular pieces, such as Ombra mai fù(Largo of Love), Piangeró la sorte mia(I will lament my fate) and Lascia ch’io pianga(Let me weep), along with some much less well-known pieces, which are some of the most wonderful revelations and rare musical gems on the album. The singer recorded this testimony of love to Händel in Berlin’s famous Jesus-Christus-Kirche in 2018 accompanied by Amici Veneziani, an ensemble put together especially for her which mostly comprises of German musicians and is led by Russian violinist Boris Begelman. As a great traveller who went all over Europe, this captures Händel’s European spirit perfectly. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Verdi : Le Trouvère (Diapason n°609)
Choeur de L'Opera de Vienne
Classical - Released September 25, 2011 | Les Indispensables de Diapason
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Bellini: I Capuleti ed I Montecchi
Riccardo Muti/Agnes Baltsa/Edita Gruberova/Gwynne Howell/Dano Raffanti/Sir John Tomlinson
Classical - Released January 1, 1985 | Warner Classics
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Shostakovich, Prokofiev & Others: Piano Works
Breton String Quartet
Chamber Music - Released December 2, 2022 | Naxos
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Russian pianist Valentin Malinin, winner of the 62nd Jaén International Piano Competition, has chosen a programme that offers moments of reflection alongside dazzling virtuosity. The album opens with Shostakovich’s imposing Piano Quintet, one of the composer’s most popular chamber works. Granados evokes a "Ghost’s Serenade" with guitar-like effects in the exuberant finale to his Goyescas (Serenata del espectro), while Prokofiev’s Four Études are among the most complex and technically challenging works of their kind. Malinin’s own inspired fantasy The Pearl Fishers, based on Nadir’s Romance from Les Pêcheurs de perles, serves as a fine encore, reimagining Bizet’s original in daring, compelling style. © Naxos
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Bach: Magnificat - Vivaldi: Gloria - Handel: Water Music - Mozart: Toy Symphony & Laudate Dominum - Boccherini: Minuet - Rimsky-Korsakov: Flight of the Bumblebee & Other Classical Hits
Sir Neville Marriner
Classical - Released April 4, 2024 | Warner Classics
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