It has been a while since major studios gave up recording operas in studio due to a lack of investment and profitability. But the world-renowned reputation of Jonas Kaufmann has incited Sony Classical to record and produce this new version of Verdi’s Othello in studio in the “traditional style”. The work was produced over twelve days of session recording in the generous acoustics of the splendid Parco della Musica built in Rome by the architect Renzo Piano. It is no exaggeration when we say that this is a truly astounding version of Verdi’s masterpiece that stands shoulder to shoulder with the legendary versions of the flamboyant Toscanini (1947), the winning trio Vickers-Rysanek-Gobbi of Serafin (1960) and also the electrifying live performance of Carlos Kleiber (1976). There are of course many others of diverse merit but none so utterly satisfying.Jonas Kaufmann has waited patiently before taking on the compelling title role, singing previously as Cassio in Chicago before playing Otello in London in 2017 under the passionate direction of Antonio Pappano (interpretation available on DVD). Here, the same conductor is at helm of the supercharged and on great form, Orchestre de l’Académie Sainte-Cécile in Rome. Alongside his strong, moving, impulsive and ultimately fragile depiction of Otello, Jonas Kaufmann is joined by Federica Lombardi’s sublime Desdemona and Carlos Álvarez’s solid take on the sordid, treacherous and conniving Iago. Liparit Avetisyan and Carlo Bossi, who play Cassio and Rodrigo respectively, provide this ensemble with a perfect harmony. The sound recording provides a great presence to this vocal and instrumental delight and does justice to the aggression and violent colouring of Verdi’s final drama as the composer proves more than ever to be a match for Shakespeare. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Andrea Marcon and La Cetra Barockorchester & Vokalensemble Basel sparkle in this new release of Handel’s forgotten masterpiece Parnasso in festa, recorded shortly before their hugely successful Netherlands premiere of the opera in November 2016. Handel wrote this sumptuous work in 1734 to celebrate the marriage in London of Princess Anne and Prince William of Orange. Cast in the form of a serenata, Parnasso in festa recounts the joyful wedding feast of Thetis and Peleus at which the Muses are present. It’s packed with breathtaking arias, duets and choruses, all written with the verve, drama and sense of occasion to be expected from Handel. The soloists that he had on hand for the premiere were among the greatest Italian singers of the day – Giovanni Carestini, Margherita Durastanti, Anna Maria Strada del Po and Maria Caterina Negri. The care he lavished on the richly instrumented score is striking, from the masterly reworking of material from his oratorio Athalia to the ravishing original material, making this work unique among Handel’s output. Parnasso in festa proved to be very popular in its day it and was revived several times, yet after 1741 was largely forgotten. Now after years of neglect, this superbly crafted work has been recognised for the glorious entertainment that it is. © Pentatone

For huge fans of Yoncheva, this is a beautiful collection of some of the Verdian soprano's finest moments. Half of the tracks are great hits: Otello and his famous prayer, Don Carlo, Nabucco, Il Trovatore and La forza del destino, the other half being made up of lesser-known works such as Stiffelio, Luisa Miller or Attila. The Bulgarian soprano (note that she was born in 1981, and is already a star at the peak of her career) demonstrates at once the warmth of her voice, an instrument fallen from heaven, with her mezzo tones and the range of her great lyrical voice, but also her bel canto vocal technique which is deployed to great effect in this brilliant repertoire. More purist listeners might have issues with her way of making her attacks "from below" in the Italian style, but that is her stylistic and technical choice, and it is a choice shared by a good proportion of lyrical singers who work with the Italian repertoire. This studio recording was created in 2017. © SM/Qobuz

Farao Classic's recording of La Traviata is revelatory, largely because of the extraordinary quality of the principals who, until this release, were largely unknown to international audiences. Anja Harteros is a stunningly effective Violetta -- fresh and young sounding, with absolute vocal security and interpretive sensitivity. Her tone is natural and unforced, she sings with beautiful intonation, and the skill and psychological range and insight with which she shapes the vocal lines make this a performance of the highest order. Her of renunciation of Alfredo and her death scene are heartbreakingly poignant, great moments of theater. Her voice and her dramatic depth clearly mark Harteros as an artist to watch out for. The same could be said for Paolo Gavanelli; his burnished, vibrant tone in service to a nuanced, compassionate characterization makes his Germont genuinely compelling. Piotr Beczala makes an intense, passionate Alfredo, and he sings with an open-throated, clarion sound, but he sounds too consistently overwrought to be completely persuasive. Zubin Mehta is in top form, in complete control of the score's tragic dramatic arc; his reading is both shapely in its details and propulsive in its theatricality. The Bayerischen Staatsorchester and the Chorus of the Bayerischen Staatsoper are fully responsive to his direction and perform with finesse and urgency. The SACD's clarity, presence, and balance are unusually good for a live recording. This fine new version should be of strong interest to anyone who loves the opera. © TiVo

Handel's Lotario (1729) is an opera with several dubious distinctions: it bombed when it was first performed, it bombed when it was revived in the 1950s, and it remained, until 2004, the only Handel opera that had never been recorded. The reasons for these failures aren't hard to find. Even the liner note writer for this release, mystery novelist Donna Leon, concedes that in the opera's story "certain events occur without adequate motivation or, at times, without any motivation whatsoever." Furthermore, it's the kind of work that takes over an hour before things start to get cooking, and audiences by and large have never tolerated that. The lead soprano, Adelaide, doesn't come on-stage for a while and even after that has to wait before stretching her vocal cords -- not in itself terribly unusual, but in place of vocal fireworks from the star the audience gets a sequence of threatening, brooding arias that lay the ground for bloody conflict and murmur about the consuming fire of ambition. This plainly wasn't what Handel's new middle-class audiences wanted to hear.The thing is, there's a lot of first-class music in Lotario, and Handel and everyone else realized it. Individual arias have been excerpted from the work from the composer's time down to ours; for a fine recent example hear Renée Fleming's version of Adelaide's "D'una torbida sorgente" from her disc of Handel arias. In a way, then, this premiere recording of the whole opera, with conductor Alan Curtis leading the orchestra Il Complesso Barocco, offers an ideal introduction: to fit the lengthy opera onto two compact discs, Curtis has trimmed a good deal of recitative and sections of some arias. The result is a sequence of music that's more aria-heavy than most Baroque opera recordings. Excellent vocal contributions come fast and furious from the vocal soloists: soprano Simone Kermes has been charged with using ornamentation that would have been better applied to music a century younger, but she's got the right force-of-nature quality for this music. Female contraltos take the three male countertenor parts of Matilde, Lotario, and the young lover Idelberto, with Sonia Prina plunging enthusiastically into the role of Matilde, the ruthless court wife who is the opera's most fully realized character.Conductor Curtis' handling of the score is exemplary, and Il Complesso Barocco hovers in the background of the singers yet seems fully alive. A nice touch is the inclusion of the original English translation of the libretto, from the program booklet for the work's 1729 London premiere. It's a little confusing at first, especially given the bewildering plot, but you catch on fast.© TiVo

Backed by the Sun King despite a lukewarm audience reception at first, Lully's Atys (1676) went on to become one of the composer's most successful operas, with revivals at French court theaters as late as 1753. In modern times, however, it is a considerably rarer item due to the massive forces and time required. Christophe Rousset was in the pit as harpsichordist when conductor William Christie gave the first modern revival of the work in the late '80s. That experience marks this 2024 release, which made classical best-seller lists at the beginning of that year. That is not common for a hefty five-act Baroque opera, but even a bit of sampling will confirm why it happened: Rousset, from the keyboard, brings tremendous energy to the opera. He pushes the tempo in the numerous dances and entrance numbers, and the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and the singers of the Choeur du Chambre de Namur, all of whom have worked closely with Rousset in the past, keep right up. The singers in the solo roles are all fine; haut-contre Reinoud Van Mechelen in the title role and Ambroisine Bré as the goddess Cybèle, who sets the tragic plot in motion, are standouts. The sound from the increasingly engineering-expert Château de Versailles label is exceptionally clear in complex textures, and the sensuous cover art (representing, it is true, not the Roman mythological figure of Atys but Hippomène and Atalante) is a bonus. In the end, this is Rousset's Atys, and that is a very good thing.© James Manheim /TiVo