Sonya Yoncheva / Academia Montis Regalis / Alessandro de Marchi HANDEL

Sonya Yoncheva devotes her second solo album to the music of Handel, showing another facet of her wide-ranging repertoire. Being an alumna of William Christie’s Le Jardin des Voix, the Baroque era formed her musical understanding at an early stage of her career, laying the foundation for her versatile & broad-reaching repertoire. Currently praised as “the best Traviata in the world at present” (Die Welt), Sonya Yoncheva is one of today’s fastest rising opera stars. She is a regular guest at the world’s leading opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper, Berlin State Opera, Wiener Staatsoper & the Opéra de Paris. A great composer of vocal music, Handel based some of his most beautiful operas & oratories on the enchanting sensibility of the feminine voice. His heroines are strong, independent women determining their own destiny – attributes Sonya relates to in all respects. From Mar 3rd - Apr 18th, 2017 Sonya will embark on a concert tour featuring the Baroque repertoire highlighted on the Handel album release. (Presto Classical)

“the emotional balance of the programme favours Alcina, Cleopatra and Theodora’s songs of grief and torment, with a tendency to romanticise. Morgana’s skittish Tornami a vagheggiar, a showstopper in the theatre, is the highlight here: Yoncheva displays a delightful twinkle in the eye with her plush soprano, and negotiates the coloratura with pearly ease.” (Sunday Times, 29th January 2017)

Anett Fritsch / Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Alessandro de Marchi MOZART Arien

Born in 1986 in Plauen, Anett Fritsch studied at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Music Academy in Leipzig with KS Prof. Jürgen Kurth. In 2001 she was awarded the first prize at the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. She was a laureate at the international competition of the Chamber Opera at Schloss Rheinsberg in 2006 and 2007, where she sang the parts of Despina in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. In the season 07/08 the Oper Leipzig engaged Anett Fritsch for various parts, including Gianetta in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.

Since 2009 Anett Fritsch is part of the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf/Duisburg where she sings among others Pamina, Blanche/Dialogue des Carmelites, Konstanze/Entführung aus dem Serail and Marie/Fille du Régiment.

Anett Fritsch had a great success at her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival with the part of Almirena in Händel’s Rinaldo and with the part of Merione in Gluck’s Telemaco at the Theater an der Wien. She also made a triumphant debut as Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte at the Teatro Real Madrid, a production which was also very successful at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and in 2014 appeared at the Wiener Festwochen. The tour through Europe Figaro/Cherubinowith René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester met with a big international response.

In 2014 Anett Fritsch made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. In Munich she sang Figaro/Susanna.

Future engagements include Arabella/Zdenka in Dusseldorf, Ginevra/Ariodante in Amsterdam, Nozze di Figaro/Susanna in Toulouse, Donna Elvira/Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival, a production of the Salieri opera Falstaff at the Theater an der Wien, Pamina in Toronto, Donna Elvira/Giovanni und at La Scala, Sifare/Mitridate at Covent Garden, Figaro/Cherubino at the Bavarian State Opera Munich.

Lena Belkina / Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Alessandro de Marchi DOLCI MOMENTI / BELCANTO ARIAS

The press has already taken her to their heart: “fulminant, brilliant, beautiful voice” (Das Opernglas), “a touching mezzo” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), “…a treat for the ears and the eyes…” (WAZ). The young mezzo-soprano Lena Belkina is already in demand all over the world.

She sang her way into the international limelight back in 2012 with her Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Carlo Verdone/Gianluigi Gelmetti). The live video recording made by Mondovision was awarded the 64º PRIX ITALIA and the Warsaw Music Gardens Festival audience prize. What entranced the Oscar-winning director about his star performer was her extraordinary charisma: “…una fotogenia straordinaria, e la giusta dolcezza malinconica e sognante nei suoi grandi occhi neri…” (“extraordinarily photogenic, with the ideal melancholy and the dreamy sweetness of her big dark eyes”) (Verdone in Cultura). Since then, this film version produced by Andrea Andermann has been shown in more than 150 countries. Lena recorded her first solo album together with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which will already be released this year by Sony Classical.

There are currently three new productions planned: At the moment, Lena sings the Dorabella part in Cosi Fan Tutte in the Munich Cuvilliés Theatre. Subsequently, the singer can be experienced as Olga in Eugen Onegin at the Malmö Opera and as Angelina in La Cenerentola in the Prague Estates Theatre.
Apart from that, opera lovers may look forward to listening to Lena in several solo evening recitals with orchestra in Germany and Israel.

In summer 2014, the Ukrainian singer was engaged by the Rossini Opera Festival. Lena Belkina delighted with the major role of Arsace in a newly revised edition of the opera Aureliano in Palmira. It was the first performance of the opera at the festival and was directed by Mario Martone. A special highlight was that Lena was allowed to sing Giovanni Battista Velluti’s great cadenzas: a particular honour that no one else has been granted since the great castrato’s death. The opera published by Unitel Classica. The great success was brought by the 2015 re-invitation, where Lena will sing the Pippo part in Gazza Ladra.

Franco Fagioli / Alessandro De Marchi / Academia Montis Regalis PORPORA Arias

Porpora (1686 - 1768) wrote operas from 1708 up until 1747 and was revising them until at least 1760 but it is with his works in the 1720's such as Meride e Selinunte (1726) that he came to prominence as part of the new Neapolitan style. The selection here includes Ezio, Semiramide riconosciuta, Didone abbandonata, Meride e Selinunte from the 1720's, Polifemo from 1735 and Carlo il Calvo from the same decade. Il verbo in carne is in fact an oratorios written for Christmas 1748 for Dresden.
Porpora taught two of the finest singers of his age, Farinelli and Cafarelli. Fagioli has explored arias by Porpora and others written for Cafarelli on his previous disc. Here, he includes two arias written for Farinelli from Polifemo which was written for London as a rival to Handel. As might be expected from a distinguished teacher, Porpora knows how to write for the voice and to show it off to its best advantage. The arias here often have a largeness of scale and can last up to eight minutes (with the aria from the cantata Vulcano lasting nearly 10). But that does not imply simplicity of scale, within these structures Porpora includes an astonishing number of notes and Fagioli copes superbly. The arias are all in the mezzo-soprano range and need Fagioli's style of high counter-tenor singing. But they also need his incredible facility with singing complex passage-work at high speed.
The results are breathtaking. Fagioli makes a very particular sound. He has a vibrato warmed voice with a soft-grained timbre, but he can move it with alarming dexterity. The more bravura items such as the opening Set tu la reggi al volo from Ezio or Gia si desta la tempesa from Didone abbandonata are done in a supremely bravura manner with style and expressivity. Listen and marvel. Often Porpora throws in trumpets and drums, and the orchestra contributes to the overall dazzling virtuoso sound.
In the slower items, Fagioli brings a shapely poise to the music. When writing the gentler pieces Porpora's style veers towards the galant, rendered stylishly by Fagioli, De Marchi and his ensemble. But the slower pieces are never simple, Porpora still includes a remarkable number of notes, and the vocal lines are often quite wandering.
Throughout Fagioli is accompanied with bravura and style by De Marchi and the Academia Montis Regalis who acquit themselves with no less virtuosity.
The CD booklet includes an article giving background to Porpora's career, with full texts and translations, but you will struggle to discover when and where each aria was first performed and by whom.
With a recital disc like this, you are never quite certain how representative of the composer's style these arias are. There are no simple pieces here, the sort of arias like Handel's Verdi prati which puzzled his Italian singers and required fits of temper from the composer to persuade them to sing. But the disc does give the lie to the idea of Porpora writing generic arias which are suitable for anything. There is some profoundly expressive music here, in stunning performances, and I now look forward to a complete opera by Porpora. In the mean time, we have this disc from Fagioli. Listen and marvel! (Robert Hugill)