Varduhi Abrahamyan / Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco / Gianluca Capuano RHAPSODY

 

RHAPSODY

 

Ophélie Gaillard / Morphing Chamber Orchestra / Frédéric Chaslin CELLOPERA

 

CELLOPERA

 

Francesca Dego / Francesca Leonardi IL CANNONE

 

IL CANNONE

 

Vanessa Benelli Mosell CASTA DIVA

 

CASTA DIVA

Lawrence Brownlee / Michael Spyres ROSSINI Amici e Rivali

 

AMICI E RIVALI

 

Hera Hyesang Park / Wiener Symphoniker / Bertrand de Billy I AM HERA

 

I AM HERA

 

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Vasily Petrenko STRAVINSKY Petrushka

 

PETRUSHKA

 

Emmanuel Ceysson / Frédéric Chatoux AFTER A DREAM

AFTER A DREAM

Maria Callas DRAMA QUEEN

DRAMA QUEEN

Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Keri-Lynn Wilson GIOACHINO ROSSINI Sigismondo

SIGISMONDO

Elsa Dreisig / Orchestre National de Montpellier Occitanie / Michael Schønwandt MIROIR(S)

Miroirs is the debut album from the young French-Danish soprano Elsa Dresig. The winner of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia singing competition in 2016, she has performed opera in Berlin, Paris, Zurich and Aix-en-Provence and sung with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in Berlin, Salzburg, Lucerne and Paris.

Miroirs showcases her vocal and dramatic range with different ‘reflections’ on a situation or character in arias and scenes from operas by Gounod, Massenet, Rossini, Mozart, Puccini, Richard Strauss and the rarely-heard Daniel Steibelt. The album includes two world premiere recordings.

10forBrass OPERA

Everything is possible on stage. At least that’s our impression upon hearing the members of the young, award-winning brass ensemble 10forBrass. On their new GENUIN release, no woodwind run is too fast for them and no string pianissimo too soft: they are both witches and kings, mermaids and jesters, angels and huntsmen. From Carl Maria von Weber to Sergei Prokofiev, no music theatre work is safe from the brass virtuosi – whatever isn’t bolted to the floor is fair game for the sizeable brass ensemble. Each opera scene is more beautiful than the next: simply ravishing!

Julie Fuchs / Orchestre National d’ile de France / Enrique Mazzola MADEMOISELLE

In the 2018/19 season, Julie will appear in two new productions; as Fiorilla Il turco in Italia at Opernhaus Zürich and as Eurydice Orphée aux enfers at the Opéra Grand Avignon. She will also make her role debut as Eva in the rarely performed opera La morte d’Abel by Caldara at Salzburg Whitsun Festival. 

Other concert highlights include solo recitals at the Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Opéra de Versailles, Opéra du Rhin, and Opéra national de Bordeaux, as well as Carmina Burana with the Orchestre national de Bordeaux Aquitaine and a gala concert at Salzburg Whitsun Festival. 

Julie’s discography includes a recording of early songs by Mahler and Debussy with Alphonse Cemin, and a disc of Songs for Piano and Voice by Poulenc (Atma Classique). 

In 2014 Julie signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, with her first solo album Yes! released in 2015. 

Deutsche Grammophon has announced the release of Julie Fuchs’ second album. The new album, set for release on Feb. 15, 2019, will be titled “Mademoiselle” and will feature of a collection of Bel canto arias personally chosen by the soprano. Enrique Mazzola conducts the Orchestre National d’ile de France. The soprano’s first album for the company was entitled “Yes!” and featured a collection of French works. She also released a Debussy album and an album with Poulenc’s complete songs for soprano. Fuchs is one of today’s rising stars in France, performing in high profile engagements. She is scheduled to appear this season at the Opéra de Bordeaux, Opernahus Zurich, and Salzburg Whitsun Festival. She will also perform a concert at the Aix-en-Provence with music by Rossini and Donizetti.

Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna / Michele Mariotti ROSSINI Overtures

From the moment they were performed, Gioachino Rossini’s overtures have enjoyed the status of colourful, elegant orchestral showpieces. With their sweet cantilene, their rich harmonies, their brilliant orchestration, and their powerful and exciting rhythmic drive, these overtures encapsulate all that was modern, exhilarating and electrifying in Rossini’s music, yet maintain their freshness and attraction to modern audiences. This album features a collection of Rossini overtures, taken from less well-known operas such as La Scala di seta, Tancredi, La gazza ladra, Matilde di Shabran and Semiramide, as well as from the classic comic operas L’italiana in Algeri and Il barbiere di Siviglia, concluding with the preludes to Rossini’s French operas Le siege de Corinthe and Guillaume Tell, in which the composer explored musical Romanticism.

The overtures are performed by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, which has played a seminal role in the Rossini renaissance of the last three decades. The orchestra is led by its Musical Director Michele Mariotti. Being born in Rossini’s native town Pesaro, Mariotti cherishes a life-long affinity with the city’s most famous son, and is commonly considered as one of the outstanding Rossini conductors of his age. He frequently works with the world’s most prestigious opera houses.

Sophie Karthäuser / Eugene Asti LE BAL DES ANIMAUX

A mirror for the human animal The inhabitants of the animal kingdom have long been a subject of fascination for visual artists, and a source of inspiration for composers as well. Whether voicing their affection and awe, or mocking the human animal, composers have paid tribute to our furry and feathered friends by producing masterpieces of invention, musical mimicry, and wit. Peacocks, ducks, dromedaries, pigs, butterflies, carp, cicadas, and owls are just some of the creatures in the menagerie assembled for this recording, featuring the mischievous voice of Sophie Karthäuser, deftly accompanied by Eugene Asti.

Raphaela Gromes HOMMAGE À ROSSINI

Gioachino Rossini died 150 years ago. This leading light of Italian opera wrote one of the most frequently performed and most famous operas in the whole history of music: Il barbiere di Siviglia. Now the star violoncellist and exclusive SONY Classical artist Raphaela Gromes pays tribute to Rossini with her latest album. Her Hommage à Rossini naturally features Une Larme, Rossini’s only original work for violoncello and piano, but it also includes a number of arrangements of Rossini arias for violoncello and orchestra or piano and a set of variations on a theme from Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto written by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. But pride of place goes to a world-premiere recording of a piece by Jacques Offenbach, his Hommageà Rossini for violoncello and orchestra. Long thought to be lost, this fantasy, dating from 1845, has now been reawoken from its Sleeping - Beauty - like slumber thanks to the musicological researches of Raphaela Gromes and can be performed again in time to mark Rossini’s sesquicentenary – 173 years after it was composed. For this discographic sensation Raphaela Gromes is accompanied by the WDR Funkhausorchester under Enrico Delamboye. In the pieces for violoncello and piano, conversely, her accompanist is the pianist Julian Riem, who is also responsible for the arrangements.

As a child, Raphaela Gromes wanted to become a singer and decided to take up the violoncello because the sounds that this instrument produces come closest to those of the human voice. In her efforts to achieve a “vocal approach” to her Rossini programme, she sought advice on the technical mysteries of bel canto from the soprano Juliane Banse and the mezzo-soprano Daphne Evangelatos. In this way she has been able to come closer to Rossini’s declared ideal of “sweet Italian singing that comes from the heart”.

Venera Gimadieva / The Hallé / Gianluca Marcianò MOMENTO IMMOBILE

Bel canto opera is a plethora of paradoxes and these are most powerfully embodied by the prima donna herself. Pure and passionate, alluring and alarming, desirable and dangerous, she is a woman who, driven by uncontainable desire or righteousness, defies or disregards social convention in her search for what might be deemed a more modern form of self-expression and freedom. She articulates a luxurious femininity which sonically embodies the female form and is both emancipatory and intimidating. Undeniably powerfully sensual, she was – and is – subject to patriarchal and social control; innocent, spiritual and soulful, she suffers, is sick and must be destroyed. The melismatic madness of the heroine speaks of a ‘mania’ that is not alien to contemporary notions of a neurosis afflicting modern woman. Does her vocal intensity make us idealise her, or crave and command her sacrifice? At the start of the 21st century, do we recognise her voice as our own? Or is it, as Michel Poizat argues, ‘the angel’s cry’, an inarticulate expression of the soul at both the pinnacle of its power and the moment of death: a momento immobile. (Claire Seymour)

Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Howard Arman ROSSINI Stabat Mater

“You tell me that you’ve been sold an item of some value,” Gioachino Rossini wrote angrily to the French music publisher Antoine Aulagnier in September 1841 after a third party had sold Aulagnier the autograph score of the original version of the Italian composer’s Stabat mater and Aulagnier had written to Rossini to ask for his permission to publish it. Rossini refused, arguing that he had “merely dedicated” the work “to the Reverend Father Manuel Fernández Varela, while reserving for myself the right to publish it whenever I consider it opportune. Without entering into the sort of swindle that someone has sought to perpetrate to the detriment of my interests, I declare to you, Monsieur, that if my Stabat mater is published without my authorization, whether in France or abroad, my firm intention is to pursue the publisher and hound him to death. What is more, Monsieur, I must tell you that in the copy I sent to the Reverend Father, there are only six numbers of my own composition, a friend of mine having been invited to complete what I could not nish myself because I was seriously ill.”

Wiener Philharmoniker / Valery Gergiev / Anna Netrebko SOMMERNACHTSKONZERT 2018

The Summer Night Concert of The Vienna Philharmonic is the world's biggest annual classical open-air concert set in the magical Schönbrunn Palace Baroque park in Vienna. The concert will take place on 31 May 2018 and its theme for this year is 'An Italian Night'. The concert is broadcast on TV and radio in more than 60 countries, and thus reaches an audience of millions. The evening’s repertoire is an attractive combination of extremely popular works for orchestra including the William Tell Overture, the March from the opera Aida and the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, as well as famous Soprano arias like Vissi d’arte, vissi d‘amore from the Opera Tosca. Valery Gergiev returns to conducts the Summer Night Concert and is joined by star Soprano Anna Netrebko in what promises to be one of the most popular concerts this year! (Presto Classical)

Accentus / Orchestre de Chambre de Paris / Ottavio Dantone ROSSINI Petite Messe solennelle

Starring Julia Lezhneva, Ottavio Dantone and accentus, this live recording brings a new and fresh light on Rossini's most famous choral work. The concert took place in Paris - Basilique de Saint-Denis, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the work, first performed in March 1864, in Paris. The amazing quality of the solo voices (Julia Lezhneva, Delphine Galou, Michael Spyres, Alexander Vinogradov) meets the dynamic direction of Ottavio Dantone and is supported by the vocal dexterity of accentus chamber choir.

“Because of its uncommon instrumental forces, the ‘chamber’ version of the 'Petite Messe', for two pianos and harmonium, was long regarded as the definitive version; the orchestration Rossini made in 1867-68 was viewed as merely an arrangement. In his recent critical edition, Davide Daolmi presents a different interpretation, which makes the orchestrated version the culmination of a long genetic process, begun in 1862, in which the ‘chamber’ version is merely an intermediate stage. The posthumous premiere of the definitive version of the 'Petite Messe', which was also the work’s first public performance, took place at the Théâtre-Italien on 28 February 1869, the anniversary of the composer’s birth, with Gabrielle Kraus (soprano), Marietta Alboni (contralto), Ernest Nicolas (tenor), and Luigi Agnesi. It was at once a triumph and a highly emotional occasion. A few years later, on 30 May 1876, Verdi was to conduct his 'Messa da requiem' in the same theatre, thus continuing the homage to the great Italian composer.” (from the booklet notes)