The Italian tenor sings the world’s greatest Italian tenor arias, including the hit “Nessun dorma” – without question the most famous opera arias.
Verissimo meaning “very true” in Italian and is a play on the word “Verismo” – the late 19th century opera style from which these featured operas are taken. The style is known for its big passions, dramatic lyricism, lush orchestral sound and storylines about normal people in the throes of love, death, betrayal and revenge. Key composers of this style include Puccini, Mascagni, Cilea and Leoncavallo.

Melody Moore pays tribute to the legendary soprano Renata Tebaldi, presenting a selection of arias and scenes by Rossini, Verdi, Boito, Catalani, Puccini, Mascagni, Giordano, Cilea and Alessandro Scarlatti, documenting the most important stages in the career of “la voce d’angelo”. Moore performs these pieces together with the Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra under the baton of Lawrence Foster. Melody Moore and Lawrence Foster both have a vast Pentatone discography, including collective complete recordings of Verdi’s Otello (2017) and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and La Fanciulla del West (both 2021). The latter album was also the Pentatone debut of the Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra.

REVIEW:

Does Moore sound like Tebaldi? Not exactly: a track-by-track comparison reveals subtle differences in timbre and interpretation. But this is an act of homage, not impersonation, and Tebaldi’s repertoire certainly suits Moore’s voice and showcases her versatility, as she differentiates each heroine from the next.

-- BBC Music Magazine

One of the leading sopranos of her generation, Ekaterina Siurina enjoys an international career that takes her to the top opera houses in Europe and America. Siurina’s thrilling renditions of famous arias on this recording bring new life to operatic favorites such as “Un bel di, vedremo” from Madama Butterfly, “In quelle trine morbide” from Manon Lescaut, and “Tatiana’s Letter Scene” from Eugene Onegin.

REVIEW:

She can surmount the vocal challenges of Madama Butterfly’s hopeful Un bel di, vedremo and the anguished Tu? Tu? Piccolo iddio! and she can also spin out a legato line to die for and she can cap the end of Senza Mamma with an ethereal pianissimo.

Ms. Siurina can do it all when it comes to the lyric soprano repertoire, be it the other-worldly Rusalka or the girlish Tatiana or the intact Amelia of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra or the distraught Marguerita of Boito’s Mefistofele

It has been three years since I first heard Ekaterina Siurina in Amour Eternelle, her first album for DELOS. In this, her second album for DELOS, Siurina reinforces her great reputation, accompanied by the superb American conductor Constantine Orbelian, who leads the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra offering minute by minute support to the soloist.

-- All About the Arts

Arrigo Boito, Verdi’s greatest librettist, was also a noted composer, best known for his Italian operatic treatment of Goethe’s tragedy Faust. His Mefistofele is much closer in spirit and letter to the original source than Gounod’s French version of a decade or so earlier. Boito seems to have been more fascinated by Mephistopheles than by the title character (he also augmented the role of another famous villain, Iago, in adapting Shakespeare’s Othello for Verdi). There are numerous complete versions of recordings of Mefistofele on disc, but BBC Music Magazine gave its highest rating to this 1995 live recording from La Scala, conducted by Riccardo Muti: “It is Samuel Ramey who dominates this new recording. Ramey was already a splendid Mefistofele on a 1991 recording, but here he is even more in command of the role, and has the advantage of Muti’s masterly conducting. Michele Crider is an affecting Margherita and Vincenzo La Scola a mellifluous Faust.”