It is an event that attracts thousands of music lovers to Verona every summer: the opera season in the ancient Roman Arena. Nearly 22,000 spectators regularly fill the amphitheater for the performances. The Arena di Verona honours Italian stage director and filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli and his legendary production of Turandot. His imposing cinematographic production reproduces imperial China thanks to it's impressive scenery and scenes, enriched by the sumptuous costumes of the Oscar-winning Japanese costume designer EMI Wada. Everything helps to highlight the atmosphere of the drama of enigma per excellence, where life itself is in danger and the answer lies in love, which melts the protagonist's icy heart. "Netrebko does not merely sing it: she interprets it. What emerges is a character much more human and ultimately truer than usual" (La Stampa)
The Japanese harpist Nagisa Tanaka is the winner of the 11th International Harp Competition "Suoni d'Arpa", 2022 edition. The recording of the CD, offered by Tactus to the young artist, features a selection of compositions spanning from the late 18th century to the final echoes of the historical 20th century. The works primarily include opera transcriptions and pieces derived from dance music, enriched by two intriguing explorations: a variation on a popular aria (Paer) and a transcription from piano (Respighi). This diverse repertoire highlights the technical and musical brilliance of the exceptionally talented Japanese harpist, who performs on the exquisite "Iris naturale" model by Salvi Harps, a world- renowned Italian company specializing in the design and craftsmanship of harps.
The Teatro La Fenice opened in 1792 and is one of the most renowned and most beautiful theaters in the world. First performed in 2004, the New Year's Concert at Venice's Teatro La Fenice celebrates it's 20th anniversary in 2024 with an extravagant program. Conducted by Maestro Fabio Luisi, this prestigious event features an exquisite blend of symphonic works and operatic masterpieces, including arias from operas such as Tosca, La traviata, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot. Accompanied by beautiful ballet interludes and a lively tribute to the 70th anniversary of Italian television, soprano Eleonora Buratto and tenor Fabio Sartori shine on stage and ring in the New Year with a burst of joyous brilliance.
It is an event that attracts thousands of music lovers to Verona every summer: the opera season in the ancient Roman Arena. Nearly 22,000 spectators regularly fill the amphitheater for the performances. The dream couple of opera, Sonya Yoncheva and Vittorio Grigolo, returns to the breathtaking open-air stage, to perform Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is "one of the best Toscas currently singing" and Vittorio Grigolo "the most Italian Cavaradossi we know. With lots of wonderful melting, elegant and nonchalant full of triumphant greatness a triumph all along the line" (Online Merker). The captivating staging by Argentine director Hugo de Ana, who masterfully exploits the amphitheatre's vast space by placing huge elements on the stage that are reminiscent of or borrowed from the locations of the action, makes the opera a "spectacle of monumental opulence" (Online Merker). "A Tosca to relish!" (Artesnews. It) "standing ovation Tosca at the Arena di Verona" (Operalife).
It is an event that attracts thousands of music lovers to Verona every summer: the opera season in the ancient Roman Arena. Nearly 22,000 spectators regularly fill the amphitheater for the performances. The dream couple of opera, Sonya Yoncheva and Vittorio Grigolo, returns to the breathtaking open-air stage, to perform Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva is "one of the best Toscas currently singing" and Vittorio Grigolo "the most Italian Cavaradossi we know. With lots of wonderful melting, elegant and nonchalant full of triumphant greatness a triumph all along the line" (Online Merker). The captivating staging by Argentine director Hugo de Ana, who masterfully exploits the amphitheatre's vast space by placing huge elements on the stage that are reminiscent of or borrowed from the locations of the action, makes the opera a "spectacle of monumental opulence" (Online Merker). "A Tosca to relish!" (Artesnews. It) "standing ovation Tosca at the Arena di Verona" (Operalife).
The concept of metanoia - that which goes beyond thought - most commonly describes a change in the way of seeing and thinking about things. With this recording, Italo-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes and her chamber orchestra "K", together with the choir "Sequenza 9.3", go on a musical journey to find moments of metanoia in the lives and works of composers such as Giacomo Puccini, Arvo Pärt, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Alexander Borodin as well as Johann Sebastian Bach. Simone Menezes is a visionary musician, known for her creativity and innovative spirit and ability to brilliantly combine classical and contemporary repertoire. Whether as the founder and artistic director of chamber music ensemble “K”, as a coveted guest conductor with many of the world’s most respected orchestras or in her stunningly creative projects in partnership between music and other arts, Simone Menezes has established herself as a rising artist of a new generation.
This new production of Tosca from Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is set in the late 1920s. Puccini's 'Roman Opera' sees a city bathed in majesty but also curdled by eroticism and sadism, where sartorial elegance and pathological violence co-exist. Taking visual clues from Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematic masterpiece, Il conformista, the cast is led by the passionate Vanessa Goikoetxea and features the magnetic Alexey Markov in the role of Scarpia. Daniele Gatti directs a performance praised for it's 'courageous and surprising' impact.
Puccini is renowned as one of the greatest opera composers of all time, and his early works - before Manon Lescaut catapulted him to international fame - offer a fascinating insight into his development as a composer. John Wilson and Sinfonia of London explore this repertoire with characteristic style and commitment, leading us on a journey through student compositions and orchestral extracts from his earliest operas. Studying under Amilcare Ponchielli at the Milan Conservatory from 1880 to 1883, he created the Preludio sinfonico (loosely based on Wagner's Prelude to Lohengrin), the Scherzo, Trio, and Adagetto, and Capriccio sinfonico, his graduation piece, which famously pre-echoes the opening of La bohème by a decade. The one-act opera Le villi was composed for a competition launched by the publisher Sonzogno (Puccini didn't win), whilst themes from the contemporaneous Tre minuetti and Crisantemi (both for string quartet) were subsequently re-cycled in Manon Lescaut. Verdi's publisher, Ricordi, bought the rights to Le villi, and commissioned a new work at the same time: Edgar, which, largely owing to the absurd plot, is arguably Puccini's only failure, despite some fully mature music easily the match of the more celebrated scores.
Vincero! / Beczala, Boemi, Choir and Orchestra of the Community of Valencia
PENTATONE
CD
$19.99Jan 21, 2022
First released in May 2020, Piotr Beczala’s PENTATONE debut album Vincerò! has been one of the must successful and critically acclaimed opera recital albums of the last few years. During the 2021 Opus Klassik Awards, Piotr Beczala was crowned as Singer of the Year for this exceptional recording. Initially released on SACD, the album now returns in a more affordable Stereo version. Global star tenor Piotr Beczala presents Vincerò!, the first fruit of his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE. Vincerò! is a collection of heart-wrenching opera arias by Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano and Cilea. For Beczala, this recording documents his vocal transition from the lyrical tenor repertoire to the more dramatic roles of Verismo, and thus simultaneously marks a significant new chapter in his stage career. Beczala is accompanied by the Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, led by maestro Marco Boemi; an extraordinary singer’s conductor who has worked with the greatest vocalists of our age.
This new production of Tosca from Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is set in the late 1920s. Puccini's 'Roman Opera' sees a city bathed in majesty but also curdled by eroticism and sadism, where sartorial elegance and pathological violence co-exist. Taking visual clues from Bernardo Bertolucci's cinematic masterpiece, Il conformista, the cast is led by the passionate Vanessa Goikoetxea and features the magnetic Alexey Markov in the role of Scarpia. Daniele Gatti directs a performance praised for it's 'courageous and surprising' impact.
Giacomo Puccini achieved global renown as an opera composer, but the choral, vocal and orchestral works recorded here reveal little-known aspects of his output, including several rarities. Puccini's early training was in church music, with the Messa di Gloria a clear indication of his great talent. The recently discovered Preludio a orchestra shows his wider ambitions, with the Germanic influences of the Capriccio sinfonico resulting in music destined to reappear in operas such as La Boheme. The elegiac and prescient aria Ad una morta contrasts with the celebratory Inno a Roma, a rousing occasional piece that features plenty of Puccini's characteristic melodic flourishes. A digital EP of the Preludio sinfonico and the Requiem is also available for download and streaming (9.70398)
Bruckner, Dvorak, Puccini & Mahler: Ich leb’ allein in meinem Himmel - The Singer Gunther Groissbock
Gramola Records
DVD + Blu-Ray
$38.99May 03, 2024
He makes you feel what it feels like to be alone at the top. Whoever sees and hears him suddenly knows more about the search for the right path that drives every serious person. His stage characters touch the heart. The bass Günther Groissböck embodies kings, scholars, philosophers in the great opera houses of the world; he plays priests, mythical creatures, gods. You could say he specializes in solitary figures.
At first glance, however, Günther Groissböck does not seem like someone who has personal experience with the subject of loneliness. The singer stands, works, acts on and off stage in intensive contact with people. He is married, father of a daughter, in the middle of life or, as conductor Philippe Jordan puts it: “He burns for many things in life, not only for art”. Can you play what you don’t know? How does he shape his stage characters? What are the building blocks for the play? When does the instrument, his voice, touch the audience? How much public spirit, how much individuality does an opera singer need today? And where does Günther Groissböck get the incredible energy he radiates on stage?
For two years we accompanied the artist from Waidhofen an der Ybbs (Lower Austria) with our camera, on night journeys and day trips. At rehearsals, sports, and performances. We filmed him as the black-robed Kaspar, as the powerful King Philip, or as a searcher in the villa of Richard Strauss. The result is a film portrait that tells of a special attitude to life; of loneliness as a source of artistic strength; of a man who can fill his voice with content from within. The film about Günther Groissböck tells of two lines from a Rückert poem, set to music by Gustav Mahler: “I live alone in my heaven, in my loving, in my song.”
Verdi & Puccini: Sacred Music / Rademann, Stuttgart Philharmonic
Carus
CD
$38.99Feb 02, 2024
Hans-Christoph Rademann presents sacred vocal works from the pens of two of the most important Italian opera composers. The occasion and time of composition could not be more different. Puccini's so-called Messa di Gloria is an ambitious, large-scale youthful work that was composed for the annual festival of the patron saint of his home town of Lucca. The Quattro pezzi sacri, on the other hand, are Verdi's mature works, composed over a period of ten years and not originally intended for publication by the composer.
Puccini: Complete Works for String Quartet / Morena, Ravasi, Liao, Zanetti
Urania Records
CD
$22.99Apr 19, 2024
Anyone who hears about Giacomo Puccini today is instinctively led to think of his most famous operatic compositions. However, not everyone knows that his production during his Milanese training years, which ended in 1883, was exclusively instrumental. The pieces included in this album belong to this artistic challenge, except for Crisantemi, which came later and will contribute with its two main themes to the last act of Manon Lescaut (1893).
Puccini: Symphonic Suites / Rizzi, Welsh National Opera Orchestra
Signum Classics
CD
$20.99Feb 16, 2024
In Puccini’s anniversary year, Chief Conductor of Welsh National Opera Carlo Rizzi has created new, purely orchestral versions of some of his most well-known and beloved works. Staying pure and faithful to Puccini’s original orchestration without anything added to ‘cover’ any perceivable lack of vocal line the brilliance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Tosca and other works shine through in this album of world premiere recordings.
REVIEW:
This fabulous album of world premiere recordings is just exhilarating from start to finish. I do hope that by the end of the year Maestro Rizzi will give us other orchestral suites, say, from La bohème or Turandot. I am sure they will be welcomed most enthusiastically.
This is an irresistible programme full of shimmering melodies that help us to really discover Puccini’s orchestral mastery which is often overshadowed by the singing and heartwrenching drama of the stories. This exceptionally innovative music that strongly enhances the total mastery of Puccini’s art is not to be missed.
Less is more: true to this motto, nine orchestra musicians who were friends founded the Ensemble Minui in 2016. Active in renowned orchestras such as the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra, the Slovenian National Opera, and the Vienna State Opera, they devote themselves here to exquisite minimalism with elegance and sophistication. Homogeneous and balanced, the five string players and four wind players offer previously unheard, sonically differentiated perspectives on large-scale operas such as Wagner's Die Walküre, Puccini's Manon Lescaut, and Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten.
Among Puccini's great operas, Madama Butterfly is the one that had reference recordings relatively later. Among them, the first to represent the most modern and innovative side of the composer was this stereo recording from 1957 edited by Richard Moore for the American RCA. It is indisputable that the fundamental interpretative approach was that of a great non-Italian conductor such as Erich Leinsdorf, who would later record all of Puccini's most important operas. Leinsdorf's interpretative modernity was magnificently assisted by the participation of a lyric soprano like Anna Moffo and an impeccable tenor like Cesare Valletti. After many years, and also thanks to the splendid quality of the recording, the production of Butterfly remains among those of absolute reference.
Puccini: Making the world cry (Die Welt zum Weinen bringen)
BR Klassik
CD
$39.99Feb 20, 2026
Puccini's music touches the hearts of millions. But how well do we really know the man, his work, and his era? What was his life like? What shaped his genius? This new audio biography from BR-KLASSIK - vividly and captivatingly narrated by Udo Wachtveitl and accompanied by lush music - offers the answers. When Mimì utters her last words, Tosca throws herself on her dead lover, or Cio Cio San takes her child in her arms once more, opera audiences worldwide reach for tissues. This was Puccini's goal: far piangere - "to make people cry." His success in this brought him immense fame and fortune, but how did he craft such enduring art? This audio biography reveals the perfectionist behind the works, a man who spent years refining his operas to make them feel as if they were part of real life. Puccini's personal life is often reduced to his notorious passions for women, cars, and hunting, along with the tragedy surrounding the suicide of his maid, Doria Manfredi. He was undoubtedly a "macho" through and through, but as he confided to his soulmate Sybil Seligman, "not even my friends know who I really am." In this audio biography, with it's many quotations, Puccini shares numerous aspects of his story himself, often surprising listeners with his humour, self-deprecation, and critical reflection (though his behaviour remained unchanged). We hear of his affairs, miseries, joys, and struggles. We accompany him on his bicycle, aboard an ocean liner, duck hunting, in family disputes, and in moments of triumph in New York. And we witness his country - Italy, tragically torn by crisis and eventually sliding into war and fascism. The main focus, however, is his music, and not just his famous arias and operas. From the church music of his student days to experimental stage works like La Fanciulla del West and Il Trittico, this audio biography charts the remarkable development of his career and uncovers many musical gems.
Sondra Radvanovsky, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Enrique Mazzola present Puccini: Heroines, a live recording of an all-Puccini programme performed in February 2025. Radvanovsky's extraordinary voice brings vivid individuality to each heroine, from the tender lyricism of Anna and Mimì to the dramatic intensity of Tosca and Turandot, including roles not previously in her stage repertoire. With Mazzola and the Lyric Opera Orchestra, she captures Puccini's genius for combining concise, emotionally charged arias with profound character insight. From the grace of Le Villi to the passion of Manon Lescaut, the intimacy of La Bohème, and the virtuosic drama of Turandot, Radvanovsky's artistry illuminates every phrase. Encores include Musetta (La Bohème) and Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), highlighting both theatrical flair and heartfelt nuance. Sondra Radvanovsky and Lyric Opera of Chicago previously appeared on PENTATONE with The Three Queens (2022), while Enrique Mazzola conducted the 2019 PENTATONE release of Verdi and Donizetti with Michael Fabiano.
Respighi: Lauda per la Nativita del Signore; Frontini: Sizil
BR Klassik
CD
$19.99Oct 03, 2025
On it's new CD from BR-KLASSIK, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, directed by Howard Arman, presents Christmas music from Italy. With his Lauda per la nativita del Signore, Ottorino Respighi modernised the medieval nativity play of the same name by the religious lyricist Jacopone da Todi. He had already explored art forms of the past in adaptations of early music, re-creations and free works based on Gregorian chants. In this piece, he assigned the medieval verses to three soloists - the angel, the Virgin Mary, and the shepherd - as well as a chamber choir. Accompanied by selected woodwind instruments reminiscent of the music of Italian shepherds, and by four-handed piano and triangle, the miracle of Christmas is brought to life in a simple yet impressive way. Francesco Paolo Frontini is remembered less for his compositions than for his many collections of Sicilian folk songs. From his Canti religiosi del popolo siciliano (Religious Songs of the Sicilian People, published in 1938), a collection of 22 songs for voice and piano underlaid with Sicilian dialect verses and their Italian translations, Howard Arman selected eight songs and arranged them for choir and instruments. Like Frontini, who already included regional variants from Catania, Palermo, and other parts of the Mediterranean island, Arman also arranged different regional versions of two songs. The melody of the Italian Marian carol O sanctissima, which is one of the most popular Christmas carols in the German-speaking countries with it's opening verse O du frohliche, could possibly also have originated from Sicily. The arrangement is once again by Howard Arman.
