Gian Carlo Menotti was born in Italy in 1911, the sixth of ten children. A child prodigy, he started composing at the age of seven, and was encouraged and supported by his mother, who was a keen and talented amateur musician. Following the unexpected death of his father, Menotti's mother moved the family to Colombia to help with their coffee importing business, and sent Giancarlo to the Curtis Institute of Music, in Philadelphia. The composer made his life in America, although he never gave up his Italian citizenship. Best known for his twenty-seven operas, Menotti also composed a good deal of orchestral music, as featured on this album. The Lewisohn Stadium, the athletic field of the City College of New York, was also used as an outdoor arena for the summer concerts season of the New York Philharmonic, and Menotti's Fanfare was commissioned to open the forty-seventh season, and is recorded here for the first time. Also receiving it's first recording is the original score of Menotti's first (and only) symphony. The programme is completed by suites from the ballet Sebastian and the opera Goya, a third world premiere recording.

Dazzling as the Queen of the Night, deeply moving in Lucia di Lammermoor and La Sonnambula, Natalie Dessay also made her mark on the operatic stage in the roles of Olympia, Manon, Musetta and Cleopatra. After training at the Atelier Lyrique de l'Opera National de Paris and pursuing an international operatic career, Natalie Dessay decided to devote herself to spoken theatre, chansons and the song repertory. The duo she formed in 2011 with her artistic partner Philippe Cassard has given one hundred and thirty-five performances around the world, completely reinventing the song recital as a unique moment of expression, embodiment and shared emotion. Ten years after her last appearance at the Opera Bastille in La Fille du regiment, she has chosen to give her farewell performance on the stage of the Palais Garnier on 31 March 2025. This is the last album from this legendary duo, a fitting way to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of one of the greatest sopranos of her generation.