You’re right, the world probably doesn’t need yet another Four Seasons, but if it did, this new production from the newly launched house label from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra would definitely justify its existence by the effervescent, crisp, technically assured playing of violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock and the equally vibrant, articulate orchestral ensemble. Back in the late 1980s I received a recording from an orchestra’s newly launched label—interestingly the orchestra was another "Philharmonia", the Philharmonia Virtuosi—and the repertoire was, you guessed it, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I had the same reaction then: do we need another version of this over-recorded warhorse? But it turned out to be one of the more exciting things I’d heard in months, and the recording propelled the orchestra and its new label to happy success for the next decade or so.

Blumenstock and the Philharmonia Baroque inject these familiar pieces with exceptional dynamism and dramatic force, but without resorting to anything vulgar or cheap. This is honest music-making, allowing us to hear these works as just great, virtuosic violin concertos—and if you doubt their ability to still excite, just listen to the opening Allegro of “L’estate” RV 315, or to the Presto of the same work. Hopefully the fortunes of that earlier Philharmonia Virtuosi release will translate to the same result for this first-rate orchestra, conductor, and soloist. Bravo!

– David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Recorder player Bolette Roed and Arte dei Suonatori present Vivaldi’s famous violin concertos, “The Four Seasons”, combined with other concertos that share a kinship with them, resulting in Vivaldi’s Seasons; a programme consisting of sixteen concertos, four for each season, including favorites such as Il rosignuolo and l’Amoroso. Roed’s use of the recorder in place of the violin brings a unique sound to these works, whilst simultaneously expanding the recorder repertoire. Bolette Roed is one of the most in-demand recorder players of Europe. After having released Telemann’s Garden with the Elephant House Quartet in 2019, she now extends her PENTATONE discography with this solo album. The players of Arte dei Suonatori make their PENTATONE debut, while their leader Aureliusz Golinski already featured on Telemann’s Garden.

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Boris Begelman, the highly acclaimed leader of Concerto Italiano, frequently takes on the role of soloist in the many concerts that Rinaldo Alessandrini’s celebrated orchestra devotes to the music of Vivaldi and his contemporaries. High time then for Begelman to take centre stage in one of the Vivaldi Edition’s solo violin recordings. This ninth concerto volume sees the welcome return of Rinaldo Alessandrini’s ensemble, which already features in thirteen albums of the Vivaldi collection. In this purely instrumental repertoire they excel as much as they do in vocal music, deploying generously sweeping melodic lines, inspired dynamics, and a musical language already mastered to perfection yet always interpreted anew.

L�szl� Kecskem�ti was born in 1972 in Budapest and is proud to have been a pupil of L�szl� Czidra. Since completing studies in 1993, and in the class of L�rincz L�szl� in 1997 in Szeged, he has performed frequently as a soloist and as a member of different early music ensembles. He also teaches at a music school in Budapest. Kecskem�ti is joined in five of the concertos by oboist L�szlo Hadady. Undergirding these performances is the fine and often virtuosic harpsichord and cello continuo played by Borb�la Dobozy and Gy�rgy Kert�sz respectively. The bassoon joins the fray in four of the concertos and is played by the redoubtable Gy�rgy Olajos. The two violinists are Attila Falvay and Katalin P�rk�nyi. The little cadential flourishes that all the soloists make at appropriate moments are delightful.

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Il Farnace is the most re-written and re-proposed of Vivaldi’s operas. Versions of Farnace, two in 1727 and one each in 1730, 1731 and 1732, were conceived and adapted to the different circumstances for Venice, Prague, Pavia and Mantua, always with a cast to Vivaldi’s satisfaction and with the composer in control of the production. The greatest appreciation of Vivaldi’s operatic music was expressed in a letter by a spectator of the 1727 Carnival season. The abbot Antonio Conti wrote that of all the operas of the Venice season he liked best Farnace because its music was varied, “between the sublime and the tender,” and because Vivaldi’s pupil worked wonders. In 1738, for the Ferrara Carnival season, Vivaldi wrote a new score of the opera. This is the last Farnace, in two acts, as the third was lost.

1711 saw the publication of what was to become one of the most important musical collections of the first half of the 18th century: Antonio Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico (‘The Harmonic Fancy’). Scored for one, two, or four violin soloists, the twelve concertos in the set fuelled a burgeoning fashion for new Italian music in northern Europe, and were soon being avidly performed and enjoyed in major musical centres, inspiring younger composers including Bach, Handel and Telemann. Vivaldi’s set – represented here by the Concerto in B minor, RV 580 and Violin Concerto in A minor, RV 356 – established a vogue for a virtuosic and brilliant type of writing, with fast movements characterized as much by their propulsive basses as by conventional melodiousness and with central slow movements often exuding a mesmeric, almost ghostly calm. Fourteen years later another collection of concertos – Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (‘The Contest of Harmony and Invention’) – would secure Vivaldi’s reputation for eternity. The first four concertos of this collection form what has become one of the most widely spread classical compositions in the history of music: Le Quattro Stagioni. Countless violinists have recorded Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, not to mention the many arrangements of the pieces for other instruments. Now Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, a team internationally recognized for its virtuosity, energy and individuality, has recorded their take on Vivaldi’s springtime birdsong, summer thunderstorm, autumn hunting and chattering teeth of icy winter. The programme also includes two typically Vivaldian slow movements, a Largo and a Grave, as well as a Sinfonia for strings originally intended as the overture of the opera La verità in cimento (‘Truth in contention’).

The Swedish recorder virtuoso Dan Laurin has demonstrated his remarkable versatility on some thirty recordings for BIS, ranging from a nine-disc set with 17th-century composer Jacob van Eyck's complete Der Fluyten Lust-hof to the recent Rock that Flute, with music for recorder and strings written in 2013 by the Dutch composer Chiel Meijering. During a recording career that stretches over almost 30 years, Laurin keeps returning to one particular set of works, however: the concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Three of the works (the Concertos RV 441, 443 and 444) included on his latest release he has recorded more than once before, with ensembles such as the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, Bach Collegium Japan and Arte dei Suonatori. For his latest 'take' on these favourites Laurin has joined forces with the young and vibrant Norwegian string ensemble 1B1 (shorthand for Ensemble Bjergsted 1). As he explains in his own liner notes for the present disc, he was inspired by his work on transcribing and performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: ‘A close reading of RV441 and RV443–445 reveals great similarities between these works and The Four Seasons: sudden changes of moods, turbulent emotions, burlesque whims mixed with sublime beauty and elegance… My aim here is to explore the recorder concertos with the same freedom and spontaneity that characterize the modern-day approach to the Seasons.’ Laurin’s recording of the Seasons has been called ‘undoubtedly the best transcription to date’ (Diapason) and ‘never hackneyed, but instead invigoratingly fresh and vibrant’ (Clarino), verdicts which can only fuel the expectations concerning this his latest version of the recorder concertos.

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

As a virtuoso and composer, Vivaldi travelled widely, and it is likely that he encountered nomadic musicians during these excursions. One can also easily imagine how travellers arriving from Eastern European countries would perform their music along the Slavic Canal where Vivaldi taught for many years at an orphanage school. Telemann comments in one of his autobiographies that a skilled composer could gain enough musical inspiration to last a lifetime by listening to gypsy musicians. The obvious closeness to gypsy music of the motifs used in the opening tutti in the third movement of the late concerto RV 375 makes a link even more tempting to surmise. The ragged initial sixteenth notes, the syncopated rhythms, the abrupt dynamic contrasts and the pianissimo passages that appear are almost identical in the Uhrovska collection (1730) of gypsy music.

The Uhrovska collection (named for the town in Slovakia where it was found) is a fascinating document that provides a direct glimpse into the world of gypsy music. The approximately 350 melodies it contains were probably intended to be as comprehensive a collection of gypsy music as possible. Its multi-national character documents the extent to which the gypsies—and their music with them—travelled. Hungarian melodies stand next to Czech songs and the location of Uhrovska's discovery in Slovakia suggests further national influences.

It became obvious to us during this project that the undercurrent of kinship between these two different music styles is too insistent and that the rough and fresh gypsy music must have exerted a great fascination on a composer like Vivaldi. Although cause for speculation remains, we hope that the listener will be inclined to share our enthusiasm for this unusual musical encounter.

-- Matthias Maute

Tracks include 17 anonymous pieces from the Uhrovska collection of gypsy music as well as Vivaldi concertos RV 375, RV 533, RV 104, and P 81.

Although for many, Antonio Vivaldi's contemporary renown may rest primarily with The Four Seasons, his legacy is steadily achieving greater and richly deserved recognition today with the help of collections such as this one abetted by the Aradia Ensemble, a fine period instrumental ensemble with an impressively robust discography. Vivaldi was astoundingly prolific composing hundreds sonatas, sinfonias and concertos, as well as more than forty operas, numerous sacred choral works and around forty cantatas. The works on this recording dedicated to his sacred music range from the virtuosic to the simple, but Vivaldi's vivid musical imagination is in full force throughout. Though his sacred music has generally received less attention than his instrumental works, they are equal to them in their originality and power.

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This new release from Brilliant Classics features Vivaldi’s complete Cello Sonatas on period instruments. Antonio Vivaldi was one of the first composers to feature the cello, then a relatively new instrument, as a mature solo instrument. This new release contains the six sonatas for cello and basso continuo. Vivaldi displays an astonishing variety and inventiveness in these works, using the instrument’s possibilities to the utmost; these sonatas still offer a serious challenge, both technical and musical, for any professional cellist. Apart from that they are vintage Vivaldi, they also feature an enormous range of emotional extremes, from deep heartfelt sadness to infectious joy. These are performances on period instruments by one of the leading cellists in this field, Francesco Galligioni. Galligioni is the solo cellist of the Venice Baroque Orchestra led by Andrea Marcon, and has recorded for Archiv/DH and other prestigious labels. Federico Guglielmo, the Early Music veteran, inspires his L’Arte dell’Arco to brilliant and passionate playing.

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Dorothee Oberlinger writes: “All the recorder concertos on this release – chamber concertos or solo concertos – were written expressly for flauto or flautino and show the imagination, delicacy, freshness, virtuosity and sometimes even melancholy, which Vivaldi put into his writing for this instrument. We have intentionally chosen tuning at 440 Hz since, in Venice, in Vivaldi’s time, tuning was higher than in neighboring musical centers such as Rome, for example, where, at times, one even played at 392 Hz. With this high tuning, the sound of the gentle gut strings becomes clearer and more brilliant.”

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Antonio Vivaldi’s three-act opera Orlando Furioso is set to an Italian libretto by Grazio Braccioli and is based on Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem of the same name. The opera alternates arias with recitative, and is set on an island at an unspecified time. The story line combines several plot lines from Ariosto: the exploits of the hero Orlando are detailed, as well as the tale of the sorceress Alcina. Orlando is performed in this production by Sonia Prina, and Alcina by Lucia Cirillo. Recorded at the 43rd Festival della Valle d’Itria, this production is the first video recording of this rare opera. Subtitles are available on this release in Italian, German, English, French, Japanese, and Korean.

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Antonio Vivaldi's bassoon concertos convince not only with their astonishingly authentic composition, but also with their almost inexhaustible ingenuity and their extraordinary musical quality. On her second release for Ars Produktion, featuring bassoon concertos by the Venetian composer, Miho Fukui also plays works in which the oboe takes part as well. Miho Fukui was born in Japan. After receiving her degree in Tokyo, she went on to study in Frankfurt and Lubeck. She plays regularly in several different orchestras and ensembles in Switzerland, Japan, and Germany, where she performs on both the modern and baroque bassoon. In 2009 she founded the “Ensemble F,” which is dedicated to Vivaldi’s 39 bassoon concertos.

Grammy Award-winning baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire and its founder-director Jeannette Sorrell have blazed trails in the world of historically informed performance with pioneering programming, presentational flair and an entrepreneurial spirit, qualities that have earned them eight Billboard chart-topping albums and more than 7 million views on YouTube. Their latest release, which launches the ensemble’s 30th anniversary season, is destined to soar to similar heights: the ensemble’s first recording of the perennial audience favourite, Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, featuring the phenomenal Spanish-born fiddler Francisco Fullana. Frequently performed at Apollo’s Fire home base in Cleveland, Ohio and on their international tours, “Sorrell’s vivid approach to the pictorial elements make these familiar works seem freshly minted, full of astonishing incident”, according to Seen & Heard International. Fullana, winner of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, has been dubbed a “rising star” by BBC Music Magazine, and an “amazing talent” by conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The Four Seasons is the first of five releases spread throughout the season celebrating Apollo’s Fire’s milestone 30th anniversary.

Only now are we fully aware of the true immensity of Vivaldi’s concerto repertoire. The violin is by no means the only instrument he favored: the place of the bassoon in his work catalogue is remarkable for its size and stylistic homogeneity, as well as for his solistic treatment of an instrument previously confined to the continuo. Seven new concertos here join the twenty-six already recorded in the first four volumes of the Vivaldi Edition, an anthology Sergio Azzolini embarked on in 2009 with L’Aura Soave, and now builds on with L’Onda Armonica.

Guy Fishman, principal cellist of the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra, presents a brilliant and energized period-instrument performance of seven miraculous and seminal concertos by the Red Priest, Antonio Vivaldi. Fishman made his Symphony Hall solo debut in 2005, and is in demand as an early music specialist in the United States and Europe, performing in recital and with Arcadia Players, Querelle des Bouffons, Boston Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, Emmanuel Music, the Boston Museum Trio, Les Violons du Roy, and El Mundo, among others. He has toured with the Mark Morris Dance Group and Natalie Merchant, and has appeared in recital with Dawn Upshaw, Eliot Fisk, Gil Kalish, and Kim Kashakashian. His playing has been praised as “plangent” by the Boston Globe, and “electrifying” by the New York Times. He plays a rare cello made in Rome in 1704 by David Tecchler. Founded in Boston in 1815, the Handel and Haydn Society is internationally acclaimed for its performances and recordings of Baroque and Classical music. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Harry Christophers, H+H’s Period Instrument Orchestra and Chorus delight more than 50,000 listeners each year at Symphony Hall and other leading venues in Boston.

The sensation of this recording is the extremely clear, direct, warm and spacious sound. Thanks to the transistor-free tube technology which documents a musical delicacy we can rediscover this much-worn piece. Violinist Gaede and his Polish colleagues play not only with utmost precision and finely discerning dynamics, but also with bite and expression. (Audio)

VIVALDI The 4 Seasons. Sinfonia in b, RV 169, “Al santo sepolcro.” Concerto for 4 Violins , RV 580 • Jeanne Lamon (vn); dir; Tafelmusik Baroque O (period instruments) • TAFELMUSIK 1007 (53:52)


Those of us who have reached a certain age are wont to reflect on the things that are that were not. Smartphones, for example. ATMs. Central air conditioning. Power steering. Color TV; some of us even predate black-and-white televisions. How about The Four Seasons ? Although Vivaldi composed this signature quartet of concertos as early as 1725, give or take a few years, and published it as a part of his op. 8 concerto collection, Il cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione , by the middle of the 20th century it and he were largely forgotten. The first recording of The Four Seasons , made in 1939, rescued both from obscurity, but they didn’t hit the big time until 1969, when Alan Loveday and Neville Marriner’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields made the recording that launched (by Wikapedia’s estimate) 1,000 calendars, so to speak. There were 168 seasons between 1969 and 2012. Do the math.


Tafelmusik’s recording of The Four Seasons was made in 1991, about halfway between the ASFM’s and the present. I didn’t hear it then, but it was well received at the time, and with good reason. It’s a constant delight—from “Spring”’s avian twittering to “Winter”’s stormy blast. Jeanne Lamon and friends play with utmost skill, of course, and infectious verve, but also with vivid imagination. Vivaldi’s dogs bark, his horses prance, and his wedding guests drift off into blissful sleep after their drunken revelry. His teeth chatter. Lamon makes the most of the programmatic aspects of the score, but always from a superbly musical perspective. I’ve always been fond of the Harnoncourt’s (conductor Nikolaus, soloist Alice) version, but I’m moving Lamon and Tafelmusik to the top of my personal Seasons list.


The mysterious Sinfonia “At the Holy Grave” and the popular Four-Violin Concerto (which Bach later recast for four harpsichords) round out this marvelous disc.


FANFARE: George Chien

In 2016 the Witold Lutoslawski Chamber Philharmonic in Lomza organized the educational campaign “Colors of Music” for the second time. It has been realized under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The campaign is interdisciplinary; as it combines visual arts and music of representatives of various periods. By developing musical-plastic imagination, the organizers wanted to make young receivers of art sensitive to its multidimensionality. The artists of the Philharmonic unraveled the mystery of the musical world, performing concerts enriched with a lecture, presentation of musical instruments, and recordings. An art competition addressed to the oldest kindergarten groups and pupils up to 11 years of age, educational centers in Lomza and its surroundings concluded those activities. The current album constitutes an integral element in the campaign Colors of Music. Its founders and organizers assume that appropriately presented classical music is a great tool for developing imagination, creativity, and sensitivity. The campaign pursues a continual objective of promoting culture in its universal character, particularly among young listeners, by means of experiencing music with many senses, as well as by the influence of music on aesthetic and emotional tones. This release in the campaign presents music for two flutes, performed by flutists Lukasz Dlugosz and Agata Kielar-Dlugosz.

Vivaldi, more than any of his Italian contemporaries, left a great number of works composed for diverse and highly imaginative combinations of wind and string instruments. The source of this inspiration can be traced back not only to the composer’s own personal tastes, but especially to his good fortune to have worked for an institution such as the Pietà, which had at its disposal an unrivalled wealth of instrumental forces. This interest is a constant element throughout his entire production.

For her marvelous new album, Luce e Ombra, soprano Myriam Leblanc assembled a collection of her favorite works by the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi. She chose opera excerpts, a chamber cantata, along with instrumental pieces transcribed or adapted for the Ensemble Mirabilia, consisting of Antoine Malette-Chénier on the baroque triple harp, Marie-Michel Beauparlant on the cello and Grégoire Jeay on the flute. The vocal performance, the arias’ nuances and the intimate relationship with the highly capable ensemble make for an accomplished and convincing album. A graduate of McGill University, Myriam Leblanc obtained a master's degree in choral conducting direction from the University of Sherbrooke. She was a First Prize winner and People's choice Award winner at the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières Competition, a Jeune Ambassadrice Lyrique in 2014 (Prix Québec-Bavière), Audience Choice Award winner at the Canadian Opera Company Centre Stage Competition, Third Prize winner at the Ottawa Choral Society New Discoveries contest, holder of the Excellence grant given annually by l'Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra de Montréal, First Prize winner in the Mathieu-Duguay Early Music Competition at the 2017 Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival. She has been working in the world of music for few years. Leblanc is recognized for the purity of her tone, a flexible and warm voice and her mastery of both technique and musical expressiveness.

With his Four Seasons, Antonio Vivaldi created perhaps the most famous and influential work of late Baroque music. Even today, his imaginative solutions to the challenges of depicting the seasons in music are completely compelling in their evocative power. Recorded in the Concert Hall of the State Chamber Orchestra, Zilina.

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VIVALDI L’Incoronazione di Dario , RV 719: Sinfonia; Ferri, ceppi, sangue, morte; Sentiro fra ramo. Arsilda, RV 700: Io sento in questo seno. Motezuma, RV 723: Quel rossor, ch’in volto miri; In mezzo alla procella. Violin Concertos: in D, RV 208, “Grosso Mogul”; in B?, RV 367; in C, RV 191 • Adrian Chandler (vn, cond); Sally Bruce-Payne (mez); La Serenissima (period instruments) • AVIE 2287 (76:16 Text and Translation)


Avie’s release of a program of Vivaldi’s music bears the subtitle “A Tale of Two Seasons,” with the two seasons represented by concertos and arias from 1717 and 1733. Adrian Chandler’s thorough and perceptive booklet notes give an account of the music, the culture that gave rise to it, and the changes the intervening 16 years wrought on Vivaldi’s style in both opera and concerto.


The program opens with the brief Sinfonia from L’Incoronazione di Dario , with the first movement exuding the ensemble’s crisp energy, the second comprising a flowing Andante , and the third, Presto , exhibiting chunky élan in this reading (Chandler notes that the designation refers to the movement’s “verve” rather than its speed). For the program, Chandler and the ensemble have adopted A = 440, representing then Venice’s higher pitch.


Chandler notes that Vivaldi’s arias from the early years don’t usually last as long as those from his later periods. Accordingly, the three from the 1717 portion of the program occupy only about 12 minutes in total. Sally Bruce-Payne appears as the mellifluous but dramatic soloist in the two arias from L’Incoronazione di Dario , (the vigorous Ferri, ceppi, sangue, morte and Sentiro fra ramo , the latter featuring dialogues with a solo violin and with strings), sandwiching in between the alternately flowing (voice) and agitated (orchestra) aria Io sento in questo seno from Arsilda.


The first “season” closes with the familiar Concerto, “Grosso Mogul,” which Chandler suggests had been written for performance during an opera on the subject of India’s Mogul. Chandler, playing a violin made in 1981, “after Amati,” by Rowland Ross, brings a flash of virtuosity to the solo part—especially the stunning extended cadenzas of the first and third movements, which he adapted mostly from a German source—in his view the unadulterated form of the work—as well as from Vivaldi’s manuscript.


To open the second “season,” Chandler plays a Violin Concerto (RV 367) that he identifies as a theatrical work written in the 1730s (and gives his reasons for believing so, in view of the general difficulty of dating Vivaldi’s concertos). Chandler also notes that by the 1730s, Vivaldi gave greater prominence to the solos, reducing the length of the ritornellos. In the first movement of RV 367, Chandler takes advantage not only of the flowing melody of the tuttis, but also of some dialogue between the upper parts and the bass as well.


The arias—for this season, “Quel rossor, ch’in volto miri” and the exciting and considerably more agitated “In mezzo alla procella,” making reference to a storm at sea, with both calling forth thrillingly dramatic readings from Sally Bruce-Payne—come from Motezuma , written, according to Chandler, for Angiola Zanucchi in the role of Ramiro, brother of Fernando, general of the Spanish army.


The Violin Concerto, RV 191, brings the program to a close. Similarities exist between this work and the Concerto, RV 367—a sort of melodiousness coupled with high-octane virtuosity, and Chandler effectively combines these manners. He notes that Vivaldi by this time had expanded his repertoire of bowings, and these surpass in their variety those found in more familiar works, like those in op. 8 from 1725. The Finale displays a wider range of rhythmic motives than many listeners may associate with Vivaldi, which also provides a strong contrast with his earlier works. Giuliano Carmignola and Andrea Marcon included this Concerto in a collection of Vivaldi’s late concertos with the Venice Baroque Orchestra (Sony 89362, Fanfare 25:2). Both ensembles play with electrifying crisp energy, but Chandler brings out the passagework’s lyricism; Carmignola, hissing and spitting, trains a laser to reflect its diamond-like brilliance.


La Serenissima gives in this program a fuller representation of Vivaldi as a musician and composer than could any that focused exclusively on his vocal or instrumental works. It should appeal to specialists and, because of its combination of breadth and focus, also to more general listeners. Very strongly recommended to all sorts of collectors.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Vivaldi: Orlando furioso Original recording reissued Antonio Vivaldi (Composer), Claudio Scimone (Conductor), I Solisti Veneti (Orchestra), Marilyn Horne (Performer Orlando), Victoria de los Angeles (Performer Angelica ), Lucia Valentini Terrani (Performer Alcina), Carmen Gonzales (Performer Bradamante ), Lajos Kozma (Performer Medoro), Sesto Bruscantini (Performer Ruggiero ), Nicola Zaccaria (Performer Astolfo) Lucia Valentini-Terrani, of course, is often considered a bridge performer between the old days and the new, and her performance here, though containing some touches now considered quaint, is close enough to the modern style to pass muster. As for Bruscantini, he was a famous buffo baritone known for rapid patter but not for Baroque music. He copes surprisingly well, not as scrupulous as the distaff side of the cast but still ably working his way through difficult runs and, yes, even a trill here and there. Horne sings through the first act with her usual flawless technique and impassioned, all-purpose energy, but toward the end of act II she suddenly erupts in dramatic outbursts. Where did that come from? And she continues to surprise with more dramatic outbursts in act III. Granted, she's not Janet Baker, but it's still better than average Horne.