Critics, conductors and colleagues agree that Franco Bordoni’s voice, accent and interpretation constitute Verdi at his most noble. Which is hardly surprising given the singer’s awe of the composer and approach to his art. Bordoni had all the technique he needed to exploit to the full his voice’s volume, texture with its wealth of harmonics and two octave range with no uneven spots. The timbre and color of his voice made him the perfect dramatic baritone, a voice that saw its owner through years of unflagging, full-on performances.

Learning the untimely death of his young colleague, Verdi wrote to Masheroni: “Poor Catalani! A good man and an excellent musician! What a pity! Congratulate Giulio (Ricordi) on the few and touching words he said for that poor man. What a shame! And what a rebuke for the others!” Indeed, Catalani’s short existence was troubled by a restless struggle against the inexorable disease that undermined him and that carried him off untimely, and by the difficulties sometimes insurmountable in becoming popular as a successful composer. It was a great affliction that lasted some twelve years and that was made more doleful by the urgent need of creating and by the incomprehension that took the place of the first Milanese enthusiasm. Loreley is a vital opera, thanks to the authenticity Catalani was able to infuse in it with his fantasy and day-dreaming, with his relish for harmonic and instrumental delicacy. The unforgettable and touching funeral march with the intermittent and sorrowful participation of the chorus and of the solo voice, or the famous Danza delle Ondine immersed in a voluptuous sonorous atmosphere are pages that remain on the top of the canon of melodramatic literature.

This work is captivating in its intensity and focuses on aspects of and moments in Tasso's rich, eventful life. Indeed, Donizetti seems to have been so actively involved in drafting his subject that he may well have seen in Tasso not a little of himself. After all, both composer and poet hailed from Bergamo. Reports at the time indicate the opera was initially received with considerable warmth and, on occasion, outright enthusiasm. Yet this success proved short-lived. The growing vogue for tragic subjects in opera probably made Torquato Tasso seem an odd hotchpotch of unrelated elements with a finale that, for all its outstanding approach to the music, in dramatic terms had neither a properly happy nor unhappy ending. The fact remains, however that the music of Torquato Tasso is highly inventive – outstandingly so. If today's audiences can strike a balance between the several approaches to stagecraft in this opera, Torquato Tasso will reveal new delights for the eye and ear and so become one of the finest instances of Donizetti at his most experimental and charismatic.

A product of German, Slav and Italian influences, Antonio Smareglia (1854-1929) is a thoroughly Mitteleuropean composer yet very much his own man, a perfect example of the music of the Trieste-Istria area. Il Vassallo di Szigeth inaugurated the Vienna Hofoper (today Staatsoper) season on 4 October 1889 which was also the name-day of the Emperor Franz Josef who attended the performance and was as enthusiastic as the rest of the audience. The highly favorable reaction of the powerful critic Eduard Hanslick and Johannes Brahms (both were ferociously anti-Wagner), proves that Smareglia's opera was anything but Wagnerian, in spite of the musician admiration for Wagner. The Vienna Hofoper took their production of Il Vassallo di Szigeth on tour to New York, making it the most celebrated opera in the repertoire and enabling Smareglia to build on its success in 1893 with Cornill Schutt.

The present recording brings to a fitting conclusion a long process of research, study and performance of a hitherto lost and forgotten 18th century musical work from Italy. The composer, Leonardo Leo, was born in 1694 in San Vito dei Normanni (Brindisi) and died some 50 years later in Naples. One of the greatest of the so-called Neapolitan School, he had a major impact on music teaching in Europe. Already a fully-fledged composer, in 1722 the young Leo set to music the sacred work Dalla morte alla vita di Santa Maria Maddalena eremita on commission from the town council of Atrani, a small attractive coastal location near Amalfi, to celebrate the patron saint Mary Magdalen. After this performance the work was never mentioned again and all catalogues of Leonardo Leo’s output stated that the manuscript score was lost. In fact, a copy of it had travelled to southern France and reappeared in 2009 in a Paris bookshop. The Leonardo Leo Centre of Studies and Documentation acquired the manuscript in 2012. The manuscript comprises some 200 pages, many of them clearly in Leonardo Leo’s own hand, and was scrupulously transcribed with a view to correct performance practice. This was seen on several occasions in 2019 when the work was staged, albeit with several numbers removed, of which the present album is a faithful live recording. The road that led to this result was beset with many difficulties but the great determination of all those concerned beat the odds and has added a work of great value to Leonardo Leo’s surviving output and an invaluable source to knowledge of sacred music performance in the first half of the 18th century.

The performance of Cavalleria Rusticana republished in this album took place in the hometown of Mascagni, Livorno, on the occasion of the centenary of the premiere, which took place in 1890 in Rome, at the Teatro Costanzi. Already scheduled for some time, this publication due out in autumn 2021 commemorates one of the most important voices of post-World War II, the tenor Giuseppe Giacomini, recently passed away at the age of 80, and caught here in a role to him particularly congenial and at the zenith of his career. Known and loved by European, American and Asian opera audiences, a unique voice for its richness of harmonics and extension. The English critic Alan Blyth wrote of him: “... he is the true inheritor of the spinto mantle last worn by Corelli, and to some extent by Vickers. Yet his tone, with his strongly baritonal timbre, bears an even closer resemblance to that of Francesco Merli...” Conductor is Bruno Bartoletti, who had a long and honored theatrical and recording career; to be noticed the "extraordinary participation" of Fedora Barbieri in the part of Lucia.

Ghena Dimitrova and Giuseppe Giacomini one splendid evening at the opera in Genoa nearly thirty years ago. Two powerful voices which could stir the emotions like few others: on this particular evening in Genoa Ghena and Giuseppe were in good shape and immediately made that audience connection which makes an evening special, as the often-crazed applause proves. In the treble, their notes rang out with clarity, power and a lightning-fast attack; their phrasing was as imposing as it was tireless; their emotional tension sent shivers down the audience's collective spine; and, most importantly of all, they phrased their notes and articulated their words with a severity and intensity which makes the difference between a fine evening of operatic thrills and an interpretation deserving to be recorded for the benefit of those who were not lucky enough to be there on the night.

"•The particularity of this edition of Donizetti’s masterpiece is in its reconstruction of the 1845 Saint Petersburg version. Along with some key transpositions, this 2010 performance presents the alternative finale adopted at the same time. • Bass-baritone Lorenzo Regazzo is an acclaimed “bel canto” and “coloratura” singer and renowned Mozart and Rossini interpreter. Giovanni Battista Rigon is considered “one of the best Rossini conductors...spirited...never tiring” (Il Corriere della Sera)."

All of the works on this disc were recorded live during the semifinals and finals of the 4th International Competition for Young Organists on October 2-3, 2014. Organized by the city of Muzzana del Turgano, the competition is used to feature the historical organs in the towns of the area. Four organs were used: the Nacchini in Muzzana, Dacci in Marano, and Francesco Zanin in Lignano Sabbiadoro, and Sesto al Reghena. In addition to featuring these fine instruments, the purpose of this recording is also to showcase new talent and instill a love for the King of Musical Instruments.

The first performance of I Rantzau took place at the Pergola Theatre in Florence on 10th November 1892. It was a triumphal success right from the dress rehearsal; the ovations for the composer were so great that according to the reports of the time his wife Lina fainted with emotion. On the first evening, six pieces were encored. Born under such splending auspices, the opera continued its career almost into the new century, but inexplicably, in its complete version, it was no longer put forward for production. And we had to wait until the celebration of the centenary of the first performance for the first new production in modern times. What was the reason for its disappearance? Whatever answers might be given, today I Rantzau has to be considered an important and delicate stage in Mascagni’s creative work. Indeed, the opera marks the saturation of the so-called “realistic” phase of the composer’s work. It highlights the consolidation of the change from the idyllic naturalism tried out in the earlier Amico Fritz, to a true experimentalism which was to lead soon after that to the pessimistic tensions of the heavy Nordic romanticism of Guglielmo Ratcliff.

Lauro Sebastiano Rossi (1810 - 1885) was a leading composer and teacher from 1830 to 1880. In 1817, his family moved to Naples, where he studied music under Giovanni Furno, Nicola Zingarelli, and Pietro Raimondi at the Collegio Reale together with fellow students Errico Petrella and Federico Ricci. He immediately distinguished himself in the semi-serious genre with Il disertore svizzero and Le fucine di Bergen, but, in particular, he confirmed his talent in the comic genre, congenial to him, with La casa disabitata on a libretto by Jacopo Ferretti, an opera performed with great success at La Scala in Milan on 16 August 1834. This was followed by about eight years abroad (Mexico, Cuba, New Orleans) as a conductor and impresario, before he finally returned to Italy: the composer was mature and ready to resume his opera career in Italy, which, especially in the comic genre, was very successful: it was the remake of La casa disabitata re-titled Don Eutichio e Sinforosa ovvero I falsi monetari that gave him lasting success (1844), continued with Il domino nero (1849); up to the full-bodied masterpieces of his later years, where the great stylistic and structural lesson of Wagner (La Contessa di Mons, 1874; Cleopatra, 1876) replaced his bel canto style. After the unification of Italy, Rossi became a crucial figure in national music education in his role as director of the two most important Italian conservatories (where he introduced important didactic innovations still maintained today): the one in Milan (1850-1871) and the one in Naples (1871-1878), succeeding Saverio Mercadante.

In 1915, during World War I, a fire threatened the very existence of the ill-fated Tilda, sending it's score and orchestral parts up in flames, leaving to posterity only the reduction for voice and piano and an orchestral copy of the Ave Maria. Late in life, Cilea expresses a positive opinion of his youthful effort: "except for a few amends of the libretto, the score is organic, rich in melodies and written with a great sense of the theater"; he even plans to revise it but he never concludes his intent. Thanks to the challenging work of Giancosimo Russo, who reconstructed the orchestration from top to bottom, according to musicological assumptions that took into account the author's style, verismo instances and the orchestral habits of the time, it is now once again possible to enjoy a small jewel of the glorious Italian operatic tradition.

Antonio Vivaldi's musical production for bassoon comprises no less than thirty-nine solo concertos. Within the musical landscape of it's time, this impressive musical legacy stands out like the silhouette of a mountain shrouded in mystery. If we consider that in Italy there is almost no evidence of the bassoon being used in the solo form after the 1680s, Vivaldi's contribution acquires a significance that is both extraordinary and enigmatic. When and for which events were his concertos composed and performed? And also, for which performers was such a vast, original and technically demanding production intended? It is not easy to find an answer to such questions. The composer's renewed interest in this instrument must have then derived from an encounter with a first-rate virtuoso, someone whose talent helped to stimulate the creation of an original repertoire, characterised by an extremely high technical and qualitative standard. These were definitely performers who were able to work in close contact with the composer over a sufficiently long period of time. Indeed, Vivaldi's writing was influenced and modelled on their technical skills, as testified by the eight concertos included in this recording.

Antonio Vivaldi's musical production for bassoon comprises no less than thirty-nine solo concertos. Within the musical landscape of its time, this impressive musical legacy stands out like the silhouette of a mountain shrouded in mystery. If we consider that in Italy there is almost no evidence of the bassoon being used in the solo form after the 1680s, Vivaldi's contribution acquires a significance that is both extraordinary and enigmatic. When and for which events were his concertos composed and performed? And also, for which performers was such a vast, original and technically demanding production intended? It is not easy to find an answer to such questions. The composer's renewed interest in this instrument must have then derived from an encounter with a first-rate virtuoso, someone whose talent helped to stimulate the creation of an original repertoire, characterised by an extremely high technical and qualitative standard. These were definitely performers who were able to work in close contact with the composer over a sufficiently long period of time. Indeed, Vivaldi's writing was influenced and modelled on their technical skills, as testified by the eight concertos included in this recording.

Antonio Vivaldi's musical production for bassoon comprises no less than thirty-nine solo concertos. Within the musical landscape of it's time, this impressive musical legacy stands out like the silhouette of a mountain shrouded in mystery. If we consider that in Italy there is almost no evidence of the bassoon being used in the solo form after the 1680s, Vivaldi's contribution acquires a significance that is both extraordinary and enigmatic. When and for which events were his concertos composed and performed? And also, for which performers was such a vast, original and technically demanding production intended? It is not easy to find an answer to such questions. The composer's renewed interest in this instrument must have then derived from an encounter with a first-rate virtuoso, someone whose talent helped to stimulate the creation of an original repertoire, characterised by an extremely high technical and qualitative standard. These were definitely performers who were able to work in close contact with the composer over a sufficiently long period of time. Indeed, Vivaldi's writing was influenced and modelled on their technical skills, as testified by the eight concertos included in this recording.

The Florentine Ezio Camussi (1877-1956) was judged by Leoncavallo "a sure promise of our art" and supported at the publisher Sonzogno by Boito and Massenet. The libretto of Il Volto della Vergine by Paolo Buzzi is based on an ancient Christian legend, a miracle that occurred around 1425 in Florence. Fra Angelico is frescoing the Convent of San Marco and finds himself in difficulty in sketching the face of the Madonna. The teenage daughter of the gardener Fiorenzo, Grazia, beautiful and ill, asks to meet the painter, is enchanted by his work, and as she confesses to him her dreamed love for the young and handsome Lionello, the features of her face are miraculouslytransmitted to the image of the Virgin painted by Fra Angelico. The maiden dies. Camussi chooses a distinctly melodic language, both in the vocal writing and in the transparent orchestral support; he does not allow himself to be influenced by the solemn and declamatory examples of Pizzetti and Malipiero, and manages to create scenes of captivating, even if not very personal, singing, employing a technique of recurring thematic fragments, starting from those of the delicate Prelude. In this score, let's think of the mystical "tale" of Fra Angelico, of his prayer to the Virgin "Canta, Mistica Rosa" which Buzzi himself modeled as a sweet song, of Grazia's narration of her meeting with Lionello, of the intervention of the Novices "Divin splendor" which brightly closes the act.

Luigi Ricci (1805-1859) composed around thirty operas, four of which were written in collaboration with his brother Federico; he tried his hand at serious melodrama - which was perhaps not very congenial to him, and in which he had less luck - and semi-serious melodrama, where he immediately enjoyed great success with Chiara di Rosenberg, given at La Scala in Milan in 1831, which was to have wide and lasting diffusion in Europe. But it is above all the comic operas, among which there are many highly successful works, that ensure Ricci an international reputation. His pronounced flair for comedy, ability to master plots, and taste for the surreal meant that Ricci - right from his first approaches to the genre - was immediately identified as the champion of post-Rossini opera buffa. Ricci's particularly happy musical vein and his richly lively writing make him the leading Italian exponent of a tradition that might have seemed obsolete in the 1840s, but which still Donizetti - with L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale - had been able to reinterpret and revitalize. At least until Falstaff, Ricci would have very few rivals in his genre.

La veglia is a single act opera by Arrigo Pedrollo (1878-1964) based on a libretto by Carlo Linati, taken from In the shadow of the Glen by Synge. It focuses on the role of the woman of humble conditions, exploited by those who promised her, with marriage, a happy life. The old herdsman, Dan Burke, pretends to be dead in order to discover her deception and to have proof of the guilt of his young wife, Nora. While the greedy Michele, interested in Nora's inheritance, having made his calculations, proposes marriage to her, Dan Burke rises in a powerful fury and violently chases his wife out of the house. Nora, after years of submission, finally attacks him, declaring her complete contempt for his horrible character, his avarice, his insensitivity. With bitterness in his heart for his most beautiful years"throw away" he collects his poor things, and prepares, at dawn, to leave towards the unknown. But if the regret for not having enjoyed her youth properly and if the certainty of being left without a place to live oppress her soul, a new twist illuminates the dark story: the meek and gentle Giramondo, to whom Nora, in that same night of wind and storm he had given shelter, comes to her rescue, offers her love, and the promise that, together and free, they will be able, in love, to know the world and the flowering of the seasons under the starry sky.

Piccinni: the success achieved with some works represented since 1754 in Italy, his simple and elegant style, his consistently refined and appropriate orchestrations, and his revival and reworking of some already successful popular titles attracted the attention, in the 70s of 1700, not only of Italian audiences and critics but also of some French men of letters and of culture, such as Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, Jean François de La Harpe and Jean-François Marmontel. They saw in him an heir to Pergolesi and suitable to represent the anti-Gluck, capable of representing the new poetics and of upholding a original vision of the music within the operatic drama.

As soon as he had finished the finale of Turandot [1925-6], Alfano began working with political journalist and man of letters Arturo Rossato, [Vicenza 1882-1942]. He offered Alfano a libretto in one act, Madonna Imperia, based on La belle Impéria, by Honoré de Balzac. The fair lady of high society Imperia enjoys the protection of the chancellor of Ragusa and lives a life of pleasure in Constance among prelates and nobles and bewitches one of the bishop of Bordeaux’s young choristers, Filippo Mala, who declares his love for her and has to sing her a song as though he were a troubadour. This love arouses the jealousy of Ragusa, who makes Filippo go away and leave Imperia to him, but the passion between Imperia and Filippo wins out and the opera ends with an erotic encounter between the two offstage.

A one-off in Bach’s output, Amore traditore is a model in style and structure of the Italian chamber cantata and although the surviving manuscript score is not in Bach’s own hand, careful stylistic analysis has proved the piece is his. Far less familiar to the general public is Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739) who played a determining role in early 18th century German music. The cantata L’occaso di Titone all’Aurora oriente evokes the Greek myth of Eos (Dawn), daughter of Titan, sister of the Sun and Moon and mother of the four winds from the four points of the compass. Like Keiser, Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729) trained at the Thomasschule in Leipzig and is particularly well-known to harpsichordists for his two valuable treatises on basso continuo performance. A particularly fine example is Luci voi siete quelle, the text of which is Arcadian-style poetry. Händel’s Roman cantatas certainly have the usual arcadian settings and pathos-laden themes of pastoral love affairs with allegorical reflections concerning love and beauty. Francesco Antonio Pistocchi (Palermo 1659 - Bologna 1756) is known today only to specialists although in his time he was celebrated as a great countertenor and composer by Charles Burney. In Germany, he composed the cantata Il Polifemo, the sixth in his collection Scherzi musicali op.2.

Paisiello distances himself, his sentiments and intellect, from his characters; he describes theatrical realities that on the surface do not seem the least bit serious in parodically grave tones. Voices from another world, Elisi and Iperuranio, who sing alternating macaronic Greek with a stinging parody of a more recent scene from Hell: the one from Orfeo ed Euridice by Calzabigi and Gluck, performed in Naples barely a year before with modifications and additions by Johann Christian Bach and others.

Il Prigionier Superbo was first staged on August 28, 1733. The chronicles report that the intermezzos of La Serva Padrona were so successful they overshadowed Il Prigioniero, in spite of its obvious merits. Pergolesi’s adhesion to the stylistic standards and the formal customs of his time is total and his respect for the taste of the audience entirely focused on belcanto is never in discussion. (Bongiovanni)

In the search for a specific form and language, the music of “Sì”, under the modernist patina, returns to our most sincere sources, to the spirits of comedy and comic opera. After all, the audience of the melodrama found in the 'little lyric' a sort of deforming nail in which situations, behaviours and conventions were reflected with polite caricature. Such was the Mascagni operetta, which, in its background of parodist grotesque, re-enacts the petty-bourgeois salacity, even in the title: Sì, from the name of the protagonist, so called because she never knew say no to anyone. In this operetta Mascagni lavished the gifts of his most spontaneous melody; the letters aria sung by Vera, the andantino of the duet in Act 1, the page of the wedding party in act 2, the seduction duet between Chablis and Vera, the “sad waltz” sung by Sì; the prelude for strings opening Act 3. The Mascagni talent however reveal itself in the entire score with his fluent streak, rhythmic liveliness, and skill for developing the ensemble scenes.

When opera singers go from their standard repertoire into something new, from the stage to the recording studio or simply from one performance to another, the results may be better or worse, a great achievement or a great disappointment. None of which ever troubled Ettore Bastianini, whose renowned confidence in his own vocal and mental powers would not allow for those all too human failings which other performers may suffer in such circumstances. His authenticity and renown had their origins on stage of course, yet once he had taken that experience into the recording studio, a return to live performance often brought gains in authority and expressive power. The present series of previously unreleased recordings proves this admirably and they are all the more remarkable because they are certainly not the sort of material with which Bastianini felt most at home, (that was always a thoroughly Romantic repertoire, hence dominated by Verdi).