Displays all the merits, virtues and charms of von Stade’s mezzo range.

Frederica von Stade has husbanded her voice wisely and consequently had a long career, yet there is little doubt that the recordings she made in the mid to late 1970s display her beautiful voice at its freshest and most appealing. Affectionately known to her fans as “Flicka”, she has long vied with Marilyn Horne for the title of “America’s favourite mezzo-soprano”, but given the difference in their repertoires, she was never really in direct competition with Horne as their voice-types, although both nominally within the same category, are very different. The main overlap has come in their shared coloratura facility, especially in Rossini - although even there, they differ in areas of strength, Horne offers greater pyrotechnic facility and brilliance while von Stade excels in music requiring plangency and pathos.

I have long loved the melting luxuriance of her voice, with its plush low notes and light, sensuous, flickering vibrato and am delighted that three of her early recitals have been re-issued by ArkivMusic under licence from Sony. The standard LP length of around fifty minutes of music now seems short measure, but I readily admit that the current norm of 80 minutes on CD sometimes constitutes more than I want to hear at one sitting, especially of only one voice, so I have no complaints when the singing is of the quality on offer here.

This recital offers arias spanning three hundred years of Italian opera. The programme is eclectic and the last item might even seem a little incongruous, in that we leap from Baroque of Broschi (who?) to the verismo of Leoncavallo but the music has been chosen carefully to display all the merits, virtues and charms of von Stade’s mezzo range. She is always ideal playing suffering women in various states of distress, scorn and abuse and as such was always an adorable Cenerentola/Cendrillon in Rossini and Massenet respectively, but it is something of a relief to hear her sing two more upbeat Rossini arias in the trouser role of Tancredi and the exultant Semiramide. The latter features the one slightly less than agreeable characteristic of her voice which was apparent even in her prime and was to become more noticeable over time: the slight discoloration of notes from top B and above - in other words, the required “upper extension” of the Rossini mezzo with which Colbran (Rossini’s wife) herself soon began to experience difficulties. Conversely, it is also the aria which displays her perfect trill and equal gift for elation as opposed to unvaried melancholy.

She lives each character most convincingly; the least overtly characterised item is the aria from Broschi’s “Idaspe” which will constitute a pleasant surprise to new generations of operaphiles. It is a static, old-fashioned display aria, very grand and dignified with its soaring tune and staccato-obbligato trumpet accompaniment, originally written for the castrato divo Farinelli, Von Stade nicely encompasses the switches on this disc between male and female roles by colouring her voice differently, with a more mellow timbre. For Paisiello’s Nina, she adopts an aptly lighter, more feminine tone suggestive of innocence and simplicity as befits the music, which is reminiscent of Gluck in plaintive mode, especially given the prominence of the flute accompaniment.

The leap to Leoncavallo’s mezzo Musetta is a wrench but one is soon swept along by the gorgeous tune, lush orchestration and von Stade’s trademark ability to tug the heartstrings. In a sense, we have come full emotional circle from the opening item, in which von Stade recalls a famous Glyndebourne role and movingly delineates Penelope’s fidelity and devotion. She is ably supported here by fellow-mezzo Janice Taylor’s Eridea.

The support from Mario Bernardi and the Canadian orchestra is sensitive and flexible, the recorded sound ideal. This disc makes a perfect companion to “von Stade’s delectable French opera aria recital made in 1976 under Pritchard.

-- Ralph Moore, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia

Sonate a Quattro are the brilliant compositions from Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, written during the summer of 1804 at the young age of 12. These works, at the time, were commonly performed by wind quartet and it wasn’t until 1954 when the original manuscripts were discovered in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. showing their original arrangement for string quartet. The world premiere recording of Rossini: 6 Sonate a Quattro features two of Canada’s most respected and beloved performers - Mark Fewer (violin), and Joel Quarrington (bass) - and two of North America’s rising stars - Yolanda Bruno (violin), and Julian Schwarz (cello) and produced by JUNO award-winning producer John D.S. Adams. These performances, from November 2017, were recorded in collaboration with the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance using the newly released (2014) Critical Edition published by the Fondazione Rossini Pesaro.

The comic-heroic romp Matilde di Shabran was Rossini’s last commission for the theatres of Rome, the city where he’d had great successes such as Il barbiere di Siviglia. Rossini took advantage of the agile, sparkling style of librettist Jacopo Ferretti to create a narrative in which the ferocious Corradino, a declared misogynist, is introduced to the resourceful Matilde, who succeeds in melting his iron heart and winning his love. This premiere recording revives the original 1821 Rome version, which was conducted at the last minute by Paganini, and caused brawling in the streets between Rossini’s admirers and detractors.

 

REVIEW:

 

This splendid recording of the original Rome version of Matilde, recorded at the 2019 Rossini Wildbad Festival in Germany, relishes the almost comic tale of the melodramatic medieval tyrant Corradino conquered by love, or rather Matilde, with a score packed with some of Rossini’s most accomplished music.

 

Michele Angelini is magnificent as the villain, everything that you hope for in a Rossini tenor—fleet of voice in his runs and trills and with gravity-defying head notes. Sara Blanch’s Matilde matches him note for note. Their Act I duet ‘Ch’io fugga ha già timore…’ is a thrilling lesson in Rossini singing. There’s good work from the rest of the cast, notably the contralto Victoria Yarovaya as Edoardo, who Corradino has unjustly imprisoned and turns tragedy into comedy. Equally pleasing is the Passionart Orchestra conducted by José Miguel Pérez-Sierra. All scrupulously Rossinian including the celebrated horn solo at the beginning of Act II.

 

– BBC Music Magazine

Rossini's ceaseless wit and invention are best exemplified in his series of operas. His colorful orchestration and command of both comic and tragic elements can be savored in this second of four volumes of the complete symphonic overtures. Guillaume Tell, with it's overture in four movements, includes a scene for five solo cellos. La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder), one of his most popular pieces, opens with an overture of charm and elan. Volume 1 (8.570933) was described by MusicWeb Internationals "an admirable start to what looks like being a very desirable series".

Rossini’s operas have remained amongst the most popular in the repertoire but over the last decade of his life he turned largely to piano music. The Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) occupy thirteen volumes, and the deliciously informal and comic fourth is called Quatre hors d’oeuvres et quatre mendiants. Its theme is food, and Rossini lavishes all his abundant abilities of characterisation in his descriptive passages, not least the introduction of a parakeet.

This disc forms part of Chandos’ ongoing Richard Hickox legacy series. The re-release features Rossini's Stabat Mater, performed by Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia. They are joined by the London Symphony Orchestra Chorus and four excellent soloists: Helen Field, Della Jones, Arthur Davies and Roderick Earle.

Bianca e Falliero was commissioned by La Scala, Milan, for its prestigious Carnival season of 1819-20, enjoying a run of no fewer than 39 performances. Rossini responded with a score the virtuosity and expressivity of which outdid even his Neapolitan works. Prevailing tastes at La Scala meant that ensembles predominated over arias but behind the conventional dictates Rossini lavished the utmost care on his work, fashioning an opera full of dramatic coloratura and powerful theatrical craft and notable for its rich and often surprising harmony.

ROSSINI Mosè in Egitto • Antonino Fogliani, cond; Lorenzo Regazzo ( Mosè ); Akie Amou ( Elcìa ); Wojtek Gierlach ( Faraone ); Filippo Adami ( Osiride ); Rossella Bevacqua ( Amaltea ); Giogio Trucco ( Aronne ); Karen Bandelow ( Amenofi ); Giuseppe Fedeli ( Mambre ); San Pietro a Majella Ch; Wildbad Wind Band; Württemberg PO • NAXOS 8.660220 (2 CDs: 136:38) Live: Bad Wildbad 7/2006


Naxos provides a bit of operatic history on the back liner of this latest addition in their Rossini in Wildbad festival recordings. Mosè in Egitto (1819 Naples version) was “reworked in 1822 for Paris with new arias, but is given here in the slightly revised Italian version of 1819 which includes the famous act III Preghiera of Moses.” If I may elaborate: first there was Mosè in Egitto , an “Azione tragico-sacra in tre atti” that premiered in 1818 (Naples). It was not a success. Rossini dropped Amaltea’s second-act aria and rewrote the third act, expanding it and inserting the Preghiera “Dal tuo stellato soglio.” The Preghiera became a hit, and the opera became a modest success. The original third act is lost, so a reconstruction of the 1818 original is not possible.


Since Naxos mentions the Paris version, so will I. When Rossini moved his compositional base to Paris, he reworked some of his earlier operas. He turned the three-act Mosè in Egitto into the four-act Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le Passage de la Mer Rouge , complete with a new first act, some new characters (and good-bye to a few old ones), some new arias, and (reluctantly) a ballet. Presto, the “Azione tragico-sacra in tre atti” was now a four-act Grand Opera. When the text of this new version was translated into Italian, it was titled Mosè e Faraone (Sacred melodrama in four acts). So it wouldn’t be confused with the original three-act version, it was sometimes called Mosè Nuovo , and then shortened to Mosè. As you may surmise from its various titles, it is loosely, very loosely, based on the Biblical account of Moses parting the Red Sea. Characters and story lines appear in Mosè that have no Biblical basis.


Aside from the famous Preghiera, the most striking musical feature of Mosè in Egitto is the atmospheric lament that opens the first act (no overture precedes it). It is unlike the opening of any of Rossini’s other works, and makes an immediate impact. In the Paris version, this becomes the opening of the second act, and loses much of its novelty. Recordings of either Italian version or the French grand opera have unfortunately been rare events. Philips recorded Mosè in Egitto in 1981 with a luminous cast: Ruggero Raimondi, Siegmund Nimsgern, June Anderson, and Ernesto Palacio. Hungaroton gave us the four-act Mosè (with a few cuts and minus the ballet) under Lamberto Gardelli, also in 1981. Both are studio recordings. Philips briefly released on CD a 1956 monophonic Mosè under Serafin with Rossi-Lemeni, which is subject to a number of cuts and a cast not totally at home in the bel canto idiom. The only French Moïse I am familiar with is a two-CD set on Myto with Samuel Ramey, Cecilia Gasdia, and Shirley Verrett. Recorded live in 1975, it is also somewhat abbreviated and minus the ballet. The French version in all its glory is available on DVD. Another recording of this interesting Rossini score is always welcome, and although the Rossini in Wildbad cast does not boast a collection of well-known notables, such as the 1981 Philips recording, it is a worthy entry into the Rossini discography all the same.


Naxos has recorded a number of performances from the Rossini in Wildbad festivals, many of them Rossini’s lesser-known and recorded operas. Casts vary from acceptable to quite good. One of the goals of the festival is to engage singers early in their careers (they’re probably more affordable, too!) helping them to gain both experience and exposure in a notable venue. This Mosè in Egitto is one of the better recordings in the series; it offers serious competition to the 1981 on Philips and is better than the mono Philips under Serafin. Many of the Wildbad soloists are prize-winning, bel canto specialists, gaining experience and earning enthusiastic reviews, mostly in European venues. Many of the singers appear in other Rossini in Wildbad recordings. Conductor Antonino Fogliani is in his early thirties. He studied under Rossini specialists Gianluigi Gelmetti and Alberto Zedda and has garnered much praise for his work in the bel canto repertoire.


I found this to be an exciting and energetic performance. Stage noises are kept to a minimum, enthusiastic applause rewards the cast throughout the performance but is not intrusive to the listener, and balances are generally good. The Wildbad performance has more spontaneity than the studio-based Philips, but not as much sonic immediacy. A new Rossini recording is always a welcome event, especially when it is a good one of his lesser-known operas. Naxos does not provide a libretto, although the text in Italian can be accessed at www.naxos.com/libretti/660220.htm. The booklet includes a fairly detailed synopsis—tied to track numbers—that offers the plot but spares the reader some rather hokey lyrics. It can be argued that Rossini’s comedies have fared better than the dramas because the librettos are better. Don’t let a fatuous love story grafted onto the Biblical tale of Moses deter you from enjoying this opera. The music saves the day.


FANFARE: David L. Kirk

All Rossini’s qualities as a musical giant are to be found in concentrated form in the famous overtures. The sheer vitality of the music is astounding, and the wealth of thematic material ensures that each is remarkable in its own different way. The Rossini anniversary of 2018 presented an opportunity to shed new light on these familiar works, but in a form that the composer himself would have recognised. This long-established mandolin quintet took a mix of old and newly commissioned arrangements and toured them across Italy to great success before making the present recording. The quintet takes its name from the mandolin virtuoso Giuseppe Anedda (1912-97) who popularised the instrument throughout his native Italy with his own ensemble and established for it a place in classical concert halls and modern works beyond the ‘early music revival’ of the 50s and 60s. He took part in pioneering recordings of Vivaldi and early performances of Stravinsky’s Agon. This all-Italian quintet (comprising a pair of mandolins, a mandola, guitar and double bass) was founded in Anedda’s memory in 2003 to carry on his work. Its members are all soloists and teachers in their own right. They commissioned Michele Di Filippo to arrange the first four overtures on this album: L’Italiana in Algeri (1813), Il Viaggio a Reims (1825), La Cenerentola (1817) and La Scala di Seta (1812). The other four overtures are from Il Signor Bruschino (1813), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816), Tancredi (1813) and La Gazza Ladra (1817), for which the quintet performs from transcriptions made and published in the first half of the 20th century by Mario Macchioci and Enrico Marucelli. All the arrangements preserve the heady excitement of the famous ‘Rossini crescendo’ as well as the chamber-like dialogue between wind and strings in the original scores.

REVIEW:

Let me preface this review by saying I am a sucker for oddball arrangements of familiar classics. A group of eight Rossini overtures transcribed for mandolin quintet would certainly qualify as such. But this release transcends my own idiosyncrasies, for these arrangements work very well indeed, preserving the charm and liveliness of these frothy works and adding an extra dimension to them.

The sound quality of the recording is quite vivid and the brightness of the mandolins comes across quite well without being piercing. The placement of the musicians is quite precise in the wide soundstage. The ends of each piece do have a bit too much echo for my tastes. There’s no dynamic compression here, permitting the carefully mounted tension to grip the listener and not let go until the conclusion of each piece. There’s sufficient variety in the pieces that I didn’t feel any need to take a break between the different overtures.

In all, I found this disc tremendous fun and a creditable variation on these well-known works.

– MusicWeb International

Rossini wrote Semiramide in the winter of 1822/23 for La Fenice of Venice. The libretto is based on Voltaire's drama Semiramis, written by the French philosopher and scholar in 1748. In some respects a conclusive opera, Semiramide contains traditional elements alongside innovative ones. Semiramide summarizes and completes Rossini's serious arc and is paradigmatic of all that would follow.

This is the third recording to represent Giulio Prandi's interpretative research on the great Italian choral repertory, after the special and successful releases of works by Jommelli and Pergolesi, cornerstones of the golden age of the Neapolitan school. Faced with the challenge posed by Rossini's essential masterpiece, Prandi has chosen an original and courageous path, following deep reflection. The new critical edition of the Rossini Foundation of Pesaro is used here for the first time in a recording studio; three rare instruments roughly contemporary with the work - pianos by rard and Pleyel, a D bain harmonium - have been selected to ensure an authentic, vital, luminous sound, guaranteed by the artistry of the keyboardist and professor at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Francesco Corti; four illustrious soloists have been engaged: Sandrine Piau, Jos Maria Lo Monaco, Edgardo Rocha and Christian Senn. Finally, the fundamental contribution of the Coro Ghislieri, an acknowledged world-class ensemble in early repertory, sets the seal on a recording of rare merit.

The second half of the 18th c. and beyond witnessed the widespread popularity in Germanic and Hapsburg regions of a particular type of wind ensemble of varying forces known as Harmonie. The repertoire consisted of divertissements, cassations, serenades and nocturnes, performed for the most part outdoors, as well as “dining music” played at important banquets, and Harmoniemusik heard at parties and ceremonies. Original pieces were performed together with transcriptions of celebrated works, such as this adaptation by Wenzel Sedlak of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

This release presents a rarely performed masterpiece: Gioachino Rossini's Mos� in Egitto at the Bregenz Festival staged by Lotte de Beer, who retrieves this hidden gem of opera literature for a spectacular staging. de Beer, one of the most sought-after stage directors of her generation (International Opera Newcomer Award 2015) teams up with the Dutch theatre collective Hotel Modern to tell the story of the Biblical Exodus. Their unique production concept for Mos� in Egitto revolves around the ingenuity of Hotel Modern. The theatre group conjures up it's own reality by using live animations to portray the mass scenes and the parallel narratives of the people and the slaves. Miniature cameras, thousands of puppets, models of villages and cities and a spectacular aquarium installation present the biblical tale of plagues and the parting of the Red Sea on the Bregenz stage - "a stroke of genius" (Der Standard).

Aureliano in Palmira is unique in Rossini’s oeuvre for its inclusion of the only role, Arsace, that Rossini wrote for the castrato voice. Its tale of tragic defeat and the ultimate nobility and triumph of love in seemingly impossible circumstances is a refined and highly innovative example of his style. Set amidst turbulent times in the Roman Empire, Aureliano in Palmira is packed with sublime arias, duets of haunting beauty (notably the three given to Arsace and Zenobia) and excellent choruses, Rossini himself considering this work as ‘divine music.’ Even after initial success he reused many of its melodies in later operas, most famously in Il barbiere di Siviglia. “Silvia Dalla Benetta… played the role of Zenobia and left no doubt that she was not only the Queen of Palmira, but also the prima donna of this evening! With her crisp, slender timbre and her excellent height she sang tirelessly and with brio. The Roman emperor Aureliano was sung with authority by Juan Francisco Gatell, a tenor with a clear, compact voice and a beautiful legato… Between the extensive list of singers… there is always a disappointment but not this year!”

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

The Biblical story of Belshazzar's hubristic arrogance set against the valour of the young warrrior-leader Cyrus provided the 20-year-old Rossini with a dramatic story with West-Eastern resonances which still speak to us today. For the title role of Cyrus, Rossini wrote what would be his longest-ever contralto role, to which the great Rossini singer Ewa Podles is both naturally attracted and ideally suited. She is partnered by two young stars of Rossini singing, Jessica Pratt and Michael Spyres, and a conductor-scholar, Will Crutchfield, of immense experience and sympathy.

What the press said:
''In the title role, the booming contralto Ewa Podles gives the kind of old-style, intensely felt performance that is her trademark. As Amira, the soprano Jessica Pratt established herself in two daunting arias as a brilliant new presence on the bel canto scene.'' New York Times

Gioachino Rossini CIRO IN BABILONIA
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Ciro – Ewa Podles
Amira – Jessica Pratt
Baldassare – Michael Spyres
Zambri – Mirco Palazzi
Argene – Carmen Romeu
Arbace – Robert McPherson
Daniello – Raffaele Costantini
Ned Keene – George von Bergen


Bologna Teatro Comunale Chorus and Orchestra Will Crutchfield, conductor


Davide Livermore, stage director

Recorded live at the Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, August 2012

Bonus:
- Cast gallery

Picture format: 1080i High Definition Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 165 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

The great writer Stendahl wrote of Il viaggio a Reims that “this opera is a feast”. The plot is a contemporary farce tailor-made for a particular occasion – the coronation festivities of Charles X – though Rossini valued the music so highly that he preserved at least part of the score three years later in the opera Comte Ory. This sparkling work is heard complete for the first time and in accordance with the critical edition.

Review:

Wildbad’s Antonino Fogliani leads a staging that doesn’t hang fire for a moment. The piano-accompanied recitatives are vividly delivered; the performance has a vividness and theatrical ‘carry’ that confirm that Il viaggio is indeed ‘a feast’.

– Gramophone

ARSO Ensemble is made up of the leaders and soloists of the Podkarpacka Philharmonic Orchestra - Robert Nasciszewski and Orest Telwach (violin), Anna Nasciszewska (cello) and Slawomir Ujek (double-bass). The ensemble plays Rossini's lesser-known Six sonatas a quarttro, penned by Rossini in 1804 at the age of 12.

Also available on standard DVD

Rossini wrote L’equivoco stravagante (‘The Curious Misunderstanding’), his first full-length opera, when he was only 19 years old. As its title suggests, the plot of this dramma giocoso offers a panoply of absurdist stagecraft with one character being led to believe that the work’s heroine is in fact a castrato trying to avoid military service. Full of his trademark buffo humour, melodious and musically buoyant, the opera ran foul of the censors and was swiftly banned, which accounts for its rarity in performances and recordings. The new edition of the score used in this production corrects numerous previous errors.

The Barber of Seville is Rossini's most popular opera. It's effervescent overture (written originally for another work!) presents a perfect platform for the amusing plot in which the barber, Figaro, stage-manages a romance between Count Almaviva and Rosina, and puts to flight the old suitor, Dr Bartolo. 'Largo al Factotum' is one of the most popular arias in opera - nearly 200 years after it's first performance it is still one of the great show-stoppers. But why was the opera received with boos and catcalls at it's first performance in 1816, and why did Rossini return to the plot and environment presented so sublimely by Mozart? Opera writer Thomson Smillie and actor David Timson present the background in their informative but entertaining manner.

Classical Music

Rossini: L'Italiana in Algeri

Gioacchino Rossini was only 23 years old when he wrote what was to become his most famous opera, composed after the scandalous eponymous play by Beaumarchais. Il Barbiere di Siviglia premiered in Rome in 1816: an innovative work, full of sophistication and finesse that first intrigued the Italian public, before winning over the entire peninsula and the rest of the world. The opera displays with great clarity the essence of the Rossinian revolution: situation comedy, sharp criticism of social hypocrisy, together with a witty musical style, the glory of belcanto, and the contagious energy of assertive melodic lines. With the adventures of the factotum Figaro and his master Almaviva, looking to seduce the beautiful Rosina and steal her away from the old Bartolo; through the endless criss-crossing of this lover's chase, Rossini was to begin a new chapter in Italian opera, and forge a new brand that shaped the musical landscape of the 19th century. For this reprisal of Hugo de Ana's famous staging at the Arena di Verona, Rossini's masterpiece is conducted by Maestro Daniel Oren. Italian baritone Leo Nucci, a true connoisseur of the part, is a boastful and virtuoso Figaro, while soprano Nino Machaidze and tenor Dmitry Korchak are perfect as the not-so-candid lovers around whom the opera revolves. And who better than Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, who shines in the "Calunnia" aria, for the part of Basilio?

Composed by the young Gioachino Rossini in eleven days to comply with a contractual commitment, L’occasione fa il ladro (Opportunity Makes A Thief) is a comedy of multiple confusions. Count Alberto, travelling to be wed to a fiancée he has yet to meet, leaves an inn with the wrong suitcase. Don Parmenione audaciously adopts the Count’s identity, determined to take the bride for himself. This single-act burletta is a swift and deftly plotted moral drama, Rossini’s exuberant inspiration poured into interactions both tender and hilariously bewildering.