Also available on Blu-ray

This production is new staging of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Il Tabarro is one of the three one-act operas that compose Giacomo Puccini’s Il Trittico. Michele is married to young Giorgetta and shares with her a life full of hardships on a barge over the river Seine. She is in love with Luigi, a young longshoreman hired by her husband during the loading of the barge. When Michele overhears his wife giving a rendezvous to Luigi by night, he waits for the man and attacks him, forces him to admit he is his wife's lover and finally strangles him. Then he hides the body under his cloak, (il tabarro) and when Giorgetta, in mortal fear, comes on deck and asks Michele if he does not wish her to come and rest near him under his cloak, her wronged husband throws it open and Giorgetta discovers in horror her dead lover’s body rolling at her feet. The element of Didier Gold’s Houppelande that most attracted Puccini was the opportunity to represent, in music, a river, which is what acts as a backdrop in this plot and determines its pace. The importance of this atmosphere is enormous, because it is linked to the mise en scene more tightly than usual. The action entirely takes place on a barge over the Seine in Paris, which is placed in the centre of the scene. The music describing the river uses a cyclic repetition of ostinato patterns, representing the monotonous flowing of the water, as inexorable as destiny and as regular as the flow of time. The pulse of the river cyclically marks, in the first part of Tabarro, the life of this world of vanquished: longshoremen and boatmen. But even when it disappears, the musical identity between drama and location does not cease to exist.

This collection of piano works is a journey through the music that represents the years spanning the end of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s. It is a varied itinerary, marked by that typically Parisian ésprit nouveau that captured the most diverse influences: popular music, jazz, exoticism, quotes from popular tradition, songs, circus exhibitions. At that time in fact the divide between cultured and light music came down as new forms of entertainment blossomed, different from those proposed by the great institutions. Cradles of this change were the artistic cabarets, the cafés-concerts, the music halls, the tabarins, but also bistrots, taverns, bookshops, and all the places where intellectuals and artists met. This release offers an historical playlist imbued with the mood of that time, alternating the energy and joie de vivre with more melancholic moods. For the centrality of his figure and the originality of his works, the fruit of a constant process of renewal, Erik Satie is present here with six works which represent several stages in his amazing creative parabola. Dario Müller has performed in concert for important institutions and has collaborated with Dynamic since 1984.

A successful musician in the early 19th century, Giovanni Simone Mayr composed the opera Medea in Corinto in 1813, the same year it premiered at the San Carlo theatre in Naples. The two act tragedy with libretto by Felice Romani was Mayr’s most popular theatrical work. The story is that of the Greek myth of Medea. “Michael Spyres, in the role of Jason, confirms to be one of the finest belcanto performers of the moment, endowed with a nimble voice and pure and solid high notes.” (Dynamic)

Mauro D’Alay was a virtuoso violinist and composer from Parma who acquired great fame and fortune throughout Europe. A contemporary of Vivaldi who praised his musical skills, D’Alay held official positions as a musician, first in Parma’s Cathedral and then at the Spanish court of King Philip V, whose wife Elisabetta Farnese gifted D’Alay the famous ‘San Lorenzo’ Stradivarius in 1718, which he kept until his death. Now largely forgotten, this ambitious and dynamic composer wrote sonatas, cantatas and concertos. This album features the 12 Violin Concertos, Op. 1 published in 1725 – composed in the Parmesan style, but with Venetian influences – and presented here in a world première recording. Parma born violinist Luca Fanfoni recorded these concertos adhering to the instrumentation indicated in the score: principal violin, first violin, second violin, viola, cello and organ. Ensemble Reale Concerto (which counts among its members Fanfoni’s wife and children) recorded this album during lockdown in 2020.

This opera, which had fallen into oblivion, was revived in 1973 in the Dutch city of Zaanstad (the Saardam of the libretto) and staged at Bergamo's Teatro Sociale as part of the Donizetti Festival in a new critical edition made for the Donizetti Foundation by Alberto Sonzogni. In the plot, the Tsar Peter the Great works incognito as a carpenter at the shipyard of Sardaam to acquire technical knowledge to carry back home. On the podium, the knowledgeable Roberto Rizzi Brignoli leads the orchestra of the Donizetti Opera, assisted by the internationally renowned cinema director Davide Ferrario. In the cast, Andrea Concetti (a successful artist who has sung throughout the world) is joined by singers who are emerging in the belcanto repertoire, such as Giorgio Caoduro, Juan Francisco Gatell, Irina Dubrovskaya and Aya Wakizono.

A classic work of its genre and historical period, Artaserse was premièred in Venice in 1730 by the most famous singers of the day: Farinelli in the role of Arbace, Cuzzoni as Mandane and the castrato Nicolino as Artabano. It was a success for Hasse, who would, in 1740 and 1760, repropose the same work in two different versions. Our DVD features the Venetian version, in world première. The cast is extraordinary, with the countertenor Franco Fagioli giving a great performance of the role that was Farinelli's. Fagioli easily goes up and down the extension of more than three octaves, maintaining a uniform timbre and remarkable power and resonance. Also stunning, is the aria "Pallido sole" sung by Sonia Prina.

Video Format: NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Audio Format: PCM 2.0
Sung In: Italian
Subtitles: Italian, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Region Code: 0 (All Regions)
Duration: 189 min.

George Frideric Handel was one of those rare composers who excelled in works sacred and secular, instrumental and operatic, leaving us extraordinary masterpieces in every field of music. Already renowned in Italy, Handel made himself known in London with Rinaldo in 1711, which was such a success that he decided to remain in England for good. It is still regarded as one of his greatest operas. Set during the Crusades, Rinaldo is a lavish spectacle that tells a story of love, magic, struggles for power and ultimate reconciliation. Pier Luigi Pizzi's acclaimed production brings us into a 'dreamlike, unreal... world of spells and incantations'. (Epoca). This production by Pier Luigi Pizzi, conceived in 1985 for Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia, has traveled since to some twenty major opera houses worldwide. Discounting practical cuts and a few displacements of musical numbers, it's durable attraction lies in the gorgeous costumes and scenery, a stylish paragon of Hyperbaroque eschewing both literalism and cheap provocation. It is performed at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, which was the first theatre to reopen after lockdown. The set design and direction perfectly respond to the current safety measures.

REVIEWS:
Fanfare (5-6/98, p.254) - "...dependable playing, fine engineering, and a bourgeois choice of repertoire. Although mildly amusing, this is not an important release."

The orchestral suite is a genre that was mostly popular during the first half of the 18th century. Johan Friedrich Fasch is noted as being one of the more prolific German composers of orchestral suites. The overtures of the orchestral suites recorded here have all the traditional elements of the French overture. With it's light-hearted and lively developments, Fasch's music is both entertaining and brilliant.

The concept behind Fake Bach is to record a recital dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach that focuses on piano transcriptions that are ‘daring’ and ‘scandalous’, providing a unique perspective on Bach’s music. Encouraged by Franz Liszt and reflecting the progressive Bach Renaissance of the 1800s, these transcriptions date from 1850 to the First World War. The pianist-composer-virtuosos on this album researched the essence of Bach’s genius and ended up expressing mostly themselves and their own personalities, dissolving the space between interpreter and their ‘object of love’ composer.

Revived after 171 years in oblivion, the staging of Rosmonda d’Inghilterra at Bergamo’s Teatro Donizetti proved fascinating for the Italian public. From the excellent cast of singers, Jessica Pratt and Eva Mei gave standout performances. The opera revolves around a tale of love and intrigue surrounding the main protagonists- the famous Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, her husband Henry II of England, and the fair Rosamund de Clifford. Rosmonda is the quintessential innocent, unaware that the man she loves is the King of England and that she has unwittingly become a rival to the much-feared Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor, having already had her first marriage annulled for reasons of consanguinity, is unwilling to se her second marriage also fail. Only the faithful page Arturo, secretly in love with Rosmonda, knows that the Queen is aware of her husband’s betrayal; but he too is embroiled in this game of deceit hoping that he will end up winning the girl. The emotional and dramatic development is very effective. There is not a page in this score without some example of brilliant writing, a captivating theme, a moving passage. It all goes to prove how deeply original Donizetti was and how much there is still to be discovered about this underappreciated composer.

Also available on Blu-ray

Pietro il Grande, kzar delle Russie – composed when Donizetti was 22 years old – was the first of the composer’s operas to receive more than one production. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the work’s première in 2019, the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo staged this rare melodramma burlesco in a new critical edition. The influence of Rossini and Mozart is clear, but the young Donizetti still managed to create a fresh and lively work that displayed early evidence of his mature style. This Donizetti Festival performance received widespread international acclaim, with a cast of excellent singers and a unique staging by Ondadurto Teatro (Marco Paciotti and Lorenzo Pasquali), influenced by Russian avant-garde art of the early 20th century.

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

Also available on standard DVD

Gaetano Donizetti's L’Ange de Nisida was commissioned by the director of the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. The libretto was entrusted to Gustave Vaëz and Alphonse Royer, and the opéra en quatre parties was completed in 1840. Unfortunately the theatre went bankrupt and the opera never reached the stage. Donizetti was aware that other venues would have rejected his work as it stood, for both repertoire and censorship reasons (the plot revolved around the King of Naples, Ferdinando d’Aragona, and his mistress). Consequently, he revised the score and incorporated a significant portion of it within his new one, La favorite. The autograph score of L’Ange was subsequently lost and it is only thanks to the painstaking research of musicologist Candida Mantica that it was brought to light again. She took on the huge challenge of classifying the roughly 470 randomly alternate pages of L’Ange de Nisida that had survived at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris; she re-established their original order and finally managed to reconstruct roughly 97 percent of Donizetti’s music. The few gaps in the score were judged as irrelevant by both Mantica and Donizetti Opera, so that the opera was considered a complete work in itself, with no need for additions written by other composers. 180 years after its composition, the opera was finally performed for the first time in its original theatrical form in Donizetti’s native Bergamo, at the construction site of the city theatre bearing his name, a most symbolic coincidence that added emotional value to a long-awaited event. The performance was hailed as a triumph by both the public and the critics and was awarded a special prize at the 39th Franco Abbiati Prize of Italian music critics.

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REVIEW:

The cameras of the filming and the detailed and careful preparation of conductor Tingaud and director Micheli provide viewers of the DVD, through excellent sound and vision, with a more complete visual and aural experience than might have been possible for the real-life audience. Cunningly and efficiently done, both staging and musical interpretation fit the score like a glove. Hugely recommended.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, Jan 2021; DVD/Blu-ray of the Month)

The music featured on this release is a real discovery. The French composer Marie-Martin Marcel de Marin (1796-1850) was a mathematician, a Captain of Versailles' Dragoons, a violinist and, overall, the greatest harpist of his era. According to Fétis, “As a violinist he was the best amateur of his time. As a harpist he had no rivals.” All these works are heard here in their first recordings. Anna Pasetti has always divided her professional life between music and musicology. Considered to be one of the leading harp historians in the world, she is a performing harpist, teacher, lecturer, curator, researcher, editor and writer. Her awards include First Prize in the 1st International Contest “City of Ispra”, in the 2nd National Contest “Riviera of Versilia” in Camaiore, at the 10th National Contest for Music in Ensemble “City of Genova”, in the International Contest for harp in Spotorno, at the 8th International Contest “Premio Acqui Musica” in Acqui Terme, and in the 2nd Competition “Piero Rogger” in Mestre.

The ‘Yiruma phenomenon’, which has seen hundreds of millions of album and track sales, stands on the foundations of the South Korean composer and pianist’s 20-year career, which includes film music and sell-out tours throughout Asia, Europe and the US. Performed by the award-winning virtuoso Giacomo Scinardo, this programme features pieces from a variety of Yiruma’s albums and soundtracks. These include the global hit River Flown in You, and capture the essence of a style that conveys peace and serenity to the listener, from a composer who has declared that he wants his music ‘to be the energy that makes people want to live a better life’.