No Prisoner Be, a groundbreaking new album based on the poems of Emily Dickinson, is set for physical release on July 3. It is an electrifying artistic collaboration from multi-GRAMMY Award-winning singing icon Joyce DiDonato and the genre-defying string trio of Nicolas Kendall, Ranaan Meyer, and Charles Yang from Time for Three. The album was composed by Pulitzer Prize winner Kevin Puts. Emily-No Prisoner Be is a theatrical song cycle that sets Emily Dickinson's best-known poems alongside some of her lesser-known gems to music that moves from deeply intimate to absolutely electrifying virtuosity. It blends classical mastery with rock energy in a vivid reimagining of Dickinson's poetic universe.

REFERENCE RECORDINGS proudly presents a landmark recording, the first commercial project to feature Joel Thompson's music exclusively, which brings together this ascendant composer and the Kansas City Symphony led by Michael Stern. The career of composer Joel Thompson has seen a meteoric rise since the premiere of his breakout choral work Seven Last Words of the Unarmed in 2015. Each of it's seven movements sets to music the last words of an unarmed Black man before he was killed. Joining them are some of the most important performers of today focused on the same crucial topics: cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and the Sphinx Organization's vocal ensemble Exigence, led by Eugene Rogers. This is powerful music of profound insight and uncompromising conviction, brought to life by the passion and artistry of eminently skilled collaborators.

The collaborative efforts, the mutual emulation and inspiration of Sir Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome have spanned 18 years, led to one of the world's greatest and most versatile virtuoso ensembles and to acclaimed live and studio recordings showcasing an eclectic selection of symphonic and choral music. Their repertoire features already legendary performances of Verdi's Requiem and Quattro pezzi sacri. In addition, their recording of Bruckner's 8th Symphony features here for the very first time! This box brings together all the recordings that the British conductor Sir Antonio Pappano (b.1959) made with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the years from 2005 to 2022 for Warner Classics.

Five superb singers - Lisette Oropesa, Joyce DiDonato, Paul-Antoine Benos-Djian, Michael Spyres and John Chest - portray the characters in Handel's Theodora under the direction of Maxim Emelyanychev, Chief Conductor of the instrumentalists and choral singers of Il Pomo d'Oro. An elevated and moving oratorio, Theodora tells the story of Christian martyrs in ancient Antioch under Roman occupation. Handel considered it among his best works. This recording was made at the end of a concert tour that visited Vienna, Milan, Paris, Luxembourg and Essen. "An evening of top-flight singing of a kind that is only rarely experienced," was how one German reviewer summed up the performance, while in France it resulted in "a state of bliss".

EDEN is an invitation to return to our roots. It is an overture to engage with the sheer perfection of the world around us, to consider if we are connecting as profoundly as we can to the pure essence of our being. It is a clarion call to contemplate if our collective suffering isn't perhaps linked to the aching separation from something primal within and around us. This is a vivid musical exploration through the centuries to remember and to create a new EDEN from within. - Joyce DiDonato

2018 release. Recorded live at London's celebrated Wigmore Hall, this captivating recital by Joyce DiDonato and the Brentano Quartet was conceived around Jake Heggie's song cycle Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, a work written for DiDonato - she describes it as "one of most moving projects I've ever been part of". Songs by Debussy and Strauss and a quartet movement by Guillaume Lekeu complete the program, which prompted the Financial Times to write that "the beauty and range" of DiDonato's singing "are surely now at their impressive peak."

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

Also available on standard DVD

This outstanding live recording is the first ever collaboration between director Luc Bondy, conductor William Christie, and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. This recording was taken in December of 2004 at the Opera National de Paris. Les Arts Florissants, conducted by William Christie, does a beautiful job of performing the score by G. F. Handel.

Picture Format: 16:9
Sound Formats: PCM Stereo, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Region Code: 0 (Worldwide)

Here/After: Songs of Lost Voices gives voice to those no longer with us, including Camille Claudel, Francis Poulenc, Wanda Landowska, Pierre Bernac and Paul Eluard. It also pays tribute to the lives lost on September 11, 2001. Here/After is a double play on the spiritual hereafter that their voices are still here even though their bodies are gone.

Although the whole performance is top-notch, the main reason for owning this Cenerentola is the warm, delightfully human, and stunningly sung Cinderella of Joyce DiDonato. There is no paucity of fine, recorded Cenerentolas (Bartoli, Larmore, Baltsa), but DiDonato, an under-recorded American mezzo, catches precisely the right tone of vulnerability and goodness in the character while never stinting on the coloratura fireworks we expect from the role. She's always in character--modest and kind; it's a beautiful, understated portrayal.


The rest of the cast is excellent as well. José Manuel Zapata's slim tenor may not have the ping of a Vargas or the brilliance of Florez, but he's got all the "little notes" needed for the Prince and is unafraid of heights. Paolo Bordogna's Dandini is well sung, but the voice has a fast vibrato that may not agree with everyone, and Bruno Pratico's Don Magnifico articulates every single note and refrains from mugging--a good combination. The sisters are nicely characterized by Patrizia Cigna and Martina Borst, and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni delivers Alidoro's music, including the aria Rossini added for him in 1820, with a good tonal center and dignity.


Conductor Alberto Zedda includes a brief chorus penned by another composer at the start of Act 2, and he leads with suavity if just a bit less flair and energy than this opera seems to want. The orchestra and chorus are good enough. The first CD ends at an awkward spot, but had the offending few minutes been added to the second CD it would have reached a dangerously long 80 minutes and three seconds. (It would have been easier if the extra chorus had been cut!) Bicker, bicker--this is an excellent performance, at a great bargain price.
--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com