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".

A New Yorker Notable Recording of 2022!

On her second solo album Lisette Oropesa has combined two of her greatest loves, the French language and Italian bel canto. This recording with the Dresdner Philharmonie under the baton of Corrado Rovaris showcases the variety of lesser-known and more popular works by Rossini and Donizetti, featuring arias that contain coloratura, lyricism, drama, heightened emotion, and even comedy. Star soprano Lisette Oropesa made her Pentatone debut with Ombra Compagna, Mozart Concert Arias in 2021, and sung the title heroine in a complete recording of Verdi’s La Traviata, also released on the label in 2022. The Dresdner Philharmonie was involved in that same recording, and has also participated in several other recordings released by Pentatone, such as Weber’s Der Freischütz (2019), Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Puccini’s Il Tabarro (both 2020) and Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021). Conductor Corrado Rovaris particularly excels in bel canto and verismo repertoire, and makes his Pentatone debut.

REVIEW:

Oropesa's very first notes here, from Le Siège de Corinthe, are warm and pleading, the tone round and full–and utterly beautiful. As the voice rises, it doesn’t lose texture. The coloratura is close to flawless, as is her pitch. The roulades and runs are so fierce in the Rossini selections that, let’s face it, a touch of hesitation is to be expected and it is just that–a touch.

This is very difficult music–just think of how few recital CDs have included these two scenes. The necessary legato, the sadness, the darkening of the tone, and the purposeful use of vibrato are rare indeed; there is a true musician in the house.

Mathilde’s aria from Guillaume Tell is sure-fire. She manages it beautifully, the start of each phrase knowing full well the direction in which it’s going, the breath control natural. “Salut à la France” is divine: carefree, joyous, full of perfect downward scales and staccatos, and capped with a fine E-flat.

More than anything else, you come away from this recital with the realization that Oropesa and, indeed, the Dresden Philharmonic and conductor Corrado Rovaris, have fashioned a warmhearted, stylistically impeccable look at French bel canto, frequently overlooked. There’s nothing hackneyed here, and no ear fatigue listening to a high solo voice for 65 minutes...what a fine disc!

-- ClassicsToday (Robert Levine)

Featured in the New York Times' "5 Classical Albums You Can Listen To Right Now"

The Dresdener Philharmonie, Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden and conductor Daniel Oren present Verdi’s masterpiece La Traviata, together with a stellar cast including René Barbera as Alfredo, Lester Lynch as Germont, and world star soprano Lisette Oropesa as Violetta. Verdi’s opera from 1853 was revolutionary in the sense that it presented a subject of its own time, rather than the usual historically-remote stories. Interestingly enough, this tragic story of a woman sacrificing her love to save the honor of her beloved’s family still feels as fresh and topical as ever before, explaining its unrelenting popularity. La Travatia is an endless outpour of memorable melodies with a gripping dramatic pace, as well as a tale that is both heartrending and provocative. The main soprano role gradually shifts from coloratura virtuosity to a more lyrical, dramatic idiom when the tragedy progresses, and this performance shows Oropesa’s fluency in both styles. After having sung the title role in the greatest opera houses worldwide, this studio recording captures her unparalleled interpretation for generations to come. Star soprano Lisette Oropesa made her PENTATONE debut with Ombra Compagna; Mozart Concert Arias in 2021. Lester Lynch has a vast PENTATONE discography, including Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla del West (both 2021) and Il Tabarro (2020), as well as Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (2020) and Verdi’s Otello (2017). The Dresdener Philharmonie featured on those recordings of Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, while also releasing acclaimed recordings of Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021) and Weber’s Der Freischütz (2019) on PENTATONE. Daniel Oren and René Barbera, who both enjoy a thriving career on the operatic stage, make their PENTATONE debut.

REVIEW:

Daniel Oren, now in his mid-sixties, has had an important international career since he won first prize in the first Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in 1975. He knows how to build up the prelude from an atmospheric murmuring of the strings to the caressing love theme and then back to a soft end, but as the curtain opens, he shifts gear to a swift, exuberant party mood where everyone is in high spirits. Maybe the rhythms are too accentuated, too rustic for a Parisian upper-class festivity, but one feels the pulsating fervour.

Alfredo sings his Brindisi with his light lyric tenor and Violetta responds with easy effortless tones. Un di, felice is soft, almost dreamlike and very sensitively nuanced, and then comes Violetta’s grand aria: È strano, sensitively, almost hesitatingly, stunned by the sudden feeling of love she has never experienced before; Ah! fors'è lui, beautifully sung and filled with expectations; then she has second thoughts: Follie – This is madness – Sempre libera – Free and aimless I shall flutter. But when she repeats this stanza, she hears Alfredo echo her words from earlier, and even though she adheres to her decision we know that love is going to win...It was a long time since I was so spellbound by this scene.

The playing of the orchestra cannot be faulted and Pentatone’s sound staff deliver an expert recording. Lisette Oropesa...should be heard by every lover of this opera.

-- MusicWeb International

Lisette Oropesa makes for a lovely Violetta, with a quick, touchingly fragile vibrato and a jewel-like voice that catches light in beautiful ways. She can dash off high D flats as a steely, love-averse courtesan in Act I, and move a solo oboe to tears in “Addio del passato” come Act III.

Daniel Oren, more interested in small gestures than gleaming sound, begins the first scene with bumptious brasses and a breakneck tempo that make the room spin, spelling disaster for Verdi’s hard-partying demimondaine. Unwritten flourishes — a crescendo here, some rubato there — add to the impetuous atmosphere.

“La Traviata” rises or falls on the strength of its heroine, and this one soars.

-- New York Times (Oussama Zahr)

When the European youth chooses War above Love, Cupid decides to seek out new followers on other continents. The opera thus recounts the way people love, hate, envy or trust overseas, all the while asking its western audience a burning question: how do we love right? In "Dreams of Babel", a documentary about the dance prodigy Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui released on DVD by Bel Air Classiques in 2010, the choreographer explained how shifting identities, multiculturalism, and his own plural heritage as the son of an immigrant, had shaped his dramaturgy and artistic inspiration. Thus, to take on the stage direction for "Les Indes Galantes", whose multiple plots take place in a fantasized exotic « elsewhere » supposed to mirror the European society, meant for Cherkaoui bringing the tension between identity and alterity to a whole new level. And the choreographer pushes his reflection much farther than mere baroque specular aesthetics: his "Indes Galante"s raise the sensible issues of population movements, fragmented and ever-changing territories and borders, but also the refugee crisis that has shaken Europe to its very core… For this new production at the Prinzregenten Theater, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui brought his own dance ensemble, the Eastman company, as well as a brilliant vocal cast, among which Anna Prohaska, Francois Lis or Lisette Oropesa. Ivor Bolton conducts a Münchner Festspielorchester at the top of its game.