Classical Music

As the hub of a fledgling British Empire, London around 1710 was burgeoning with new wealth and offered the perfect setting for operatic entrepreneurs eager to spread the latest Italian fashions. It was thus a city of opportunity for Handel, fresh from spending five years in Italy, but also for many other touring musicians including Arcangelo Corelli, Francesco Maria Veracini and Francesco Geminiani. This recording unveils a portrait of the chameleon Handel, emerging in the panache of his early Italian-styled Amadigi, reaching maturity in the 'English operatic' Hercules and arriving finally in the perennial melodic grace of Theodora, his penultimate oratorio. Extracts from these works, in which the young Norwegian mezzo-soprano Tuva Semmingsen displays both vocal agility and a wide-ranging emotional palette, are interspersed with instrumental works by Handel's Italian contemporaries. Corelli's Concerto grosso in D major, from the celebrated Opus 6, and Geminiani's 'La Follia' in D minor - incidentally a reworking of Corelli's famous violin sonata - both illustrate Italian instrumental music at its most sumptuous, in colourful and dynamic performances by the Norwegian period band Barokksolistene. For further variety, the leader and artistic director of the ensemble, Bjarte Eike, also performs a chamber work by Veracini, who visited London regularly during some three decades in the early 18th century. The Sonata in A major was published in England in 1744, and it would be quite tempting to interpret the use in it of a Scottish tune, Tweed's side, as merely a clever marketing device to charm a local audience, were it not that the tune, and the composition itself, was so attractive.

R. Murray Schafer: Loving

Albert Lortzing was familiar with the stage from his earliest years, for both his parents were actors, and by the age of 18 he too was engaged as both an actor and singer. His career was anything but stable, however; a competent composer, he divided his time between precarious kapellmeister positions – including a stint at the Theater an der Wien – and having to revert to acting in order to support himself. He died impoverished and unhappy in 1851, a few months after securing his third kapellmeister post.

Today he is best remembered for his Singspiel Der Wildschütz, a masterpiece of writing and whose libretto the composer himself fashioned from Kotzebue’s comedy Der Rehbock, oder Die schuldlosen Schuld bewußten, which had been published earlier in 1816. Kotzebue’s work is a whirlwind of character disguise, a piece whose titillating coquetry touches firmly on frivolity but manages to evade full-scale immorality, and Lortzing also added small touches of his own to the story – including the character of the majordomo Pancratius, whose role has traditionally been performed in Saxon dialect. The enduring appeal of Der Wildschütz, however, clearly rests on the score, with Lortzing’s lightness of touch, his memorable and catchy tunes, and the vivid characterisation of comic situations lending his music a charm that appears as fresh as ever. An ardent admirer of Mozart, it is in Der Wildschütz, more than in any other of his operas, that Lortzing succeeded in writing at least a few numbers that are reminiscent of the great composer. This applies particularly to his carefully wrought ensemble passages, which greatly outweigh the arias in terms of number and of which the much-admired Billiards Scene (Act 2) is surely the greatest.

Lortzing’s operas were the most-performed in Germany for about 150 years, and from listening to Der Wildschütz it is easy to understand why. Recorded in the early ‘80s and bringing together many of Germany’s top singers of the period, this version remains one of the finest to date. ‘Edith Mathis is a delightful Baroness and Doris Soffel nicely characterises the Sophocles-besotted Countess…’, while ‘Georgine Resick sings a charming Gretchen, warm but with a will of her own.’ (Gramophone)

Other information:
- Recorded 1980–1982.
- Reissue of one of the gems of the East Germany archive recordings of Berlin Classics: Der Wildschütz by Albert Lortzing.
- Lortzing’s operas were extremely popular in their time, due to their good humour and wit, the memorable tunes and the general romantic nature feeling.
- A star studded cast of the best German voices of the time: Edith Mathis, Doris Soffel, Peter Schreier, Hans Sotin, Gottfried Hornik, and the magnificent Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Bernhard Klee. - Contains detailed notes on the music and plot synopsis.
- German Libretto available for download

Opera Arias (Counter-Tenor): Kowalski, Jochen - GRAUN, C.H.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Carl Nielsen's "other" orchestral music includes a number of overtures and tone poems that on recordings usually show up appended to performances of his six symphonies. This primarily theatrical music reveals a surprisingly fantastical side to the composer's imagination, freed from the strictures of symphonic form. This is especially evident in the Aladdin Suite, where Nielsen concocts some fetching and convincingly authentic-sounding Arabian melodies, all lavished with exotic orchestral coloring. Dance rhythms abound, punctuated by spiky percussion. Niklás Willén and his South Jutland Symphony players effectively capture the distinctly-drawn moods of widely varied movements, though Esa-Pekka Salonen's Sony recording bristles with an energy and excitement (especially in the Festival March and Negro Dance) that's less apparent here.


Atmosphere again is Willén's strong suit as he evokes the mystical realms of Saga-Dream and Pan and Syrinx while deftly rendering the Helios Overture's stirring drama. Maskarade's bright comedy comes across effectively (though Järvi is unmatched for sheer exuberance). Finally, the brief Cupid and the Poet is from Nielsen's late style, sounding very much like his quirky and tonally ambiguous Clarinet Concerto. Overall, this is a fine set of performances, and it's great to have all these Nielsen gems together on one disc. Naxos' big-hall perspective is somewhat distant, but the sound-picture fills out nicely at those big, brassy climaxes.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

SCHUBERT: Alfonso und Estrella

Classical Music

Classical Music

Félicien David was the pivotal figure in French opera that ignited the obsession for setting works in the exotic East. Almost all the country's leading composers in the late 19th century followed his lead, including Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Gounod and Massenet. Premièred in 1862 and recorded here for the first time, David's magical opera Lalla Roukh uses evocative orchestration to support the fairy-tale plot of an Indian princess and her journey in search of love. The work contains some memorable melodies, the most famous of which, Charmant oiseau, has been a favorite of the world’s greatest sopranos.

"The best of the music has great charm and is less self-consciously exotic than the orientalia of, say, Bizet or Massenet. Noureddin's serenades re ravishingly sung by Emiliano Gonzalez Toro. Marianne Fiset is supremely elegant in the title role." -- Tim Ashley, The Guardian [4/10/14]
“All the principals have firm, clear voices...Marianne Fiest as the heroine has a bright, perfectly placed soprano, attacking even the most exposed notes with precision.” -- Gramophone [6/2014]

Puccini: Madama Butterfly

Composer Michael William Balfe composed 29 operas, and around 250 other pieces. He is best known for his opera The Bohemian Girl. Balfe’s opera Satanella was his 23rd opera, and was premiered at Covent Garden in 1858. The work is a hybrid of classical opera tradition and stand-alone songs. This release is performed by the John Powell Singers and the Victorian Opera Orchestra under the direction of Richard Bonynge.

Review:

Bonynge is unsurpassed in this repertoire; he keeps it zipping buoyantly along, effortlessly supporting his singers and clearly relishing every baleful horn call, rippling harp and languishing cello solo. His cast, too, feels near-ideal. The young Chinese-born tenor Kang Wang is a Rupert of considerable dash, and Sally Silver sings the title-role…with sweetness and sparkle.

– Gramophone

Classical Music

The best known operas in Rossini' output are, of course, the later comedies such as the Barber of Seville and Cenerentola but his reputation as master of opera buffa was established with the farsa.

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Prague Philharmonia. Conductor: Steven Mercurio. Soloist: Ana Maria Martinez.

GIOVANNI PAISIELLO: Mirko Guadagnini; Donata Di Gioia; Sgefania Donzelli; Maurizio Lo Piccolo; Paolo Bordogna; Camillo Facchino; Graziano De Pace; Robert Recchia; Orchestra da Camera del Giovanni Paisiello Festival/Giovanni Di Stefano; Rosetta Cucchi, director; Live recording: No GIOVANNI PAISIELLO: Il Barbiere di Siviglia, drama buffo in due (quattro) atti.

Classical Music

IL CROCIATO IN EGITTO

Featuring Gezim Mishketa; Elisaveta Martyrosian; Enrica Fabbri; Filippo Adami; Maurizio Lo Piccolo; Omar Montanari; Daivde Rocca; Massimo Pagnoni; Asia D’Arcangelo; Fabio Vichi.

Orchestra Sinfonica Carlo Coccia
Fabrizio Dorsi/Rosetta Cucchi, directors

NTSC All Region; Stereo, Dolby 5.1
Subtitles: Italian, English, Japanese
Running time: 85 minutes

ARRIGHETTO, A SENTIMENTAL FARCE
Madama Beritola, finding two goats on an island, having lost two sons goes to the Lunigiana: there one of her sons is with her Master and he sleeps with his daughter and is put in prison. Cicilia rebelling against king Carlo and the son recognized by the mother, marries the Master’s daughter, and finding his brother, in grand style they return. (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, second day, sixth novella). Thus begins the Story of the novella from which Angelo Anelli tells us he took his libretto. It is the eternal edifying topos He who suffers may hope. Often in the past this Lombard poet as others before him had considered Boccaccio’s novelle as a mine from which to “extract subjects” in alternative to the noble French theatre, at the time much in vogue for this use. Suffice one title as example: Griselda, an oppressed married woman whose virtue finally triumphs over fate, taken from Apostolo Zeno but rewritten by Anelli in 1793. Obviously the story is semi-serious, even larmoyante, a genre halfway between tragic, comic and pathetic which at that time had become a favorite with audiences. It is precisely what the author so eloquently wrote down on the title page of the score: a “sentimental farce”.

Classical Music

Originally released in 2009. Starring Catia Pizzi, Carlo Torriani, Carina Isabel Calafiura.

Classical Music

Classical Music