Further to his two recitals (Italian Opera Arias and Gounod / Massenet Arias), Rolando Villazon's releases his 3rd recital on Virgin Classics, featuring opera arias in 4 languages: French, Italian, English & Russian. And sees Rolando Villazon's second collaboration with Michael Plasson, after their recording of Berlioz' choral works on EMI. Rolando Villazon in undoubtedly the revelation of the years 2004-2005, and has won wide acknowledgement world-wide, not to mention the 2005 Gramophone Award he has received this September for his Gounod / Massenet recital. Virgin Classic. 2006.

Inspired by diaries, letters, and personal accounts from the 1860s, Rappahannock County is a music-theatre work which movingly and dramatically commemorates the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. The location of the Rappahannock River as a border between north and south is a metaphor for the region's many conflicts. Performed by a cast of five singers who play over 30 rôles, the piece brings this dramatic historical period to life in songs which express the devastating impact of the Civil War on all of the people who endured it.

Stephen Hartke's the Greater Good was commissioned by Glimmerglass Opera, and is a strikingly original contribution to the operatic repertory. Based on an iconic short story by Maupassant set during the immediate aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War.

In 1998, I reviewed the composer-led excerpts from John Adams’s collaboration with poet and activist June Jordon (1936–2002), I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky. The title is a quote from a survivor of the 1994 Northridge earthquake in southern California. Here we have the whole work. In the earlier review, I assumed what was missing was connecting dialogue, a mistake corrected by one of Fanfare’s many frighteningly alert readers. In fact, the entire work is sung, and here the designation is “song play,” which seems to describe the form quite accurately. The work has much in common with pieces like Brecht-Weill’s Das kleine Mahagony or, more recently, the Rice-Lloyd Webber collaborations, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, in that the songs operate more or less as commentary to the onstage action. Like the Brecht-based Weill works, there is a great deal of implied and explicit social criticism, something that five years into the Bush administration seems much less quaint now. The problems with the work remain. The cardboard characters and their largely clichéd interactions keep everything at arm’s length, something compounded by the tendency of the songs to comment on the action rather than embody it. In addition, for all of its cleverness, Adams’ pastiche score rarely rises to the kind of immediate melodic impact one finds in Weill, Sondheim, or LaChiusa.

The plot, taken from the John Adams Web site, is as follows: in mid-1990s Los Angeles, David, a preacher, sings about his many love affairs and his current girlfriend, Leila. Dewain is arrested by Mike, a homophobic cop, for stealing two bottles of beer while trying to reach his lover, Consuelo, who is afraid that her son has been arrested by the INS. Tiffany videotapes the arrest; she wonders why Mike is not more receptive to her advances. Dewain resists arrest and Mike has him charged with a felony, meaning he could go to jail for 45 years under the “Three Strikes” law. At his trial, David, his lawyer, tries to explain his client’s point of view. After questioning Tiffany, Rick begins to be attracted to her. David visits Dewain in jail, where Dewain tells him he’s decided to go to law school. Leila wonders if David will ever settle down. As act II opens, Leila and David are making out on the couch in David’s office in his church when an earthquake hits. Leila is knocked unconscious. Mike visits Tiffany’s house; she asks him why he hasn’t been more forward, and he has a crisis of sexual identity; Rick suddenly appears, and she asks him out instead. Dewain, in his cell, recounts how the walls split open and he could see the outside, but, realizing that he was better off working inside the system, he did not escape. Consuelo tells him she is going back to El Salvador to fight for political freedom; Dewain decides to stay in Los Angeles. Lying in David’s arms, Leila begins to recover.

At the time of the premiere, Peter Sellars, the original director, offered up the hope that the work would become the play of choice for high schools everywhere. That seems as unlikely now as it did then (should anyone care, the high school musical of choice, once the rights become available, will be William Finn’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), in part because of the sexual and sometimes heavy-handed political content as well as the sheer difficulty of the music. For all its flaws, the work gains enormously in stature when heard complete and, to set the show in context, it is a whole lot more interesting musically than Rent or any of the Andrew Lloyd Webber “rock operas.”

The performance is very fine. Darius de Haas, returning from the original cast, as David the preacher and Kimako Xavier Trotman as Dewain, the gang member, are the only Americans in the cast. It would be idle to pretend that anyone could replace Audra McDonald as Consuelo but Martina Mühlpointner is very good. If you listen closely, some of the singers have slight accents, occasionally making their words a fraction less distinct but, frankly, you have to listen for it and it makes no impact at all on the overall success of the enterprise. As before, the work is recorded like the musical that it is rather than in the defined space more commonly associated with classical music. Therefore, a discussion of recording quality is really beside the point. Extensive notes and a detailed synopsis cued to the individual numbers are included, but no text.

FANFARE: John Story

Houston Grand Opera is a driving force in American opera, cultivating a spirit of innovation with premieres of important 20th-century works like Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place and John Adams' Nixon in China. This tradition continues with the debut recording on their own record label-Jake Heggie's Intelligence. This epic work was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and is the company's 75th premiere, building on it's legacy and commitment to the future of opera with a thrilling new recording. Intelligence explores the little-known story of two heroic women spies during the American Civil War: Elizabeth Van Lew, a privileged white woman; and Mary Jane Bowser, a black woman born into slavery in the Van Lew household. Composer Jake Heggie, librettist Gene Scheer and director/choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar join creative forces to transform this unique true story into a musical masterpiece. The opera features an all-star cast led by soprano Janai Brugger as Mary Jane Bowser, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Elizabeth Van Lew and mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges as Lucinda. These awardwinning artists create a riveting performance, capturing the nuance and suspense of Heggie's acclaimed new opera in this exciting launch of Houston Grand Opera's record label.

2014 collection from the best-selling vocalist. OPERA - THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION showcases Bocelli's vibrant personal journey through the world of opera. This 2014 collection features the most popular tenor arias from well-known operas such as La Boheme, Tosca, La Traviata, Madame Butterfly and Romeo & Juliet plus a new recording of the much celebrated Nessun Dorma! From Puccini's Turandot is included; a signature piece for Bocelli as it was for his mentor Luciano Pavarotti. The album draws on arias which inspired Bocelli throughout his career, from his first memory of opera to his newest recording of the great aria Donna non vidi mai from Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Includes Bocelli's personal favorites from the masterpieces of Puccini and Verdi, as well as the very best of French opera, featuring arias by Massenet, Gounod & Bizet.

Established as one of Virgin Classics bestselling artists, Philippe Jaroussky, who has been described as the Apollo of countertenors by Germany s Die Zeit, stands out among his many talented contemporaries as much for the sopranolike beauty of his tone as for the elegance and insight of his interpretations and his adventurous and erudite approach to repertoire whether unearthing neglected scores by little-known composers or venturing beyond the Baroque into the 19th and 20th centuries. Jaroussky s diverse achievements are celebrated in two new collections on Virgin Classics the 2-CD set The Voice and the DVD La Voix des reves. Greatest moments in Concert. Displaying the breadth of his repertoire from Vivaldi, Handel and lesser-known masters of the Baroque to Faure, Hahn and even Tango King Astor Piazzolla these two releases prove once again that there is much more to Jaroussky than the voice of an angel.