Countertenor Carlo Vistoli shines a spotlight on the celebrated Italian castrati who inspired some of Handel’s finest oratorio writing in his new album, Handel’s Italians.
Eleonora Buratto’s first solo album, Indomita, has been released featuring a selection of works by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi.
Countertenor Franco Fagioli’s new album – The Last Castrato, Arias for Velluti – will be released on 28 February.
Jerome Robbins’ ballets Dances at a Gathering and The Concert will be live-streamed from La Scala.
Juan Diego Flórez releases the first album on his new label. ‘Zarzuela’ sees the Peruvian tenor returning to the music through which he approached opera.
Jules Cunningham’s collaboration with Spice Girl Melanie C and Harry Alexander how did we get here? released on Sadler’s Wells Digital Stage for free.
Farewells, Jakub Józef Orliński’s latest album, is released on digital platforms tomorrow, 6 May, and on CD and LP from 27 May 2022.
EDEN is Joyce DiDonato’s latest initiative combining a recording, an extensive tour, and an education programme to question our connection with nature.
Francesco Meli is accompanied by the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino conducted by Marco Armiliato for Prima Verdi – “a journey through ‘my’ Verdi”.
Cecilia Bartoli’s new album, Unreleased, with the Kammerorchester Basel under Muhai Tang features dramatic concert arias from the classical period.
Tenors Michael Spyres and Lawrence Brownlee celebrate the star singers of Rossini’s time in a new album, Amici e Rivali (Friends and Rivals). The disc features arias, duets, and trios from seven of the composer’s operas, written between 1815 and 1826: Il barbiere di Siviglia, Otello, Armida, La donna del Lago, Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra, Le Siège de Corinthe, and Ricciardo e Zoraide.
There are also two guests on the disc – the Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught and the young Spanish tenor Xabier Anduaga. The recording was made at the artistic home of conductor Corrado Rovaris and I Virtuosi Italiani, the Teatro Ristori in Verona.
Except for Il barbiere which premiered in Rome, all the works represented on Amici e Rivali have their roots in Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Although Le Siège de Corinthe was written for Paris
A short compilation of clips from the first act of the little known ballet by Jules Massenet: La Cigale. The video was recorded in the Teatro Comunale in Treviso in 1988 and features Carla Fracci and Paul Chalmer.
The ballet divertissement Pas de Quatre was choreographed by Jules Perrot in 1845 to music composed by Cesare Pugni, commissioned by Her Majesty’s Theatre in London. It was first seen on 12 July 1845 and was an immediate hit, mainly because it brought together some of the most famous ballerinas of the time: Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, and Marie Taglioni. The great Romantic ballerina, Fanny Elssler didn’t wish to take part, so the young Lucile Grahn was the fourth dancer.
In London in 1970 the 29-year-old prima ballerina Natalia Makarova, performing with Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet (now St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet) defected to the West.
Then in the summer of 1988 at the packed 3,200-seat Business Design Centre in London Makarova danced again with her former company, even though her career was ending (she had announced her retirement in 1986). She was 47.
Franco Fagioli’s latest solo album presents rediscovered treasures by Neapolitan opera composer Leonardo Vinci.
Fagioli – the first countertenor to sign an exclusive recording deal with Deutsche Grammophon – teams up once again with the thrilling Il Pomo d’Oro orchestra.
Veni, Vidi, Vinci features a dozen da capo arias, including seven world premiere recordings, with…
More than a gift to their own coffers, Warner Classics in releasing Maria Callas Live is giving fans of La Divina and lovers of opera a meticulously restored collection of some of her finest performances to treasure. It is timed to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of her death in Paris on 16 September 1977. The…
As a committed fan of BBC 4’s Desert Island Discs, I am delighted that Joyce DiDonato will be revealing her list of eight recordings, a book and a luxury item that she would take if she was to be cast away on a desert island. Of course, it’s the chat between the music that is the captivating aspect…
The 100th birthday of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf falls on 9 December 2015. She died in 2006, but her recordings are a timeless treasure of the Warner Classics catalogue, like those of her contemporary and friend, Maria Callas. The 31-CD deluxe box set, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: The Complete Recitals 1952-1974, to be released on 6 November, gathers together all the…
Joyce DiDonato‘s new album is launched today in North America and Warner Music is giving readers of this blog the opportunity to win one of five signed copies. To open the Wigmore Hall season last year, DiDonato teamed up with Antonio Pappano on the piano, and gave two recitals, which were recorded, and the result is the double-cd Joyce…
In the week since David LaChapelle’s video with Sergei Polunin went online it has gone viral, even sending this blog offline a couple of times due to the surge in people searching for information about the Ukrainian ballet star. As I write the YouTube views are edging toward five million; just yesterday one million new views…
Ian Bostridge, one of the leading Schubert tenors of his generation, has just published a book on the composer’s Winterreise song cycle. Winter Journey: The Anatomy of an Obsession is an insightful and deeply personal exploration of what the he calls “an indispensable work of art that should be as much a part of our common experience…
Tonight, Friday 3 October, Joyce DiDonato will perform the music from her new album Stella di Napoli at the Gowanus Ballroom, a warehouse performance art space in Brooklyn, located above Serett Metal Works. The intimate event is co-hosted by Warner Classics/Erato and LoftOpera. It will take the Yankee Diva and her album’s of 19th century Bel…
Joyce DiDonato‘s new album, Stella di Napoli, is out in September and “ventures far off the beaten bel canto track”, says her Erato label. Graciously, Cecilia Bartoli is nominated because, as everyone knows, she has been wandering far from the traditional mezzo career path for years. Italian conductor Riccardo Minasi, who collaborated with Bartoli when…
Warner Classics now holds the key to the Maria Callas official recordings treasure chest. Recently that key was taken out, and the original masters were carefully removed and transferred to computers for high-definition remastering. Carefully is the right word, for just placing the tapes on the machines caused some splicing to come apart at the original edit points….
During a career spanning almost forty years, Rosalind Plowright has never recorded a recital disc. She has sung in all the world’s greatest opera houses, with the most lauded of colleagues – singers, conductors, directors, designers – and made some important opera recordings and videos, yet the recital disc has never quite happened, even though recitals…
This was an inspired performance of Nikiya from Svetlana Zakharova. There are many videos of her in what is arguably her best role, but this is certainly one her finest performances. A magical evening in February of 2008. With her are Maria Allash as Gamzatti and Nikolai Tsiskaridze as Solor, both in splendid form. The Bronze Idol is…
The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, has given a rave review of Bob Dylan’s latest album ‘Tempest’. But in a very Italian way, it has also given the album a bad review. Two contrasting opinions side by side. Giulia Galeotti says: It’s like biting into a cake at the best pastry shop. The first bite is already promising,…
Cecilia Bartoli‘s new album will be on the shelves in a couple of weeks’ time. If Mission is successful it should put early Baroque composer Agostino Steffani (1655-1728) back on the musical map. He largely fell off it because his ‘day job’ as a diplomat and priest made it necessary for him to write many of his works…
It is suitably apt that moles, defectors and double agents have been lurking waiting to destabilise Decca’s secret project. So the new Cecilia Bartoli album, Mission, will be released on October 2. The tracklist is as follows: 1. “Schiere invitte, non tardate” (da Alarico il Baltha) 2. “Ogni core può sperar” (da Servio Tullio) 3. “Ove son? Chi…
While Decca keep us guessing at the content of Mission, Cecilia Bartoli‘s new album, their press release gives out a lot of information already: Autumn 2012 marks the release of Mission, a sensational new album from the world’s best-selling classical artist, Cecilia Bartoli, and a project with international politics, religious conflict, diplomatic secrecy, spying and…
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