Charles Castronovo, Nahuel di Pierro & Siegfried Wagner Lead New CD/DVD Releases

By Francisco Salazar

This week, audiences will get a chance to see and listen to world premieres and rarely performed pieces. There is also an intriguing work from Richard Wagner’s son. Check out this week’s new releases.

Songs for Murdered Sisters

The new song cycle, which was co-commissioned by Houston Grand Opera and Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, was conceived to wake people up to the global epidemic of gender-based violence. Margaret Atwood and Jake Heggie’s new song Cycle in collaboration with Joshua Hopkins was conceived as a chamber piece for voice and piano, and as a fully orchestrated piece for voice and symphony orchestra. Originally scheduled for a live premiere in Houston and Ottawa, the song cycle will now premiere on Marque TV on Feb. 19 and on a digital album released on March 5.

Sonnenflammen

Richard Wagner’s son Siegfried Wagner wrote a half-dozen more works than his father and Marco Polo is releasing Siegfried Wagner’s eighth opera “Sonnenflammen.” The production comes from the ensemble of Munich’s PPP Music Theater (directed by Peter P. Pachl and performing at Bayreuth’s Kulturbühne Reichshof) to accompaniment by the “Bayreuth Digital Orchestra” under the leadership of Ulrich Leykam.

Blind Injustice

Cincinnati Opera has released the world premiere recording of the critically acclaimed new opera with music by Scott Davenport Richards and libretto by David Cote. The new recording is now on Amazon, iTunes, and other digital music retailers, and available for streaming via Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Amazon Music.

“Blind Injustice” premiered at Cincinnati Opera in July 2019 and explores the true stories of six innocent people who were convicted of crimes they did not commit. The recording features the original cast, the Cincinnati Opera Chorus, members of YPCC, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by Cincinnati Pops Conductor John Morris Russell.

Ercole Amante

Naxos releases Cavalli’s rarely performed work from a lavish revival at the Opéra Comique in November 2019. The production was co-directed by Valérie Lesort and Christian Hecq and was led by Raphaël Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion. The cast included Nahuel di Pierro, Anna Bonitatibus, and Francesca Aspromonte.

Alceste 

C Major releases a production of Gluck’s “Alceste” from Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper. Antonello Manacorda conducts an all-star cast led by Charles Castronovo and also starring Dorothea Röschmann and Michael Nagy.

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