Welcome back as we explore the latest CD and DVD releases from around the opera world.

This week comes the release of a bel canto masterpiece with Lisette Oropesa, as well as an album dedicated to Berlin starring Anne Sofie von Otter. John Holiday also makes his album debut. Here is a look at the new releases.

Maria Stuarda

Over My Head

PENTATONE releases the debut album from acclaimed countertenor John Holiday. The album is a striking and deeply personal statement of artistic identity and brings together spirituals, contemporary works, and art song in a program shaped by faith, love, and expressive individuality. Joined by pianist and close collaborator Kevin Miller, Holiday showcases works by Hall Johnson, Robert L. Morris, H. Leslie Adams, world premiere recordings of music by Theo Morrison and Carlos Simon, and arrangements by Holiday himself.

Trans Requiem

Andrew Yee’s “Trans Requiem,” a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind work for trans voices, choirs, and orchestra, commissioned by Trinity Church NYC, will be released by New Amsterdam Records.

The Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum (NBCM) and its artistic director Reinhard Goebel launch a new series with “The Leipzig Collegium Musicum Vol. 1: Music before Bach,” offering a vivid glimpse into Leipzig’s rich musical life at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The album features works byJohann Beer, Johann David Heinichen, Georg Melchior Hoffmann, and Georg Philipp Telemann, among others.

The Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst will release a new spatial audio recording, pairing two powerful and deeply personal 20th-century works: Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No. 5, “Amen,” and Francis Poulenc’s “La voix humaine.” Recorded live at Severance Music Center on May 23 and 24, 2025, the recording features Tony F. Sias as reciter in Ustvolskaya’s singular symphony and soprano Sarah Aristidou in Poulenc’s emotionally charged one-act opera.

Vivaldi: The Complete Sacred Music

Hyperion releases the complete sacred works by Vivaldi including no fewer than 50 sacred works. The 11 CD set offers jewels beyond count, such as Beatus vir, Stabat mater, Dixit Dominus, and myriad other brilliant Baroque jewels ready to be discovered.

Finzi: For St Cecilia, Op. 30 (Organ Reduction): II. Changed Is the Age

Celebrating its 30th release on Hyperion, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge dedicates its latest project to secular choral music by Gerald Finzi. This, the debut release for Trinity’s newly appointed Director of Music, Steven Grahl, presents three of Finzi’s larger choral works in first recordings of these arrangements.

Through the Centuries – Songs of Madeleine Dring

Kitty Whately and Julius Drake presents an album of songs by Madeleine Dring.

Born in 1923 to a theatrical family, Dring was admitted to the Royal College of Music at the age of nine and went on to study composition with Herbert Howells, also taking lessons from Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Nico Muhly: No Resting Place

Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars present a collection of world premiere recordings of works written for them by Nico Muhly over the last ten years, also marking the start of a new collaboration between the group and Linn Records.

Nordic Sounds

Nordic Sounds is a journey through the mythological worlds of Scandinavia, represented by works from Danish composer Bo Holten, Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, and Swedish composer Jan Sandström.

The album showcases the talents of Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the direction of Peter Dijkstra.

Tristan und Isolde

C Major Entertainment releases Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” starring Klaus Florian Vogt, Camilla Nylund, Georg Zeppenfeld, Martin Gantner, and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner. Christian Thielemann conducts the production from the Semperoper Dresden with Marco Arturo Marelli.