Welcome back for this week’s look at the latest CD and DVD releases in the opera world.

This week, audiences get to see a new production of Offenbach’s masterful opera and a new recording of Prokofiev’s rarely performed work. There are also solo album debuts and a new requiem.

Requiem of Light

Patti Drennan’s newly composed a cappella Requiem Mass is performed by Steven Fox and The Clarion Choir. The new recording also features soprano Sangeeta Kaur and tenor Brian Giebler.

Songs of Orpheus

Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor and pianist, composer, and conductor Robert Spano unite for O’Connor’s first recital recording. The album includes songs by Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy, and George Crumb. Sono Luminus releases the album.

Doppo Notte

Solo Musica releases South African mezzo-soprano Megan Kahts’ new album, which is dedicated to one of the most famous castrati of the 18th century, Giovanni Carestini, and to a woman who could be considered the first diva in opera history: Faustina Bordoni. The album includes arias by Handel and Hasse and Kahts is joined by the Orchester Wiener Akademie and conductor Jeremy Joseph.

Sergei Prokofiev: The Gambler

Unitel Classica releases Prokofiev’s work from the 2024 Salzburg Festival. The production by Peter Sellars stars Asmik Grigorian, Sean Panikkar, Violeta Urmana, Peixin Chen, Juan Francisco Gatell, and Nicole Chirka. The Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor and Wiener Philharmoniker were conducted by Timur Zangiev.

Jacques Offenbach: Les Contes D’Hoffmann

Unitel Classica releases the Salzburg Festival’s new production of Offenbach’s masterwork. Benjamin Bernheim leads the cast, which includes Kathryn Lewek, Christian Van Horn, and Kate Lindsey. Marc Minkowski conducts the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor and Wiener Philharmoniker. Of the production, OperaWire noted, “Bernheim’s voice has a piercing tone, and his legato is smooth” and “Christian Van Horn performed the villain roles convincingly as perhaps congenial figures.”

Zaytoun

Haitham Haidar, Sylvain Bergeron, Abdul-Wahab Kayyali, Amanda Keesmaat, Tanya LaPerrière, and Abraham Ross team up for Haidar’s debut solo album. The album includes Baroque and Arabic music.

The Baroque arias and songs are from Monteverdi, Purcell and Bach and are paired with Arabic songs which were Haidar’s first introduction to music, including traditional songs, two songs by Sayed Darwish – known as “the father of Egyptian popular music – and “Li Beirut,” which was written at the height of the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s based on a melody from Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez.