Senesino: brilliant, noble, incomparable, dignified, and boasting a superb technique that allowed the world famous castrato to have impeccable diction coupled with just as formidable breath control… Sheer endless is the series of superlatives with which this multifaceted artist has been credited. Not to mention the adventurous, sometimes stormy and humorous episodes which, for more than three centuries, have cemented {…}
It is a very rare and no less fortunate occurrence for two of the leading sopranos in America to release, within months from each other, their respective take on one of the most dangerously underestimated roles in all of opera: Violetta Valéry for whom, so the saying goes, three voices are needed to match the transition from the melismatic first {…}
It is something of a paradox that the proverbial dearth of tenors coexists with the announcement, in regular intervals, of some new vocal phenomenon which, after a solo recital or two, the recording industry decides to “crown before they are king” – to loosely and no less cynically paraphrase a famous saying by Mascagni. Yet too many are the instances {…}
(Photo: Benoit Auguste) Over the course of the 17th century, the role of the tenor was displaced by the rise of the castrato. Whilst in opera’s early years tenors were given prominent roles, such as the title role in Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo,” by the middle of the century they were relegated to comic or travesti roles. During the early 18th century, {…}
In anticipation of Signum Classic’s new release of “La Bohème” I happily reminisced about Lithuanian tenor Merūnas Vitulskis’ performance of “Madama Butterfly” which I had the chance to witness at the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg all the way back in 2015. It was an elegant voice, well placed, with a warm timbre and baritonal depth, albeit none of the customary {…}
(Photo credit: Hans Jörg Michel) Hans Thomalla’s third opera “Dark Spring”—the others being “Fremd” and “Kaspar Hauser”—was premiered by Mannheim Opera in Fall 2020 and recorded by Oehms Classics over the course of its five performances. Since November a recording has been available both online and as a CD. It is this recording which is now being reviewed. This work {…}
(Photo: Nicola Dal Maso) Francesca Aspromonte’s first solo album, released on the Pentatone label in 2018, explored the Italian 17thcentury opera prologue, with music from a variety of composers including Cavalli, Stradella, and A. Scarlatti. Accompanied by the Il Pomo D’Oro ensemble under the direction of Enrico Onofri, the recording proved itself to be an excellent showcase for the young {…}
The history of Italian opera is indissociable from Manuel Garcia and his children who have shone in the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Balfe, and Gounod to name but a few. They established themselves as icons of the 19th century whose culture and societal life the sisters Maria, known as La Malibran, and Pauline, wife of Louis Viardot, dominated like {…}
(Photo: Gianpaolo Parodi) In 1708 Händel wrote “Aci, Galatea and Polifemo,” a serenata for three voices, as part of the celebrations to mark the marriage of Beatrice Tocco di Montemiletto and Duke D’Alvito Tolomeo III. Its narrative, taken from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” relates how the love between the shepherd Aci and the nymph Galatea enrages the cyclops Polifemo, who in a {…}