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

This week audiences will get a chance to see and listen to a production from Bayreuth. There are also several world premiere recordings and an acclaimed recording from a recent festival.

From Al-Andalus to the Americas: An Odyssey of Spanish Song

Christine Moore Vassallo joins Jorge Robaina Pons (piano), Pablo Giménez Hecht (guitar), Anthony Robb (flute), Rachel Beckles Willson (oud), and Philip Arditti (darbuka) team up for the new album released through Meridian Records. The release is inspired by the soprano’s interest in the connection of Arabic, Middle Eastern, and North African music regions to Spanish music as well as her own Middle Eastern Arabic background.

Le Prophète

Recorded live in concert at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2023, this album sees the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Mark Elder join forces with Lyon Opera Chorus, Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône, and the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra.

The cast is led by John Osborn, Elizabeth DeShong, and Mané Galoyan.

When OperaWire saw the production in 2023, it was called “a night to remember.”

America the Beautiful

Navona Records releases an album featuring David Holdhusen and the University of South Dakota Chamber Singers. In the album, they perform America the Beautiful. Initially arranged by KJ Phillips to accompany a 2021 Veterans Day celebration, the patriotic work flourishes with modern compositional flair and is accompanied by a visual presentation of the ensemble’s performance.

Parsifal

Deutsche Grammophon releases Jay Scheib’s acclaimed and groundbreaking new production of “Parsifal” on CD and DVD. The opera stars Elīna Garanča and Andreas Schager with Pablo Heras-Casado conducting.

Richard Danielpour’s “Songs in Three Languages”

Richard Danielpour has collaborated frequently with soprano Hila Plitmann, and this new album features three recent works, two of which were written specifically for her. The song cycles heard in this album are sung in three languages central to the composer’s life. “Songs of Love and Loss” is in Farsi and sets the poetry of Rumi; “Canti Della Natura,” in Italian, takes sonnets attributed to Vivaldi in “The Four Seasons;” while “Songs of My Father” is set to the English poems of Danielpour’s father.

Songs for Peter Pears

Robin Tritschler, Philip Higham, Malcolm Martineau, and Sean Shibe explore Lennox Berkeley’s Five Housman Songs and Songs of the Half-Light, Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Arthur Oldham’s Five Chinese Lyrics, Richard Rodney Bennett’s “Tom O’Bedlam’s Song,” and Geoffrey Bush’s Songs of the Zodiac.

Go, Lovely Rose: Songs of Roger Quilter

James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook explore Roger Quilter’s output from early works such as “Now sleeps the crimson petal” through to late examples such as “The Ash Grove.” All of the songs are settings of English texts.

Anton Bruckner: Mass No. 3 in F minor

Sally Matthews, Karen Cargill, Ilker Arcayürek, Stanislav Trofimov, Chor and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Mariss Jansons are featured on Anton Bruckner’s Mass No. 3 in F minor. BR Klassik releases.

Robert Kyr: Earth Vigil

Awet Andemicael, Stephen Lancaster, Conspirare, and Craig Hella Johnson are featured on the world premiere recording of the environmental oratorio Earth Vigil.