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

This week audiences will get to hear a new album by two of bel canto’s greatest stars as well as a new recording of Wagner’s “Lohengrin.” There is also a new recording of “Turandot” in English.

Golden Age

PENTATONE celebrates the glittering world of 19th-century opera and the timeless beauty of the golden age of bel canto in Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee’s new album. The album features music by Gaetano Donizetti, Gioacchino Rossini, Georges Bizet, Léo Delibes, and Giuseppe Verdi, and showcases the two soloists alongside the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under the baton of conductor Ivan Repušić.

The album features music from “La fille du régiment,” “Le comte Ory,” “Les pêcheurs de perles,” “La jolie fille de Perth,” “Lakmé,” “Marino Faliero,” “Rigoletto” and “Don Pasquale.”

Discovering Wilfred Heaton

The new album Discovering Wilfred Heaton features seven premiere recordings from pianists Murray McLachlan and Rose McLachlan, tenor James Gilchrist, clarinetist Linda Merrick, and flutist Alex Jakeman.

Sehnsucht (Longing)

Baritone Äneas Humm and recital partner Renate Rohlfing release on the Rondeau Production label a project that centers around the idea of longing through the songs and life stories of Arnold Schoenberg, Alexander Zemlinsky, Erich Zeisl, and Henriëtte Bosmans. All four of these composers of Jewish heritage were forced to flee Nazi Germany or live in fear for their lives during the Second World War.

In a statement, Äneas Humm said, “The album Sehnsucht brings together songs by composers whose lives were marked by flight, exile, and inner conflict. The urgency of their music was born out of both historical and personal experience. Emigration to America meant rescue for Zemlinsky, Zeisl, and Schönberg, but also painful loss. For them, freedom and uprootedness stood inseparably side by side. But Henriette Bosmans especially fascinates me: as a Jewish and lesbian woman, she remained in Europe and looked National Socialism directly in the eye. Her music is an expression of her existential longing for freedom and recognition.”

TRILOGY OF HOPE

Anne Delaney offers a testament to spiritual endurance, a profound musical journey through hope, history, and the quest for justice. Preceded by a song-chant, a musical testament to the profound connection between the human spirit and the Divine, this triptych of sacred, prophetic, and devotional songs is inspired by both historical upheaval and personal trust in God.

Performed by the Kühn Choir of Prague and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the showcase power and sincerity.

Mozart Requiem/Fazıl Say: Mozart & Mevlana 

Warner Classics releases a new recording of Mozart’s Requiem with a lineup that includes Fatma Said, Marianne Crebassa, Pene Pati, and Alexandros Stavrakakis, the Rundfunkchor Berlin, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, and conductor Michael Sanderling.

The piece is paired with the world-premiere recording of Mozart ve Mevlana by Turkish pianist-composer Fazıl Say. Using the same forces as the Mozart Requiem, this new work is set to the text of two poems by the 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi, translated into Turkish from the original Persian.

Turandot

Central Florida’s premiere vocal ensemble The Pinnacle Singers releases a live recording “Turandot,” a radically revised new version of Puccini’s masterpiece performed in English starring Cass Panuska as Turandot, Ashley Nunez as Liu and Torlef Borsting as Calaf.

Captured live in performance, The Pinnacle Singers’ reimagining of “Turandot” preserves the immediacy of the singers’ daring interpretations and the charged atmosphere of reinvention.

Wagner: Lohengrin

C Major Entertainment releases Wagner’s work from the Wiener Staatsoper with a cast that includes Georg Zeppenfeld, David Butt Philip, Malin Bystrom, Martin Gantner, and Anja Kampe. Christuan Thielemann conducts the production by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito.