This week audiences will get a chance to listen to a high-anticipated recording of Puccini’s final opera. There are also several world premiere recordings and solo albums.

All in the Sound: New Vocal Music by Peter Dayton 

Navona Records will release Peter Dayton‘s art songs which pair voices with instruments as varied as violin, harp, and celesta in addition to more standard combinations. The album features songs that set English-language poetry from the past two centuries, including authors such as William Carlos Williams, Vicki Hearne, Wendell Berry, and Gertrude Stein.

Strauss’s Four Last Songs

Sony Classical International releases the second solo album by American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen. Willis-Sørensen’s latest release pairs the composer’s Vier letzte Lieder with the closing scene of his final opera, “Capriccio.” Renowned conductor Andris Nelsons leads the Gewandhausorchester and German bass Sebastian Pilgrim joins Willis-Sørensen for the Capriccio scene.

I Give You My Home

The new work is a site-specific chamber opera inspired by Rose Standish Nichols and the Nichols House Museum in Boston MA that premiered June 3, 2022. Navona Records releases the work with Guerilla Opera and soloists soprano Aliana de la Guardia, saxophonist Philipp A. Stäudlin and percussionist Mike Williams.

Haydn Stabat Mater

René Jacobs presents Joseph Haydn’s Stabat Mater, together with the Kammerorchester Basel, Zürcher Singakademie and a quartet of vocal soloists, Birgitte Christensen, Kristina Hammarström, Steve Davislim and Christian Immler.

Turandot

Sir Antonio Pappano leads Puccini’s final work in a recording that was done in Rome in March 2022. The cast includes Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role, Jonas Kaufmann as Turandot’s suitor, Calaf, and Ermonela Jaho as Liu.

Judith Rodriguez 

This new release is a program of voice and piano and focuses on one of the founding fathers of Zarzuela, Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, whose bicentennial is being celebrated in Spain in 2023.