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

This week it’s all about the tenor. Three of opera’s leading tenors release albums that feature their vocal depths and their passion. There are a number of the world premiere recordings and several choral albums.

Ways You Went

Donald Nally’s chamber choir The Crossing releases its latest studio album which features original compositions by composers Martin Bresnick and Mason Bates.

Bresnick’s song cycle “Self-Portraits 1964” exclusively deals with the life and personality of a single man while Bates’ trilogy “Mass Transmission” takes a telegraph conversation between mother and daughter in the 1920s and sets it to music.

Ombre di luce

Nathan Granner presents an album of tenor arias by Paër, Mozart, Gluck, Salieri, and Bologne. He is joined by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, under the baton of Clelia Cafiero. PENTATONE releases the album.

In a statement, Granner said, “As I sit here, reflecting on the creation of this album, I can’t help but marvel at the parallels between our modern world and the Age of Enlightenment. Just like the classical era from 1750 to 1827, we find ourselves seeking comfort and stability amidst the chaos that surrounds us. The societal changes and revolutions of THAT time transformed every aspect of life, from literature and music to the very nature of war. It was a time when people began to demand their rights. Opera characters like Beaumarchais’ Figaro and Susanna and Da Ponte’s Don Ottavio subtly led to real-world shifts in how we treated one another.”

George Benjamin and Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern Media will release a new album featuring four works by George Benjamin, performed by the Ensemble Modern Orchestra and soprano Anna Prohaska. The album features “A Mind of Winter” “At First Light,” “Palimpsests” and the arrangements of the “Art of the Fugue.”

Nessun Dorma

Warner Classics releases Pene Pati’s second album, which balances favorite numbers with operatic rarities – two of them in world premiere recordings. The album features works by Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Mascagni, Mercadante, Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Massenet, Halévy and Guiraud. Joining the Samoan tenor on the album are his soprano wife, Amina Edris, his tenor brother Amitai Pati, conductor Emmanuel Villaume, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Choeur de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Roberto Alagna 60

Aparte Music celebrates Roberto Alagna’s 60th birthday and his 40th career anniversary,

Alagna performs alongside the Morphing Chamber Orchestra under Giorgio Croci in a program that is very much in his image: showing a contagious passion, and an insatiable appetite for the exploration of different repertoires and styles. The repertoire includes the works of Gounod, Massenet, Thomas, Adam, Verdi, Leoncavallo, Pergolesi, Wagner, Flotow, Moniuszko, Tchaikovsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. There are also Italian and French songs as well as English and South American crossover music.

Fairy Tale Song Cycle

Siblings Jennifer Shorstein and Benjamin Shorstein release their first recording with their “Fairy Tales” song cycle on Madre Vaca Records.

The Shorstein siblings have been crafting songs together for years, with Jennifer writing the words and Benjamin the music. In a statement, Benjamin Shorstein says “writing songs with Jennifer is a dream; she creates these beautiful, evocative scenes. It’s the most exciting thing to sit down at the piano with her lyrics and explore the musical terrain they inspire.” The work features soprano and tenor voices, piano, violin, cello, percussion, and clarinet.

Four vocalists, including another Shorstein sibling, Rebecca, perform the piece with instrumentalists from the Bold City Contemporary Ensemble. Sopranos Rebecca Shorstein and Monica Pasquini are joined by tenor Jake McKenna and soprano Jennifer Anderson.

Chamber Music by James Joyce, Vol. 1

Desmond Earley and the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin present an album of world-premiere recordings of choral works commissioned from 18 composers to accompany poems from the 1907 poetry collection “Chamber Music,” by the celebrated Irish novelist and poet James Joyce. Signum Classics Classics releases the album.

Zarzuela

Juan Diego Flórez releases his upcoming album “Zarzuela” which will be released on his new record label, Florez Records. The tenor performs music by José Serrano, Federico Moreno Torroba, Pablo Luna, Ruperto Chapí, Gerónimo Giménez, Rafael Calleja & Tomás Barrera, Reveriano Soutullo & Juan Vert, Amadeo Vives, and Agustín Pérez Soriano. Flórez is joined by the Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra and Choir and Spanish conductor Guillermo García Calvo.