Renée Fleming, Lena Belkina & Svetlana Aksenova Lead New CD/DVD Releases

By Francisco Salazar

This week audiences will get to listen to rare repertoire, new works, and a holiday classic. Here is a look at this week’s new releases.

Spring Night

Solo Musica releases Lena Belkina new album accompanied by pianist Natalia Sidorenko. The album is devoted to romances written by Peter Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninov. The new CD marks her third solo album.

Matthew Aucoin: Orphic Moments

BMOP/sound, in collaboration with AMOC will release the two-CD set “Matthew Aucoin: Orphic Moments.” The new album features seven works, each in their debut recording performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and singers Anthony Roth Costanzo, Paul Appleby, and Davóne Tines. The album also features musicians such as instrumentalist/poet Doug Balliett and pianist Conor Hanick.

Messiah 

Leaf Music will release a new recording of highlights from Handel’s “Messiah,” featuring soprano Karina Gauvin and bookended by two new choral works by Montreal-based composers, Jaap Nico Hamburger and Matthias Maute. Maute also conducts Ensemble Vocal Arts-Québec and Ensemble Caprice.

Tremor

Nuno Côrte-Real’s song cycle about The Great Lisbon Earthquake has been released in a recording featuring soprano Bárbara Barradas. She is joined by Nuno Côrte-Real’s own Ensemble Darcos under the composer’s direction.

Before the Deluge 

Soprano Renée Fleming has released a new cover of Jackson Browne’s environmental anthem “Before the Deluge,” arranged by composer Caroline Shaw, with star collaborators Alison Krauss and Rhiannon Giddens. The trio of renowned singers are joined by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; the recording is available now on Decca Classics.

In a statement, Renée Fleming said, “Alarmed by the increasing number and ferocity of climate catastrophes, I felt compelled to respond in Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene. The artist/activists and the ‘back to nature’ movement in the 70’s inspired me, and Jackson Browne’s epic Before the Deluge is just as powerful today in the face of the climate crisis. What a gift that brilliant friends Rhiannon Giddens and Alison Krauss could collaborate with me and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Caroline Shaw’s haunting arrangement.”

Zaza

Unitel releases Leoncavallo’s “Zazà” in a production from the Theater an der Wien. The new DVD features a production by Christof Loy who offered a modernized take on the story. The cast includes Svetlana Aksenova in the title role, Nikolai Schukoff as Milio Dufresne, and Christopher Maltman as Cascart. Stefan Soltész leads the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor.

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