Mozart Opera and concert Arias

“Diana Damrau's intelligently planned and superbly executed recital… I can’t remember when I last enjoyed a Mozart recital of this kind so much.” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2008 *****

“…Jérémie Rhorer draws tangy, rhythmically lively playing from his period band. "Taste", "fire", "flexibility", "sweetness", "grace of execution" - these were the qualities especially prized in singers of Mozart's day. On this showing Damrau, like Lucia Popp before her, has them all.” --Gramophone Magazine, March 2009

Diana Damrau (soprano)
Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, Jérémie Rhorer

In her second recording as an exclusive Virgin Classics artist Diana Damrau interprets concert and operatic arias by Mozart in a programme which displays her virtuosity and impressive vocal range.

Indeed Diana Damrau’s new recital shows she can sing practically all of Mozart’s notably varied soprano roles – ranging from the bravura (Donna Anna, Konstanze, Donna Elvira…) via the more serious (Pamina) to the lighter soprano (generally soubrette roles such as Susanna, Blonde…).

From her first recording everyone noted her outstanding Queen of the Night – here she is Pamina (in New York’s Met last Fall, Diana Damrau alternated the two roles with brio). She is also Susanna and the Contessa (Le Nozze di Figaro), Konstanze and Blonde (Die Entführung), Donna Anna and Elvira (Don Giovanni), Servilia and Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito), pairing major soprano roles within the operas, and concert arias.

As for her first recital, ‘Arie di bravura’, French conductor Jérémie Rhorer, who is rapidly gaining international recognition, directs his French period-instrument ensemble Le Cercle de l’Harmonie

Handel: Il Caro Sassone

“With her vernal light lyric soprano, grace of line and vivid response to mood, Lucy Crowe proves well-nigh ideal in this conspectus of music from Handel's Italian years...Crowe's delectable singing is complemented by fresh, rhythmically buoyant and, where needed, virtuoso playing from the English Concert, who on their own give sparkling performances of three instrumental numbers from [Handel's] astonishingly fertile Italian sojourn.” --Gramophone Magazine, January 2012

“there is a marvellous flamboyance to these youthful works...Crowe is fully equal to their demands, showing an imaginative sensitivity to Handel's melodic shapes, even if a few low notes take her beyond her best range. She's alert, too, to the music's harmonic implications...Bicket proves an astute accompaniment [sic], allowing Crowe all the time she needs to turn corners...The English Concert make a fine showing, their trumpets resplendent” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ****

“She has added luscious chest tones to her bright soprano in recent seasons, and consistently delights in Handel’s gloriously youthful music, which includes an early variant of the famous aria from Rinaldo, Lascia ch’io pianga. Bicket’s English Concert supplies luxury, stylish accompaniments.” --Sunday Times, 4th December 2011

“Crowe follows the young composer’s flights with musical and emotional fidelity, in tones from tender to sharply penetrating. She uses her voice with quasi-instrumental freedom, but also with the kind of micro-inflection that the voice can make so much more potent and heart-piercing than any instrument. Harry Bicket and the players of the English Concert are hand-in-glove partners to the vocal wizardry.” --Irish Times, 16th December 2011 ****

“With this recital, Crowe cements her star status in the Baroque world. Her technique is dazzling (hearing her diminuendo and crescendo on a high A in a trumpet-and-drums aria from La Resurrezione is a joy in itself), her voice is pure and fresh, and she's a natural communicator...this is a fascinating and beautifully performed portrait of a genius composer flexing his wings.” --Classic FM Magazine, February 2012 ****

Susan Gritton Sings Britten, Finzi, Delius

“Gritton's performance [of Les illuminations) is lustrous and joyous, a precociously talented young man's music brilliantly presented.” --The Guardian, 15th April 2010 ****

“...there is much to admire in [Gritton's] delicate, considered vocalism, as well as in her refined musicianship...With the BBC string players on sterling form, Finzi's haunting blend of lyricism and astringency, the bite of his harmonic scrunches and the fluid interplay of his lines...all come over.” --BBC Music Magazine, June 2010 ***

“The pleasures here are many...right from the outset one can hardly fail to be struck by the exquisite (but never self-aware) sheen of the BBC SO's response. Edward Gardner directs with the utmost sensitivity...Susan Gritton, too, sings with heartfelt empathy, radiance and intelligence, and her alliance with Gardner certainly distills the necessary tingle-factor.” --Gramophone Magazine, July 2010

One of Britain’s leading lyric sopranos, Susan Gritton here performs a unique programme of works by three English composers, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner, ENO’s Musical Director.

The quintessence of Finzi, Dies natalis sets texts by the seventeenth-century poet Thomas Traherne, which reflect the joy and wonder of a newborn child’s innocent perspective on the world. The richly textured, resourceful string writing and the long melodic lines are hallmarks of Finzi’s style. The subtle inflections of the word-setting and lyricism have attracted many leading vocalists both in concert and on disc. Although particularly associated with the tenor voice, Dies natalis was premiered, and is increasingly performed by, sopranos.

This premiere recording of the version of Delius’s A Late Lark for soprano voice is currently the only available recording of the work. A setting of W.E. Henley’s poem ‘I.M. Margaritæ Sorori’, it offers a lovely lyrical reflection of the serene acceptance of death and is especially poignant as it was one of Delius’s last works. Eric Fenby, Delius’s friend and amanuensis, recalls that one day after he had read the poem through to Delius, ‘and had finished playing his setting, [Delius] said, “Yes, that is how I want to go.”’

Susan Gritton, who also appears on Chandos’ Grammy Award© winning Paul Bunyan, here includes the Quatre Chansons françaises, the most significant work of Britten’s juvenilia. The songs, to texts by Verlaine and Hugo, were composed between June and August 1928 when Britten was a mere fourteen, and demonstrate the flair for instrumental colour that was to become the hallmark of the mature composer. The album is completed by the later song cycle Les Illuminations, which offers a further development in his exploration of the orchestral song cycle, a genre that he was to make very much his own during his career.

Rossini: Arias

"A natural comedienne, she combines a vivacious stage presence with graceful, finished phrasing and an apparently effortless coloratura technique . . ." Gramophone, June 2013

"She tosses off Rossini's elaborate writing with the greatest of ease. This is an impressive Rossini recital." --Classicalcdreview.com, July 2013

"Dazzling . . . Kurzak combines a warm and richly colored low register with tireless, technically precise fireworks . . . the theatrical fearlessness of her delivery and the fluidity of her phrasing throughout make this an enjoyable and deeply impressive offering." --San Francisco Chronicle, August 2013

A natural comedienne, she combines a vivacious stage presence with graceful, finished phrasing and an apparently effortless coloratura technique . . . [she is] triumphantly celebrating her erotic power in the Act 2 "Rondò e finale" from "Matilde di Shabran" . . . Without ever over-egging the pudding, Kurzak acts vividly for a "blind" audience, alive to verbal nuance and using coloratura not merely as a vote-catching circus trick, but to enhance character. Lustily abetted by the Sinfonia Varsovia, she is especially good at generating a crescendo of delirious, dizzying glee that is such a hallmark of Rossini's comic art. But this is not all about frolicsome virtuosity and bright-pinging top Ds and Es. Kurzak can find warmer, deeper . . . colourings within her silvery soprano . . . [a] tenderly sculpted performance of Amenaide's prayer in "Tancredi" . . . she rails with passionate ferocity as the banished wife in the rarely aired "Sigismondo" and catches the mingled dreaminess and excited anticipation of Semiramide's "Bel raggio lusinghier" . . . elegance of style and expressive delicacy (she always cares for the text) . . . Kurzak brilliantly caps her recital with Fiorilla's Act 2 scena from "Il turco in Italia", beginning in intense pathos and ending in coruscating bravura . . . This regularly brought the house down at Covent Garden, and on this evidence it's easy to hear why. --Record Review / Richard Wigmore, Gramophone (London) / 01. June 2013

La Bellezza Del Canto

With her debut CD, “La bellezza del canto”, Olga Peretyatko entered the Top Ten of the German classical charts.

"The Sweet and technically agile voice..." -- New York Times

"A beautiful, sparkling voice with a bright shining height and a pleasant and rich centre." -- Opernglass

Tales Of Opera

To say that Simon Keenlyside is a thinking man's baritone might lead people to believe that he's cerebral at the expense of feelings; nothing could be further from the truth. It also should be noted that his voice is beautiful and his technique spotless--he's as comfortable with the low, dark tones of Renato in "Eri tu" as he is with the high, soft singing in the middle of the Pagliacci prologue and the aria's penultimate high A-flat and the high G that follows it. The voice itself is not large, but it does precisely what it has to to bring these scenes to life.

This CD is titled "Tales of Opera" (rather than the usual "Great Baritone Arias" or the latest "Songs of Lust and Passion", the former generic and the latter designed to sell the album as something "hot"), and there's a reason for it. Baritones who get inside their roles and make us care and wonder about their characters are not as rare as tenors with the same characteristics, but Keenlyside almost never goes for the obvious. Opening a recital CD with "Largo al factotum" is both safe and daring, but Keenlyside does it and makes us hear it clearly: he's witty but he doesn't mug, and his showing-off is in step with the character's virility and not his own.

In the following "Sois immobile" from William Tell Keenlyside sounds as if he's a different singer. All swagger is gone and he sings intimately and with a type of focus utterly right for this terrifying father/son moment. His reading of Herod's "Vision fugitive" is oozing with desire; his "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen" does not give us a silly bird-man--it gives us someone searching for love. Similarly, "Eri tu" is the tragic exposing of a soul. Perhaps because Keenlyside's voice is not huge he opts for another way to sing the aria, but I suspect that he thought it through before realizing what might be called a limitation, i.e., the inability to boom like a Milnes or Warren.

In aria after aria we get caught up in character; the glorious singing is taken for granted. In what Sony refers to in the booklet as "Dah (sic) vieni alla finestra", Keenlyside is serenading and seducing for real, as the Don should be; and Wolfram's Song to the Evening Star, so difficult to "sell" outside of the opera, here is a gentle, evocative, frozen moment in time. A rarity from L'Arlesiana and a rousing version of Hamlet's Drinking Song are other interesting stops along the way, and Keenlyside's musical, sensitive way with "Di Provenza il mar" makes it seem truly fresh as well.

Ulf Schirmer is the responsive conductor and the Munich Radio Orchestra plays with warmth and professionalism. The sound is excellent. The accompanying booklet has intelligent notes by Keenlyside himself, but no texts or translations, which probably is a money-saving move. At any rate, it's nice to have Sony releasing classical material that isn't Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, or a re-tread, and with Keenlyside they've got a real winner. --Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Arias for Guadagni

GRAMOPHONE AWARD WINNER 2012

“Through his effortless line, countertenor Iestyn Davies revivifies Guadagni's Orphic powers...Whether drawing out sustained notes or knitting together filigreed coloratura, he is a paragon of gallant taste: poised, cool, elegant...Jonathan Cohen and his ensemble Arcangelo capture the rapid, unexpected twists of the younger Bach's radical imagination...this [is] a refreshingly ambitious and superbly realised recording.” --BBC Music Magazine, August 2012 *****

British countertenor Iestyn Davies is one of the fastest rising stars on the concert and opera circuit. Following his highly acclaimed recording of Porpora cantatas, he returns for a second solo album with Hyperion, a selection of arias written for Gaetano Guadagni. Italian-born Guadagni was the first ‘modern’ castrato, famed all over Europe for the lyric purity of his voice and his powerful, naturalistic acting style.

Not only did he enjoy a close artistic relationship with Handel, who nurtured Guadagni’s voice to fit the alto roles in his English oratorios, but he effectively created the role of Orpheus in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, an opera he thoroughly made his own. Here, Iestyn Davies is joined again by the renowned period-instrument band Arcangelo, directed by Jonathan Cohen.

Berlioz: Herminie, Les Nuits D'ete; Ravel: Sheherazade

“In her mid-forties, this voice has become richer and even more expressive, and he works on this disc suit her to perfection. She not only pronounces the words, she feels them...Her Nuits d'ete reilshes hues both light and dark, and if she'd been around to sing Berlioz's Prix de Rome cantata Herminie in 1828, who know, he might have won gold instead of silver!” --BBC Music Magazine, October 2012 ****

“[Gens is] alive and vivid, giving a passionate account of the wonderful Sur les Lagunes. Elsewhere, she seems to me in too much of a hurry.” --Sunday Times, 9th July 2012

“warm, sensitive, the lyrical French soprano par excellence...Gens bring [Herminie] to life as sympathetically as any of her operatic portrayals...It is unusual to encounter a recording of Les nuits d'ete in which the colouring is so consistent throughout...Gens has in her sights a purer kind of poetry.” --Gramophone Magazine, September 2012

“As you might expect, Gens's singing has sharpened its musical perceptions still further and acquired even more shades of colour since [her] earlier recording. No one today delivers French song with the combination of tonal beauty and verbal nuance she does, and each number of Nuits d'Eté offers a miniature masterclass...Pure ravishment.” --The Guardian, 21st June 2012 *****

The Beauty of Baroque

“It's an intriguing and enjoyable programme...The English Concert provides suitable support throughout, from solo theorbo on Dowland's "What if I never speed?" to the trio of harpsichord, theorbo and viola da gamba with her delightful duet with counter-tenor Andreas Scholl” --The Independent, 10th June 2011 ****

“This is a charming recital that shows this popular soprano at her best...she has plenty of vivacity and fresh-toned sweetness. Guardian Angels, from Handel’s “The Triumph of Time and Truth”, is a highlight: a little-known but beautiful aria, sung here with poise and allure.” --The Telegraph, 7th July 2011 ****

 “In Dowland's Come again, sweet love doth now invite and What if I never speed?, she sounds like a sexier Emma Kirkby...The English Concert under its Music Director Harry Bicket provides the stylish orchestral and instrumental backing...You really hear the personality behind the voice - the 'Beauty of the Baroque' is, without question, a real artist.” --International Record Review, July/August 2011

“she keeps things light on this disc, and for the greater part only shows off her many splendid advantages. Indeed, her flirtatious performance of the famous lute-song Come again can rank as one of the most captivating on disc. The duets with Scholl are a delight too. De Niese's sheer joy in singing leaps off the CD and her emotional immediacy is hard to resist.” --Classic FM Magazine, August 2011 ****

Mozart: Concert Arias

Mozart's concert arias are not really generically independent from his operas. They were mostly written for insertion into operas by a singer, often Mozart's girlfriend and then sister-in-law Aloysia Weber, who wanted to display her talents to their best advantage. As such, however, they stand out from other operatic arias as some of the most difficult vocal pieces Mozart composed. Several of these pieces are in Queen of the Night territory, with not just individual high notes but lengthy passages that require the singer to be melodic at the very top of her range.

This 1994 release by French soprano Natalie Dessay, just hitting the very top of her game, has been a favorite among aficionados of Mozart's vocal music, and its reissue in Virgin Classics' budget line gives other listeners a chance to try it out. For sheer agility in the top register, it's hard to beat. Dessay not only hits the multiple examples of the E two octaves plus above middle C, she sounds good doing so, and she makes real music as the tune bounces around a few steps below that. There are sopranos with greater dramatic insight than Dessay, and plenty with more sheer power, but for the pleasure of hearing a trained voice enter territory where only a few can go, this disc remains a rare find.

The Lyon Opera Orchestra under Theodor Guschlbauer stays out of Dessay's way, which is exactly the right place for it. The booklet notes, in English, French, and German (the French and German notes are different from the English but identical to each other), are abbreviated from the earlier release; there is no biographical information, but the basic background on the music is helpful. No texts are given, but when you hear Dessay hit the stratosphere, you won't care. --by James Manheim. allmusic

Cantatas and Opera Arias by Handel and Hasse

This disc is a magnificent showcase for the talents of Vivica Genaux. By combining the arias of Hasse and Handel she shows us that whilst Hasse’s virtuoso requirements hold no fears for her, she is also comfortable with Handel’s more sophisticated musical demands. Genaux is well supported by Les Violons du Roy under Bernard Labadie. The group provides a crisp, attractively bouncy accompaniment.

Classical CD of the Week

"Sensationally successful in the mid-18th century, Johann Hasse (1699-1783) was already deemed an anachronism by the end of his long life, and quickly fell into oblivion after his death. His operas, stylistically on the cusp of the baroque and the galant, trade heavily in virtuosity - the kind of extravagant display that Gluck sought to banish in Orfeo. Only singers with perfect coloratura techniques need apply.

Enter the ochre-toned Alaskan mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux, who makes an eloquent case for Hasse in arias by turns showy and soulful. She is wonderfully assured and elegant in florid passagework - what the 18th century called "long divisions" - and spins a pure, graceful line in the dulcet musette aria from the cantata La scusa.

With reams of Hasse still unexplored, it is perhaps a pity that Genaux chose to devote half the disc to assorted Handel items. The potentially searing mad scene from Orlando sounds too equable, the one relative disappointment on the disc. In compensation, Genaux delivers the thrilling aria "Sta nell'Ircana" from Alcina with flamboyant bravado, egged on by the swaggering horns of the crack Canadian band. --Richard Wigmore, Telegraph.co.uk, December 30, 2006

Nouveau Monde · Baroque Arias And Songs

Admired for her remarkable creative imagination and exemplary musicianship, soprano Patricia Petibon, in her newest album for Deutsche Grammophon, offers a treasure-trove of fascinating Baroque curiosities guaranteed to enthral both the Baroque aficionado and the casual listener. Nouveau Monde is conceived as a journey from the Old to the New World, a spell-binding collection of arias, songs and pieces from European composers (Charpentier, Händel, Rameau, Purcell) that testify to their composers’ fascination with the exoticism of recently-discovered lands, as well as South American folksongs which boast exceptional rhythmic energy and colour

Spectacularly accompanied by the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra under the excelling direction of Andrea Marcon – who also stands out as a Baroque organist and harpsichordist - Patricia enchants our senses with a mélange of 17th-century arias and folk songs from England, France, Spain, and Latin America

As a follow-up to her best-selling Rosso and Melancolía albums, Patricia Petibon’s 2012 release is guaranteed to be one of the most popular and sought-after Baroque releases of the year

Romantique

Elīna Garanča Sings Songs of Love and Despair
an Album for Her Fans

“If we needed more evidence that the Latvian mezzo is shaping up to be one of the 21st century’s greatest voices, this superb album of 19th-century arias supplies it in buckets. From top to bottom her timbre is rich and firm and her intonation virtually infallible...Pure vocal bliss.” --The Times, 6th October 2012 *****

Elīna Garanča (mezzo) · Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Yves Abel

In Romantique, Elīna Garanča makes a smashing return to the studio and puts her imprint upon the big Romantic repertory, brilliantly portraying such different heroines as Tchaikovsky’s Joan of Arc (The Maid of Orléans), Gounod’s Sapho and Saint-Saëns’ Dalila

Elīna Garanča’s mezzo-soprano is velvet; she is a stunning figure on stage; her formidable technique encompasses repertoire from Mozart and bel canto to dramatic roles and contemporary music

Conductor Yves Abel’s penchant for the voice and skill at leading an orchestra draws beautiful sound and potent drama from the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Elīna Garanča’s rapport with this orchestra is deeper than ever.

Handel: Selections from Oratorios

“…singing in English…seems to release a vein of poignant colouration in her beautifully clean, wide-ranging voice. The choices from L'Allegro-the ravishing 'Sweet Bird' and, with the excellent Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu, the 'As seals the morn' duet - demonstrate this specially well, but the singer's emotional commitment to her programme leaves a strong and at times powerfully positive impression.” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2009

“Theodora's "As darkness deep" is beautifully done, with the line "Your thickest veil around me throw" invested with rare sublimity.” --Gramophone Magazine, November 2009

“a disc that ranks among the most beautiful things you're likely to hear all year...Whether letting fly at some of Handel's most vertiginous coloratura or spinning out long threads of exquisite, silvery sound, her singing is sensational, – never more so than in the closing track...It is one of the greatest passages in all music, and this is the most remarkable performance of it that I know.” --The Guardian, 9th October 2009 *****

“a Handel recital of rare brilliance...[Piau] is accompanied by the delightfully feisty Accademia Bizantina who enjoy tracks of their own, including the most ferocious "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" you're ever likely to hear.” --The Observer, 20th September 2009

Alessandro Scarlatti: Opera Arias

“Scarlatti's concise yet detailed arias make an impressive impact...Serious Baroque opera lovers should devour this greedily.” --Gramophone Magazine, April 2012

“This disc gives new life to any attempt to see Alessandro Scarlatti for the monumental figure he was in Baroque opera, and opera lovers will come away wishing that di Lisa and his crew would record complete works by the composer. Hopefully, he will do so in what is surely a good future ahead for the Concerto de’ Cavalieri.” --FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

Opera Arias

 “Diana Damrau is ice and fire. With a formidable technique allied to effortless artistry, there is it seems nothing that she cannot do, certainly in the vocal fireworks department. …it's her Gilda where everything melds into perfection. The lightly coloured tone in the introductory phrases to 'Caro nome' proclaim her innocence; the vocal slide into the flute solo that introduces the aria sings of her love for the Duke; and by the time you arrive at the tender trill on the aria's penultimate phrase and the final effortlessly sustained note you're just about in love yourself.” --BBC Music Magazine, February 2010 *****

 

 

“Diana Damrau is the most thrilling high soprano of our day.” --The Observer

“The point with Damrau ... is that she’s fearless, impressively unpredictable, and about as far as possible from being a ‘production line’ soprano.” --Classic FM magazine

Lamento

Magdalena Kozená ofrece una interpretación transparente de las partituras, respetuosa con los diferentes estilos y sometida a las inflexiones del texto, mostrando una voz flexible y de cuidada línea. La cantante se adapta al carácter de cada fragmento, recreando las partituras con solvente naturalidad ... El acompañamiento instrumental del conjunto dirigido por Reinhard Goebel -con instrumentos originales- profundiza en la notable carga expresiva de las piezas, ofreciendo un bello y empastado juego de timbres. --Ópera actual (Barcelona), 01 May 2005

“Kozena gets Lamento's ecstatic, sin-drenched grief into the very texture of her voice” BBC Music Magazine, March 2005

“Kozená's declamatory performance is thrilling . . .” --Gramophone, 01 June 2005

. . . overall the excellent singing of Kozená tips the balance in favor of the disc. The Conti follow the familiar format of alternating recitative and arias, the whole completed with a briliant Alleluia . . . The performance gets off to a fine start, with Kozená's rapt singing of the opening accompanied recitative immediately drawing in the listener. But the first aria finds Goebel up to his old tricks, with chords sliced through with a brusqueness that serves to undermine any Italiante lyricism the singer tries to instill. Bach would doubtless have admired not only the restraint with which Conti handles the rapturous text of the second aria, but also its lovely obligato violin solo, most winningly played by Stephan Schardt. Kozaná's singing of it is gorgeous . . . the highlight of the disc is the wonderful performance of the scena by Bach's second youngest son, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach . . . The music is through composed and surges with a vivid, passionate intensity that at times brings reminders of Gluck. Kozená responds to the music with glorious freedom and an ardent urgency that culminates in a sensual, barely whispered climax. Goebel is on his best behavior here, too, and the disc is worth hearing for this remarkable word, and its equally remarkable performance. --Fanfare, 01 January 2006

Divos & Divas

The greatest opera stars in the world - together in one 2-CD set.

A unique collection of all the great genuine opera stars appearing on the world's stages today.

A galaxy of great names performing opera's best-loved arias and classic melodies. A fabulous showcase of today's top vocal talent.

CD 1 ("The Divos") features celebrated performances from Roberto Alagna, Juan Diego Flórez, Jonas Kaufmann, Plácido Domingo, Bryn Terfel, José Carreras, Josef Calleja and Erwin Schrott

CD 2 ("The Divas") features outstanding recordings by Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Angela Gheorghiu, Montserrat Caballé, Nicole Cabell, Olga Borodina, and Kiri te Kanawa

Arias by Cimarosa, Haydn, Mozart and Salieri

BBC Music Magazine: Opera Choice - January 2012

“Reiss is a properly pert Despina (Cosi) and an affecting Susanna...Her attention to detail in the recitative is scrupulous...Reiss's diamond bright coloratura is a mighty weapon...All told, this is a beguiling combination of top-drawer musicianship and fresh ideas about opera in Enlightenment Vienna.” --BBC Music Magazine, January 2012 *****

“What a stimulating assemblage of arias, and in intelligent, standard-setting performances...Unexpected insights arrives at every turn...Reiss makes [Salieri and Cimarosa] feel like worthy companions, always looking to find their specific character and never falling into soubrette cuteness...My favourite moment is how wonderstruck her Susanna sounds while absorbing the beauties of the night in the Act 4 Figaro aria.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2011

“Reiss has an agile, bell-bright, fluty timbre that's well suited to the soubrette and coloratura repertoire here. She's best in the showy numbers - the glittering roulades of the Mozart concert aria 'Ah se in ciel' and Salieri's 'Tremo bell'idol mio' are bright and fresh. She also displays a lovely line in the short, sweet 'Quando la rosa'” Classic FM Magazine, December 2011 ***

MP3 320 · 122 MB

Romantic Arias

“Machaidze tears into roles with an energy that leaves the listener breathless. She produces a top note that would kill at half a mile to silence the chorus in the closing pages of 'Ah! Non giunge' from La Sonnambula. While Machaidze's tone occasionally may be uneven...you have to admire her finely honed technique. This is a voice that has been scrupulously prepared and the hard work shows” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ***

“her nuanced phrasing is a wonder to behold...this album clearly underlines her star qualities and points towards majestic things to come.” Classic FM Magazine, October 2011 ****

“Hers is one of the bigger voices on the bel canto circuit. Her theatrical intelligence is also promising: though her language articulation isn't great, she vividly projects the emotional content. Most obviously, the middle section of "Ah! Je veux vivre" from Romeo et Juliette takes on unusual gravity, revealing a character who defies family and mortality for love.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2011

“Machaidze begins with Manon's farewell to her table, to which she brings sensitivity...[in Salut a France] Machaidze expands her tone in exultation, tossing off the roulades with vocal bravura and crowning the cabaletta with a secure and ringing final note. This is one of the best tracks in the programme, as is 'O luce di quest' anima'” International Record Review, October 2011

MP3 320 · 160 MB