WAGNER Opera arias

"Evgeny Nikitin delivered such soaring, charismatic, legati at this point that you might almost have believed his promise to renounce evil. He is precisely what the role and the opera needs: physically, vocally, a complete star." Edward Seckerson, The Independent

Under the direction of Christian Arming celebrated bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin interprets some of his favourite Wagnerian roles. These selected pieces highlight the extent of the vocal possibilities that this Russian singer, a pillar of the Mariinsky Theatre, has delivered since his debut as a student, under Valery Gergiev, and that regularly triumph at the Met, the Paris Opera and in Munich.
Release date: 16th Oct 2015

Nikitin hails from Murmansk, in the very north of Russia. His first love was to compose, sing and play drums and guitar in heavy metal bands, but his vocal gift has taken him in a very different direction. He was accepted at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1992 and was soon combining his studies with his first solo engagements at the famed Mariinsky Theatre under Valery Gergiev’s direction.

It wasn’t long before he was invited to major theatres and festivals through Europe, the Americas and Asia. 2002 marked his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 'War and Peace'. Return invitations to New York include Colline, Pogner, Fasolt, Orest, Wanderer, Rangoni [Boris Godunov] and Klingsor. Recent engagements include 'Der fliegende Holländer' and Filipo, 'Don Carlo' in Baden Baden, 'Der Fliegende Holländer' in Toronto, Paris, Leipzig, Munich and Tokyo; Amfortas in Berlin and Valencia, Don Pizzaro in Valencia, Jochannen in Zurich, Telramund Amsterdam, Scarpia in Chicago and Boris Godunov in an acclaimed production at the Mariinsky.

He sings regularly at the Mariinsky theatre and at the ‘Stars of the White Nights Festival’ performing his favourite roles, Boris, Philip II, Holländer, Amfortas, Wotan /Das Rheingold, Wanderer, Don Giovanni… Upcoming highlights include his Vienna Staatsoper debut in 'Fidelio' and his debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam.

Wagner:
Der fliegende Holländer: Overture
Die Frist ist um (from Der fliegende Holländer)
Lohengrin: Prelude to Act 3
Erhebe dich, Genossin meiner Schmach! (from Lohengrin)
Michaela Schuster (mezzo-soprano, Ortrud)
Wie Todesahnung...O du, mein holder Abendstern (from Tannhäuser)
Götterdämmerung: Siegfried's Funeral March
Leb wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind! (from Die Walküre)

CAVALLI Heroines of the Venetian Baroque

“Flores's softer languid singing aptly conveys a nymph's erotic longing for the return of her lover Jupiter…[Isifile's lament] is sequenced next to a vividly dramatic account of her rival Medea's incantation scene - the latter sung ardently by mezzo-soprano Anna Reinhold” --Gramophone Magazine, November 2015

The opening of Venice’s first opera house, the Teatro di San Cassiano, in 1637, was one of the major events in the history of opera. The protagonists of these new operas henceforth represented all the social categories making up this public and who, in fact, had to be able to find themselves onstage.

The gods were no longer the only ones to lay down the law, challenged by the Vices and Virtues who preached in the Prologues. The new heroes are kings, emperors, dictators, courtesans, as well as nurses, valets, soldiers, philosopher, and, above all, lovers. Whoever they might be, we find them sympathetic or antipathetic; all are glorified, all are ridiculed.

With his 27 existing operas, Francesco Cavalli gives us a fascinating version of this theatre of life. A single main thread runs through the excerpts drawn from each of them by Leonardo García Alarcón: the expression of human passions. They are all there, from ingenuousness to ecstasy, joy to anger, passionate love (and its erotic, sensual expression) to despair. This fascinating programme represents a new contribution to the knowledge of Cavalli’s operas and allows for unveiling part of the mystery still surrounding his works.

La PRIMADONNA

Opera Arias and Songs arranged for Oboe

Although the oboe repertoire is comparatively rich, Clara Dent wanted to record another musical programme, one that is customized for her. Fascinated by the direct expression of the singing voice in opera arias, she asked Andreas N. Tarkmann to arrange a whole program with edited arias for her. He set up pieces so suitable for oboe that it sounds as if they were composed for this instrument in the first place. One can listen to the very successful result on this new Coviello recording.
Release date: 9th Oct 2015

BaroqueDIVAS

The history of opera is inseparably linked with the biographies of singers; audiences have always been fascinated by both musical prowess and behind the scenes goings-on.

The battle for prestige and fame was heated and passionate in the Baroque era, with legendary rivalries. Fiercely competitive, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni were among the most acclaimed divas of the age, resorting to fisticuffs on stage.
 

Music by Bononcini, Caldara, Hasse, Porta, Sarro, Veracini, Vinci and Vivaldi 

Release date: 6th Nov 2015

HANDEL Operatic works

The emphasis for this album is very much on youth and prodigious talent: at 25, Julia Lezhneva is ideally suited to the soprano arias of the young Handel, who arrived in Italy from Germany as a 21 year old at the beginning of the 18th century.

She has the perfect partners in Il Giardino Armonico and Giovanni Antonini whose recordings of music from the Italian baroque are celebrated for their “fizzing virtuosity” and “exquisite cushion of sound” (The Independent). For some tracks the orchestra is led by Dmitry Sinkovsky, the extraordinary Russian violinist and one of today’s most versatile Baroque musicians.

Release date: 6th Nov 2015

The music encompasses the best of Handel’s operatic and religious works from his years in Florence and Rome: the operas Rodrigo and Agrippina and the oratorios Il Trionfo and La Resurrezione as well as the complete Salve Regina and soprano solo from Dixit Dominus. Best known is the radiant “Lascia la spina” from Il Trionfo and its later incarnation as “Lascia ch'io pianga” from the opera Rinald.o

The recording was made in the famously musical and historic Italian city of Cremona in the beautiful auditorium of the Museo del Violino.

CALDARA in Vienna

The castrato voice, with its preternatural mix of masculine power and feminine range, inspired such memorable operatic heroes as Handel’s Orlando and Julius Caesar, Gluck’s Orfeo, and Idamante in Mozart’s first version of Idomeneo. Less well-known, but no less thrilling, are the castrato arias by Handel’s younger contemporary Antonio Caldara, many of which are here enjoying their first outing since the 18th century.

Devised and researched by Philippe Jaroussky (proving he is not just a pretty voice), this exhilarating programme is a roller-coaster of hair-raising virtuosity and heart-stopping intensity. Jaroussky’s accounts are technically flawless, emotively involved. He brings pathos to ‘Misero pargoletto’ (Demofoonte), yearning sensuality to ‘Vado, o sposa’ (Enone), passion and drama to La clemenza di Tito.

And his indefinably androgynous sound surely suggests something of the ethereal quality that made the castrato voice so alluring. But not all the credit should go to the Frenchman: the players of Concerto Köln blaze, seethe, simmer and sigh in response to the spirited direction of Jaroussky’s compatriot Emmanuelle Haïm.

My only caveat is that Jaroussky has a somewhat lean palette of vocal colours, and while the close-recorded perspective adds microscopic detail, it makes the voice sound dry, lacking in resonance. But this is a small price to pay for an otherwise top-notch disc. Kate Bolton --BBC Music Magazine, January 2012 - Performance****/Sound****