Concerts,
The Metropolitan Opera's At Home Gala
I must admit that I was in two minds about logging on for the Metropolitan Opera’s ‘At Home’ gala on Saturday night - my reluctance stemming partly from a surfeit of socially-distanced music-making over the past weeks, and partly from a niggling sense that watching some of today’s greatest singers performing in isolation would only serve to remind me how much I’m missing live music and theatre at the moment. In the event, though, I was riveted for the full four hours – and judging from some of the enquiries in my inbox this morning, so were many of our customers across the world. With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of related releases which includes exact matches where possible, plus a few more left-field options from some of the stand-out performers who haven’t recorded the repertoire which they sang on Saturday. (With forty-odd singers featuring in the line-up, the selection here is by no means exhaustive, so do get in touch if you're looking for something which doesn't appear!)
Peter Mattei - 'Deh, vieni alla finestra' from Mozart's Don Giovanni
Peter Mattei (Don Giovanni), Gilles Cachemaille (Leporello), Carmela Remigio (Donna Anna), Véronique Gens (Donna Elvira), Mark Padmore (Don Ottavio), Lisa Larsson (Zerlina)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Harding
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak - 'Caro elisir! Sei mio!' from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore
Aleksandra Kurzak (soprano) with Francesco Demuro (tenor), Orchestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Omer Meir Wellber
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Roberto Alagna (Nemorino), Angela Gheorghiu (Adina), Simone Alaimo (Dulcamara), Roberto Scaltriti (Belcore), Elena Dan (Giannetta)
L'Opéra National de Lyon, Evelino Pidò
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Renée Fleming - 'Ave Maria' from Verdi's Otello
Renée Fleming (soprano), London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Plácido Domingo (Otello), Renée Fleming (Desdemona), James Morris (Iago), Richard Croft (Cassio), Charles Anthony (Rodrigo)
Metropolitan Opera, James Levine, Elijah Moshinsky
Available Format: DVD Video
Joyce DiDonato - 'Ombra mai fu' from Handel's Serse
Joyce DiDonato (mezzo), with Patrizia Ciofi (soprano), Frederica von Stade (mezzo)
Il Complesso Barocco, Les Talens Lyriques, Le Concert d'Astrée, Alan Curtis, Christophe Rousset, Emmanuelle Haïm and others
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Jonas Kaufmann - 'Rachel, quand du Seigneur' from Halévy's La Juive
Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Sonya Yoncheva (soprano), Ludovic Tézier (baritone)
Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Bertrand de Billy
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Anita Rachvelishvili - 'Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix' from Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila
Anita Rachvelishvili (mezzo), Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Giacomo Sagripanti
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
René Pape - 'In diesen heil'gen Hallen' from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte
René Pape (Sarastro), Erika Miklósa (Königin der Nacht), Dorothea Röschmann (Pamina), Christoph Strehl (Tamino), Hanno Müller-Brachmann (Papageno), Julia Kleiter (Papagena), Georg Zeppenfeld (Sprecher)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Arnold Schoenberg Choir, Claudio Abbado
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Michael Volle - 'O du, mein holder Abendstern' from Wagner's Tannhäuser
Michael Volle (baritone), Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Ralf Weikert
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Sir Bryn Terfel - Androzzo's 'If I Can Help Somebody'
Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone), London Symphony Orchestra, Barry Wordsworth
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Elīna Garanča - Habanera from Bizet's Carmen
Elīna Garanča (mezzo), Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Karel Mark Chichon
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Elīna Garanča (Carmen), Roberto Alagna (Don José), Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Escamillo), Barbara Frittoli (Micaela)
Metropolitan Opera, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Available Format: 2 DVD Videos
Anthony Roth Costanzo - 'Pena tiranna' from Handel's Amadigi di Gaula
Anthony Roth Costanzo (countertenor), Les Violons du Roy, Jonathan Cohen
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Joseph Calleja - 'Ah! lève-toi, soleil!' from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette
Joseph Calleja (tenor), Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Carlo Rizzi
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Piotr Beczała - 'Recondita armonia' from Puccini's Tosca
Piotr Beczala (tenor), Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Marco Boemi
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Lawrence Brownlee - 'A te o cara' from Bellini's I Puritani
Lawrence Brownlee (tenor), Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, Constantine Orbelian
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Anna Netrebko - Rachmaninov's 'Ne poy, krasavitsa, pri mne'
Anna Netrebko (soprano), Orchestra & Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre, Valery Gergiev
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Jamie Barton
Eboli’s self-lacerating ‘O don fatale’ from Verdi's Don Carlo may not be an aria one normally associates with joie de vivre, but the powerhouse dramatic mezzo was so evidently thrilled to be singing for an audience again that her rafter-rattling performance from her living-room in Atlanta ended up being one of the most exuberant and uplifting of the evening.
Barton’s recorded surprisingly little opera to date, but her debut solo album All Who Wander (featuring song-cycles by Mahler, Dvořák and Sibelius, and released on Delos in 2016) gives a vivid picture of a magnificent voice coming into its prime – the recording won a BBC Music Magazine Award the following year and prompted American Record Guide to describe her as ‘the equal of any dramatic mezzo before the public’. Later this year Pentatone will release her album of songs by her close friend and regular collaborator Jake Heggie: a teaser is available to download here, and we’ll be sharing an interview with the pair nearer the time.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Javier Camarena
Thanking his neighbours in advance for their tolerance (he was broadcasting from Zurich, where local time was 11pm!), the endearing Mexican tenor pulled out all the stops for a bravura aria from Bellini’s Il Pirata, gently but firmly informing Peter Gelb that he wasn’t done yet when the host attempted to cut him off before the cabaletta – a good thing too, as the ensuing volley of bullseye top notes provided ample evidence of exactly why Camarena was granted a rare encore at The Met in Donizetti’s La fille de Régiment last year.
Erin Morley
Speaking of Donizetti’s military comedy, the coloratura soprano Erin Morley dazzled earlier in the evening when she accompanied herself at the piano with aplomb in Marie’s perky Chacun le sait - her comic timing, multi-tasking ability and climactic sustained top F leaving the great German baritone Michael Volle temporarily lost for words when he tuned in to perform Wagner’s considerably soberer 'Hymn to the Evening Star' immediately afterwards!
Günther Groissböck
Another singer who supplied his own accompaniment with panache was the Baron Ochs on that Rosenkavalier, Gunther Groissböck, who didn’t miss a beat (or a swig of beer) when the cameras cut to him earlier than expected due to technical malfunctions elsewhere. The Austrian bass is already an old hand at lockdown videos, having posted some real treasures on his Twitter account over the past few weeks, and here he gave a touching account of Herr Morosus’s closing monologue from Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau - in which the old man reflects that whilst music is a wonderful thing, it’s nice to have the occasional break from it!
Groissböck hasn’t recorded Die schweigsame Frau (few people have!), but his performance prompted me to investigate this song recital from 2017, featuring Mahler’s Ruckert-Lieder, Wagner’s Wesendonk-Lieder, Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge and Wolf’s Michelangelo songs.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Lisette Oropesa
One of the most technically brilliant (in both senses!) performances of the evening came from American soprano Lisette Oropesa, who gave a breathtaking account of ‘En vain espère’ from Meyerbeer’s Le prophète from her home in Baton Rouge, with her accompanist projected onto a video-screen in the background. You can watch her show-stealing turn in full here here.
Nadine Sierra
A recipient of both the Beverly Sills and Richard Tucker Awards, this young American soprano's roles at The Met have included Ilia, Susanna, Zerlina, and Gilda; on Saturday, however, she went up a vocal size or two for a lovely, liquid account of Puccini’s ‘Mi chiamano Mimì’, which put a friend of mine in mind of the late, great Mirella Freni.
Taking its title from Bernstein’s 'Somewhere' (which, incidentally, was quite beautifully sung at the gala by an unaccompanied Isabel Leonard), Sierra’s debut album on Deutsche Grammophon also features music by Villa-Lobos, Golijov and Stravinsky, and won the Vocal Newcomer category at last year’s Opus Klassik Awards.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
