Help
Skip to main content

US TARIFFS UPDATE | August 2025 | No impact expected on your Presto orders | Read full details

Écho

Joyce El-Khoury (soprano), Michael Spyres (tenor)

The Hallé, Carlo Rizzi

Écho

Awards:

El-Khoury is never less than stylish with precisely the vocal agility that this repertoire requires. So there’s nimble and accurate coloratura and a full complement of brightly burnished top...

Écho

Joyce El-Khoury (soprano), Michael Spyres (tenor)

The Hallé, Carlo Rizzi

Purchase product

CD

$16.75

10+ available: usually despatched in 4 - 6 working days

Download

From$10.00

Download

Audio formats guide

44.1 kHz, 24 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

$15.00

44.1 kHz, 16 bit, FLAC/ALAC/WAV

$13.00

320 kbps, MP3

$10.00

This release includes a digital booklet

Stream now Hi-RES 44.1 kHz, 24 bit

Awards:

El-Khoury is never less than stylish with precisely the vocal agility that this repertoire requires. So there’s nimble and accurate coloratura and a full complement of brightly burnished top...

About

Born in the Lebanon and brought up in Canada, Joyce El-Khoury studied in Ottawa and Philadelphia, before graduating from the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development programme. Today she is one of the brightest young stars in the opera world, recently receiving universal acclaim for her landmark performance of Violetta in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. As well as singing extensively in America, she appears widely in opera and concert throughout Europe, including the Bayerishe Staatsoper. She returns to Covent Garden in 2018, but before then will star in Glyndebourne and Madrid, as well as singing extensively in concert.

Joyce has starred in two Opera Rara recordings to date: Donizetti's Belisario and the award-winning recording of Les Martyrs. Joyce's album Écho features music associated with the great 19th century soprano Julie Dorus-Gras, including arias by Berlioz, Donizetti, Meyerbeer and Weber. She also duets with her co-star from Les Martyrs, Michael Spyres, whose own recital disc is also released in September 2017, and is available from Opera Rara exclusively from 14th July 2017.

Contents and tracklist

Scena e Cavatina ‘Regnava nel silenzio’
Track length8:34
Cavatine ‘Robert, toi que j’aime’
Track length5:44
Scène et Air ‘Hélas! sans le revoir’
Track length8:07
Récitatif et Romance ‘Ils s’éloignent enfin'
Track length8:37
Romance ‘Va, dit-elle, va, mon enfant’
Track length6:45
Scena e Duetto Finale ‘Lucia, perdona...’
Track length13:32
This track is only available as an album download.
Entr’acte et Air ‘Jours de mon enfance’
Track length5:26
Couplets ‘Quand je quittai la Normandie’
Track length5:38
Air ‘Assez longtemps la crainte et la tristesse’
Track length9:00
Récitatif et Air ‘Les belles fleurs’
Track length7:41

Spotlight on this release

Awards and reviews

  • The Times Records of the Year
    2017
  • International Opera Awards
    2018
    Nominated - Solo Recital
  • Opera
    October 2017
    Recording of the Month
  • Gramophone Awards
    2018
    Shortlisted - Recital

November 2017

El-Khoury is never less than stylish with precisely the vocal agility that this repertoire requires. So there’s nimble and accurate coloratura and a full complement of brightly burnished top notes…the vocal fireworks at the top of the voice are supported by a velvety middle range….She is splendidly supported by The Hallé on their very best behaviour for Carlo Rizzi.

October 2017

She is particularly suited to the gentle Alice, whose ‘Va, dit-elle’ anticipates Micaëla’s ‘Et tu lui diras’ in Carmen by more than 40 years. Mathilde’s air from Guillaume Tell is just as simple and unaffected. El-Khoury catches Agathe’s tenderness in ‘Ma prière’ from Le Freyschutz and phrases ‘I miei sospiri’ in Lucia to perfection…Rizzi and the Hallé provide lively accompaniments, with some fine solos.

September 2017

Musical history aside, these discs deserve a place on the shelves due to the extremely high quality of singing...El-Khoury supplies firm, sensitively coloured tone and technical finish in everything she does...she is nigh-on technically immaculate as well as remarkably eloquent...Rizzi conducts with a blend of security and stylistic authority, while the Hallé plays wonderfully for him.

17th September 2017

El-Khoury is especially lovely in her limpid account of Lucia’s Fountain aria, the rare Berlioz transcription of Agathe’s aria from Weber’s Der Freischütz, and arias for both heroines, Alice and Isabelle, from Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable,

Opera Now October 2017

El- Khoury has a fascinating voice of myriad colours.
View download progress