Bellini: Norma

Live at the Metropolitan Opera, 2017

Sondra Radvanovsky (Norma), Joyce DiDonato (Adalgisa), Joseph Calleja (Pollione), Matthew Rose (Oroveso), Michelle Bradley (Clotilde), Adam Diegel (Flavio)

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Carlo Rizzi, Sir David McVicar

Radvanovsky is the international Norma of choice at the moment and she sings ‘big’, lacking perhaps the legato that Bellini’s long-limbed melodies demand,. But Joyce DiDonato, making her debut... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2019, 3 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Picture & Sound) More…

Release Date: 16th Nov 2018
Catalogue No: 9029562975
Label: Erato

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Bellini: Norma

Sondra Radvanovsky (Norma), Joyce DiDonato (Adalgisa), Joseph Calleja (Pollione), Matthew Rose (Oroveso), Michelle Bradley (Clotilde), Adam Diegel (Flavio)
Metropolitan Opera
Carlo Rizzi

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Production, Sir David McVicar

Set Designer, Robert Jones

Costume Designer, Moritz Junge

Lighting Designer, Paule Constable

Movement Director, Leah Hausman

To open the Met’s 2017–18 season, powerhouse soprano Sondra Radvanovsky tackled one of opera’s most fearsome roles, the title druid priestess of Bellini’s Norma, who wrestles with love and betrayal before making the ultimate sacrifice on a funeral pyre.

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato sang Norma’s friend and rival, Adalgisa, in Sir David McVicar’s evocative production.

Reviews

February 2019

Radvanovsky is the international Norma of choice at the moment and she sings ‘big’, lacking perhaps the legato that Bellini’s long-limbed melodies demand,. But Joyce DiDonato, making her debut as Adalgisa, knows exactly how to handle this music and indeed the great duet ‘Mira o Norma’ is thrilling and deeply moving…Rizzi is, as ever, the safest pair of hands in this repertoire.

January 2019

In Radvanovsky and DiDonato the Met production has two singers at the height of their formidable powers…Rizzi’s love for the score comes across in every bear; he conducts the Met orchestra superbly and they play gloriously for him. David McVicar deserves praise for bringing out such moving acting from Radvanovsky and DiDonato in particular but the production itself is less satisfying…Happily, though, none of this significantly detracts from some glorious central performances, conducting and playing.

April 2019

[Radvanovsky] here appears at the peak of her powers. She is not the most complete Norma on disc, but her singing is superbly poised from start to finish…DiDonato’s achievement is even more significant…[Rizzi’s] tempos are so well judged and rhythmically flexible, the orchestral sonorities so unfailingly appropriate, that he deserves much credit for the success of the performance. As does the director David McVicar, who enriches the spiritually inspired musical dramaturgy of Bellini and Romani with the deeper understanding we now have of druidic culture.

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Bellini: Norma

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