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Product Description
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Joyce DiDonato celebrates the rich dramatic variety of the mezzo-soprano voice in this collection of arias for different characters – of both sexes – from a single opera, or from different operatic treatments of the same story.
Joyce DiDonato’s capacity for characterisation is as astounding as the range and flexibility of her voice. As her Virgin Classics recitals of Handel and Rossini have proven, she can charm and touch as a good girl, seduce and seethe as a bad girl, and slip believably into the trousers of a hero. As Opera News said of the Rossini disc, ‘Colbran, The Muse’: “With her sure sense of line and colour, DiDonato takes possession of the repertory, mining every musical and vocal gesture to inhabit each character confidently … Her theatrical sense is magnificent. Musically and dramatically, the disc is perfection.”
This new collection showcases DiDonato’s multi-faceted art – and the wealth of opportunities open to a mezzo-soprano – by presenting her as different characters, both male and female, from the same opera or from different musical treatments of the same story.
As DiDonato explains: “This recital celebrates the vast and fabulous world of the mezzo-soprano. Aside from the obvious Toscas or Cio-Cio Sans, I've never regretted the length of my vocal cords!
I have the privilege and unmitigated joy of playing boys and young men, as well as girls and grown women … It’s an exploration of the human palette of emotions.
“I wanted to find a way to show this duality on disc, while highlighting some of the composers I'm most passionate about, such as Mozart, Bellini, Berlioz, Rossini, and Massenet. In exploring this idea, the possibility became clear for telling different sides of some of the most familiar tales which have served as inspiration for operatic legends: Cinderella, Faust, Romeo and Juliet … I've always thought of myself as a storyteller, and with this particular disc, I can showcase that side of me as never before. I'm ready to play!”
The programme features several roles that DiDonato has sung on stage – such as Rossini’s Cenerentola (it was the character’s gentle, then exuberant ‘Nacqui all’affanno’ that launched her international career at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition, and subsequently at La Scala), Bellini’s Romeo and Mozart’s Cherubino. The ‘flip sides’ of those characters are roles that have not featured in her repertoire: the Prince from Massenet’s Cendrillon (a lavish treatment of the Cinderella story more likely to bring DiDonato in the title role – as at Santa Fe in 2006 and, in 2011, at Covent Garden); the Nurse from Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, and both Chérubin (from Massenet’s ‘sequel’ to Le nozze di Figaro) and Susanna. The Figaro connection continues with an excerpt from Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rosina, of course, later becomes Countess Almaviva), while other operas on the programme, from the Renaissance to late Romanticism, include La clemenza di Tito (Sesto and Vitellia), Faust, La Damnation de Faust, Mefistofele, Orphée et Eurydice, Orfeo and Orphée aux Enfers.
Accompanying Joyce DiDonato in this tour de force is the Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Lyon under the company’s Principal Conductor Kazushi Ono, another artist who successfully embraces an extraordinary diversity of musical idioms.
As John von Rhein wrote in Gramophone: “In complete control vocally, Joyce DiDonato is … consumed by the character. She embodies whomever she’s playing and whatever emotional situation she is evoking.”
Joyce DiDonato’s capacity for characterisation is as astounding as the range and flexibility of her voice. As her Virgin Classics recitals of Handel and Rossini have proven, she can charm and touch as a good girl, seduce and seethe as a bad girl, and slip believably into the trousers of a hero. As Opera News said of the Rossini disc, ‘Colbran, The Muse’: “With her sure sense of line and colour, DiDonato takes possession of the repertory, mining every musical and vocal gesture to inhabit each character confidently … Her theatrical sense is magnificent. Musically and dramatically, the disc is perfection.”
This new collection showcases DiDonato’s multi-faceted art – and the wealth of opportunities open to a mezzo-soprano – by presenting her as different characters, both male and female, from the same opera or from different musical treatments of the same story.
As DiDonato explains: “This recital celebrates the vast and fabulous world of the mezzo-soprano. Aside from the obvious Toscas or Cio-Cio Sans, I've never regretted the length of my vocal cords!
I have the privilege and unmitigated joy of playing boys and young men, as well as girls and grown women … It’s an exploration of the human palette of emotions.
“I wanted to find a way to show this duality on disc, while highlighting some of the composers I'm most passionate about, such as Mozart, Bellini, Berlioz, Rossini, and Massenet. In exploring this idea, the possibility became clear for telling different sides of some of the most familiar tales which have served as inspiration for operatic legends: Cinderella, Faust, Romeo and Juliet … I've always thought of myself as a storyteller, and with this particular disc, I can showcase that side of me as never before. I'm ready to play!”
The programme features several roles that DiDonato has sung on stage – such as Rossini’s Cenerentola (it was the character’s gentle, then exuberant ‘Nacqui all’affanno’ that launched her international career at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition, and subsequently at La Scala), Bellini’s Romeo and Mozart’s Cherubino. The ‘flip sides’ of those characters are roles that have not featured in her repertoire: the Prince from Massenet’s Cendrillon (a lavish treatment of the Cinderella story more likely to bring DiDonato in the title role – as at Santa Fe in 2006 and, in 2011, at Covent Garden); the Nurse from Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, and both Chérubin (from Massenet’s ‘sequel’ to Le nozze di Figaro) and Susanna. The Figaro connection continues with an excerpt from Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rosina, of course, later becomes Countess Almaviva), while other operas on the programme, from the Renaissance to late Romanticism, include La clemenza di Tito (Sesto and Vitellia), Faust, La Damnation de Faust, Mefistofele, Orphée et Eurydice, Orfeo and Orphée aux Enfers.
Accompanying Joyce DiDonato in this tour de force is the Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Lyon under the company’s Principal Conductor Kazushi Ono, another artist who successfully embraces an extraordinary diversity of musical idioms.
As John von Rhein wrote in Gramophone: “In complete control vocally, Joyce DiDonato is … consumed by the character. She embodies whomever she’s playing and whatever emotional situation she is evoking.”
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Is this woman the greatest singer in the world?
On the evidence of this stupendous disc, one could be forgiven for thinking so.
In recent years we have been lucky to have in our midst several marvellous mezzos. I think immediately of the late, universally lamented Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, as well as, for example, the feisty Susan Graham and the cool, aristocratic Bernarda Fink - but surely few sing with the sheer panache, the almost dangerous, devil-may-care quality of Joyce DiDonato.
There is a gutsy ripeness a mezzo can summon up which isn`t so easily available to a soprano. Here is a mezzo whose range is remarkable (hear her low notes!) and whose accuracy of pitch, beauty of tone and luminous legato are always in the service of emotional truth and a bounteous musicality.
The Amazon description above tells you all you need to know about the premise of this enterprising and wholly successful venture, so I won`t rehearse it here. But what a novel, yet so simple, idea, with a not-too predictable choice of arias from a stylistically eclectic range of operas, including, I`m glad to say, some wonderfully sung Berlioz.
They are sung with what I can only call an extreme joie de vivre, a vibrant joyousness which communicates directly, viscerally to the listener with the force of blazing sunlight. Some singers sing. This singer sings to me. What she must be like to hear live I can only imagine, and tremble at the thought.
I`ve heard Ms DiDonato interviewed, but even had I not I would know this is a woman of wit, humour, passion, intense humanity, and not a little sauce.
The excellent crime writer Donna Leon, each of whose novels contains an epigraph taken from a Mozart opera, has dedicated one of her books to her. Now, that`s praise.
If you love great singing, or if you just love opera, you will have to hear this splendid release. Towards the end I began to wonder if I could take much more, so glorious, so utterly sublime is the voice bursting through the speakers. In truth, I could have gone on listening for hours.
Essential, in every way.
On the evidence of this stupendous disc, one could be forgiven for thinking so.
In recent years we have been lucky to have in our midst several marvellous mezzos. I think immediately of the late, universally lamented Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, as well as, for example, the feisty Susan Graham and the cool, aristocratic Bernarda Fink - but surely few sing with the sheer panache, the almost dangerous, devil-may-care quality of Joyce DiDonato.
There is a gutsy ripeness a mezzo can summon up which isn`t so easily available to a soprano. Here is a mezzo whose range is remarkable (hear her low notes!) and whose accuracy of pitch, beauty of tone and luminous legato are always in the service of emotional truth and a bounteous musicality.
The Amazon description above tells you all you need to know about the premise of this enterprising and wholly successful venture, so I won`t rehearse it here. But what a novel, yet so simple, idea, with a not-too predictable choice of arias from a stylistically eclectic range of operas, including, I`m glad to say, some wonderfully sung Berlioz.
They are sung with what I can only call an extreme joie de vivre, a vibrant joyousness which communicates directly, viscerally to the listener with the force of blazing sunlight. Some singers sing. This singer sings to me. What she must be like to hear live I can only imagine, and tremble at the thought.
I`ve heard Ms DiDonato interviewed, but even had I not I would know this is a woman of wit, humour, passion, intense humanity, and not a little sauce.
The excellent crime writer Donna Leon, each of whose novels contains an epigraph taken from a Mozart opera, has dedicated one of her books to her. Now, that`s praise.
If you love great singing, or if you just love opera, you will have to hear this splendid release. Towards the end I began to wonder if I could take much more, so glorious, so utterly sublime is the voice bursting through the speakers. In truth, I could have gone on listening for hours.
Essential, in every way.
Format:Audio CD
If you have not heard Joyce DiDonato sing and are found of opera and the mezzosoprano voce, you should remedy that deficiency immediately, quite simply she is wonderful. This recording of some well known but mostly lesser known arias is high quality and enchanting.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Another reviewer asks if she has the best voice in the World? While she has a lovely voice she is not in the same league as El'ina Garanca who is the finest mezzo-soprano singing today.
My problem with this album isn't her voice but the track selection. The producers have provided us with 16 tracks of what they think we, the great unwashed, should listen to and not what we want to listen to. By track 16 I was hoping my HiFi would explode as it was just track after track of the type of music the professional critic or high brow music buff would get excited about but not what the ordinary listener would want to hear. Track 7 - Voi che sapete from Figaro gives us a glimpse of how well she can deliver popular content.
I only have myself to blame for buying this as I didn't look at the track selection, only buying it on the strength of the reviews and that it had won the classical Grammy. If like me, you like popular mainstream opera then you may not find this as exciting an album as the critics did.
My problem with this album isn't her voice but the track selection. The producers have provided us with 16 tracks of what they think we, the great unwashed, should listen to and not what we want to listen to. By track 16 I was hoping my HiFi would explode as it was just track after track of the type of music the professional critic or high brow music buff would get excited about but not what the ordinary listener would want to hear. Track 7 - Voi che sapete from Figaro gives us a glimpse of how well she can deliver popular content.
I only have myself to blame for buying this as I didn't look at the track selection, only buying it on the strength of the reviews and that it had won the classical Grammy. If like me, you like popular mainstream opera then you may not find this as exciting an album as the critics did.
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