Vivica Genaux

Mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni was considered to be one of the greatest singers of the first half of the C18th, entrancing audiences in Italy and throughout Europe and commanding huge fees. All of the great Baroque composers wrote for her, including featured composers George Frideric Haendel (1685-1759) and Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783), to whom she was married and in whose opera productions she starred. The famous librettist Metastasio described them as a "truly an exquisite couple".

However, she was also involved in one of the biggest scandals in opera history by fighting onstage at the King’s Theatre with another leading singer of the day, Francesca Cuzzoni - infront of the Princess of Wales!

Virgin Classics present the world-premiere recording of L’Oracolo in Messenia, an opera prepared by Vivaldi for Vienna and now reconstructed by Fabio Biondi. Biondi leads this triumphant performance, which opened the 2011 Resonanzen festival in the Austrian capital with a high-powered cast including Ann Hallenberg, Vivica Genaux and rising soprano Julia Lezhneva.

Vivaldi revised L’Oracolo in Messenia for Vienna in 1740 after its premiere in 1738 in Venice and now Vivaldi expert Fabio Biondi has reconstructed the work from literary and musical sources – notably a libretto recently discovered at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. This musicological feat follows the example Biondi set with two other Vivaldi operas recorded for Virgin Classics, Bajazet and Ercole sul Termodonte.

Vivaldi hoped for performances of the work in Vienna during Carnival in1741, but in October 1740 the Austrian Emperor, Charles VI, died suddenly and Austria’s theatres were closed for a year of mourning; so Vivaldi’s plans came to nothing and he himself died in Vienna in 1741, alone and poor. L’ Oracolo in Messenia was finally staged in the city in 1742 at the city’s Kärntnertor Theatre, starring Anna Girò, Vivaldi’s favourite prima donna, as Queen Merope.

Appropriately enough, this recording was made in Vienna. It captures the opening performance of the 20th season of the prestigious Resonanzen festival of early music, which takes place at the city’s Konzerthaus. The impressive cast comprises soprano Julia Lezhneva, mezzo sopranos Ann Hallenberg (as Queen Merope), Vivica Genaux, Romina Basso and Franziska Gottwald, counter tenor Xavier Sabata and tenor Magnus Staveland. Fabio Biondi leads his own ensemble, Europa Galante, from the violin. The performance was greeted with a standing ovation and the media were lavish in their praise; indeed the Wiener Zeitung said that: “the festival could not have launched its 20th anniversary in more triumphant fashion”.

Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti: these three men alone sufficed to popularise the art of Italian opera during the first half of the nineteenth century, a century so propitious to the spread of romanticism in all its manifestations.

If we set aside Bellini, who flashed across the sky like a meteor, this leaves Rossini and Donizetti, and the differences between them are patent. Rossini was born in Pesaro in 1792 and died in Paris in 1868. His stage career began in 1810 in Venice with a ‘farsa’, Il cambiale di matrimonio, establishing immediately the high standard which he maintained without faltering until he suddenly stopped writing operas in 1839. His last opera was Guillaume Tell which failed to convince the regular audience at the Paris Opéra, unresponsive as they were to its ground-breaking aspects. Rossini’s decision to stop has given rise to endless speculation, but the most likely explanation is that he had grown weary of seeing audiences’ tastes changing and forsaking the ideal of vocal beauty for which he always strove.

Donizetti’s life was shorter, and more full of drama – though we should no longer see Rossini, who suffered from depression, as a jovial fun-lover, a popular but misleading view. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in 1797 and died there in April 1848. A pupil of Giovanni Simone Mayr, he had a very full professional life which was nevertheless marred by sorrow and illness. He produced over seventy-five operas of all kinds from comic to tragic and, like Rossini, his career took him to Paris.

Surprisingly, much of Rossini’s output is not well known. The image of him which mainly springs to mind is linked to the comedies La Cenerentola, L’italiana in Algeri and above all Il barbiere di Siviglia, an undisputed masterpiece and in a way his emblematic work. But this is to leave out a large number of significant works, his opere serie, which are rarely performed today despite their outstanding qualities. The type of female voice Rossini preferred was the contralto (a term to be understood in the context of its time, when vocal nomenclature was far less precise than today), with a sumptuous, opulent low register, tawny amber colours and a full, rich sound. Although the contralto’s high register was at first only rarely called upon, she was not confined to viragos or trouser roles; for certain parts she had to be capable of moderating and lightening her naturally full-bodied instrument. When the writing moves into the upper range it takes on similarities with the mezzo-soprano, as well as slightly more femininity.

The disappearance of the castrati at the start of the nineteenth century encouraged the fashion for the contralto. Rossini was probably harking back to the golden age of the castrato when he wrote some of his finest serious roles, such as Arsace in Semiramide. This was written for Rosa Mariani, who performed it for the first time in Venice in 1823 opposite the composer’s wife Isabella Colbran as the Queen of Babylon. It is a magnificent role, that of a courageous young man of whom the queen is enamoured and who, by the most unhappy mischance, turns out to be her son, and, even more unfortunately, the involuntary cause of her death. ‘Eccomi alfine in Babilonia… Ah! quel giorno’ is his entrance aria, classically structured in three parts, recitative, slow section, quick section: certainly a bravura piece, but one in which the singer has to give expression to feelings as varied as ardent love and fear of the future. Even finer, and more intensely poetic, is Malcolm’s ‘Mura felici’ from La donna del lago, a Scottish tale over which hovers the shade of Sir Walter Scott, so dear to nineteenth-century opera. In 1819, at the San Carlo in Naples, Rosmunda Pisaroni captured the dream-like essence of this aria so perfectly that the smallpox blemishing her face was entirely forgotten.

But the contralto can also play the woman – especially of the strong-willed, courageous type, like Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri, a difficult part which, in Venice in 1813, gave Marietta Marcolini the chance to shine. The role exhibits throughout a blend of charm and virtuosity, unabated energy and unshakable good humour, whether at Isabella’s entrance in Act I, cursing her fate before sharpening her weapons of seduction (‘Cruda sorte’) or exhorting her beloved, before the finale, to behave like a true Italian (‘Pensa alla patria’). For the final rondo of La Cenerentola, the voice lightens, using less of its lower register; Angelina’s goodness and joie de vivre shine through. At the world premiere in Rome in 1817, Geltrude Giorgi-Righetti took the part. A year earlier, also in Rome, she lent her personality to the exuberant Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, who displays her determination to marry Lindoro in ‘Una voce poco fa’.

Donizetti followed a different path both musically and theatrically. The idea of opera as simply a feast of singing begins to fade before dramatic urgency; the power of song alone is no longer enough, and words come into their own. Can we still speak of ‘bel canto’? The same devices are used, the same ornamentation, the role of colour, nuance, dynamics and contrast, but they are regarded more as a means than as an end in themselves. At the Teatro Carcano in Milan in 1830, Anna Bolena was enthusiastically received. This time the contralto (Amalia Laroche) again had a trouser role, the page Smeton; we can perhaps see something of Cherubino in this adolescent boy who is far from indifferent to Anna’s charms (‘È sgombro il loco’, from Act I, Scene 1). The Victor Hugo-inspired Lucrezia Borgia was not to the liking of either the poet or the censor. Its hero Orsini is yet again a trouser role (one of Marietta Brambilla’s parts at La Scala, Milan, in 1833); he launches the plot in the prologue by telling his friend Gennaro that they will both be killed by Lucrezia Borgia – ‘Nella fatal di Rimini’. Later, during the fateful banquet of the final act he sings a brindisi, a drinking-song with a catchy rhythm which was immensely popular at the time (‘Il segreto per esser felici’); its second verse lends itself to brilliant ornamentation.

Alahor in Granata was first staged by the Teatro Carolino in Palermo in January 1826, but the work was forgotten throughout the twentieth century until the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville revived it for the opening of its 1998 season. It is a youthful work, though it came after some remarkably accomplished efforts such as the delightful L’ajo nell’imbarazzo (1824), itself preceded, in 1822, by Zoraide di Granata, another picturesque piece drawn from Spanish history. The trouser role here is that of King Muley-Hassem (first performed by Marietta Gioia-Tamburini), who is in love with Zobeida, a member of an enemy tribe, the Abencerrages. Here, the king appears in the role of peace-maker; his efforts put an end to the war and win him his beloved. There could be no better way to round off this gallery of portraits devoted to a voice distinguished, among other qualities, by its rarity.

Hercules reborn! Rolando Villazón and Joyce DiDonato lead a dazzling cast in Vivaldi’s opera Ercole sul’Termodonte, first heard in Rome in 1723 and reconstructed by conductor Fabio Biondi from the original libretto, historical scores and his intimate knowledge of the composer.

Like the mythical Hercules, hero of this opera by Vivaldi, dynamic tenor Rolando Villazón has triumphed over some huge challenges, including an operation in 2009 on his vocal cords.

In this, his first complete studio recording of an opera for Virgin Classics, he takes on the title role of Hercules (Ercole), whose mission is to obtain the belt of the Amazon queen Hippolyta (Ippolita). She is portrayed by Joyce DiDonato, whose Virgin Classics album of Handel, ‘Furore’, gave ample evidence of both her seductive powers and her intrepid spirit in Baroque music. Completing the cast is a dazzling line-up of virtuoso star singers: Diana Damrau, Vivica Genaux, Philippe Jaroussky, Patrizia Ciofi, Romina Basso and Topi Lehtipuu.

The conductor is Italian Baroque specialist Fabio Biondi, directing his group Europa Galante. His Virgin Classics recording of Vivaldi’s opera Bajazet, nominated for a Grammy, won multiple awards including the Grand Prix de l'Académie du Disque Lyrique in France, an ECHO Award in Germany and a Midem Classical Award. It also received the highest praise from publications such as Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, Classica-Répertoire, Opéra International, Pizzicato, Opera News and Gramophone, which said: “Fabio Biondi and his players bring out countless nuances in the score with their usual array of interpretative devices ranging from gentle cello chords in recitative to sparky off-beat accents and pizzicati, and even some acid sul ponticello. There could hardly be a better way to bring this opera to life.”

Biondi himself brought the score back to life, reconstructing it for performance in Venice in 2007, and subsequently in Paris in 2009. No autograph score or contemporary copy of the opera was in existence, but Biondi worked from the libretto printed for the first performances in Rome in 1723. He was then able to identify various arias from other Vivaldi scores kept in libraries around Europe, principally in France and Germany. In many cases, he also orchestrated the arias, extrapolating from their musical substance and his intimate knowledge of Vivaldi’s practice. Where no source existed for an aria or chorus, he reconstructed the music by adapting and borrowing from other works by Vivaldi. He also composed all the recitatives.

As Biondi explains: “This opera occupies a special and emblematic position in Vivaldi’s life. At the age of 45, he took the risk of presenting an opera in Rome for the first time … Ercole proved a resounding success … The city was full of talk about this opera which, by introducing a new musical style, seemed to revolutionise a genre much loved in the Eternal City. His melodic invention, his bel canto lyricism, rhythmic impulse and colourful instrumentation captured the imagination of music lovers.”

In this double album, the greatest vocal artists of the present day offer their own vision of the singing of their legendary predecessors.

The extraordinary adulation accorded to castrati during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is still today one of the most fascinating phenomena in the history of music. During this golden age of the castrato, these male singers endowed with high voices that combined incredible refinement, amazing power and superhuman virtuosity took the musical world by storm. The whole of Europe was overcome by infatuation for these vocal prodigies. In the absence of the castrati themselves, the singers of today face the formidable challenge of reviving their repertoire. Both male and female singers now undertake the task of bringing back to life the wondrous voices of their androgynous forebears, in music that is by turns unsettling, deeply moving and of a dizzying virtuosity.

A 2CD-Compilation for the Price of 1 + 1 Bonus DVD - Digipack Format

Following the enormous success of the album OPERA 2009, EMI Classics is releasing OPERA 2010. Great voices of today and legendary singers of the past, from the EMI and Virgin Classics catalogue: the home of opera.

With 40 tracks, and over 2½ hours of operatic arias and duets, this double album features the best and most popular names in opera from the catalogues of both Virgin Classics and EMI Classics, ranging from the newest arrivals on the operatic scene, as well as many present day superstars, to iconic legends. This is an unmissable collection of the best in opera that will have a wide appeal.

Present day superstars include Angela Gheorghiu, Natalie Dessay, Sarah Brightman, Barbara Hendricks, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Jessye Norman, Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Rolando Villazón, Roberto Alagna and Bryn Terfel.

Rising new artists are strongly represented by Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau, Elina Garanca, Vivica Genaux, Véronique Gens, Patrizia Ciofi, Philippe Jaroussky, Jonas Kaufmann, David Daniels, Max Emanuel Cencic and Laurent Naouri.

The programme also contains tracks by some of the world’s greatest singers of the past such as Victoria de los Angeles, Teresa Berganza, Mirella Freni, Lucia Popp and Franco Corelli as well as the legendary Luciano Pavarotti and the unique Maria Callas.

All the most popular operatic composers are represented, from Baroque masters like Vivaldi, Rameau and Handel, through Gluck and Mozart to Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Cilea and Gershwin, as well as French favourites Gounod, Massenet and Offenbach.

The mid-price collection presents some of the most important and admired recordings of the EMI Classics and Virgin Classics catalogue which make EMI 'The Home of Opera'. This performance of Bajazet was recorded in 2004 at the Musica Numeris, Brussels.

The balmy lagoon of Venice is a long way from the chill waters of America’s most northern state, but Alaska-born mezzo soprano Vivica Genaux now lives near La Serenissima, and Antonio Vivaldi, the city’s emblematic composer, figures prominently in her repertoire. This album of Vivaldi arias features numbers from a dozen or so operas and includes five arias receiving their first recording.

Describing Vivica Genaux in her trademark virtuoso repertoire, The New York Times observed that: “Her voice is as striking as her looks: less striking, even, for the light, free upper notes or rich chocolaty lower ones than for the runs of coloratura that she releases with jackhammer speed, gunfire precision and the limpid continuity of spring raindrops.”

Genaux herself says that: “In Baroque music, what I really like is the interaction between the voice and the orchestra. The orchestra doesn’t just accompany but punctuates what you are saying as a singer, so you have the opportunity of really working closely with the instrumentalists. There are plenty of pyrotechnics in this recital, but in the sense of using ornamentation to amplify the emotion – so there is rapid coloratura and more delicate ornamentation too. I love working with Europa Galante, and Fabio, being a violinist as well as a conductor, understands that a singer can’t just go on forever on one breath – just as a violinist is limited by the length of his bow.”

The Vivaldi expert Frédéric Delamea takes up this theme:

‘Famed as a virtuoso violinist, Vivaldi divided his artistic life between composing concertos for his preferred instrument and writing operas. It should therefore come as no surprise that in his stage works he shows a predilection for vocal pyrotechnics, playing the voice and singer like a human violin. Even in the glory days of the castrati, however, he avoided falling into the trap of reducing singing to mere exhibitionist acrobatics. Throughout his career, he took up the pyrotechnic challenge with finesse, deploying an unrivalled variety of expression and wrapping up the display in a refined orchestral setting that draws direct inspiration from his concertos while also responding to the demands of the drama. The dazzling arias in this programme – some of which have never been recorded or, indeed, performed in concert – illustrate the different phases and forms of Vivaldian pyrotechnics, exploring every emotion and the most diverse dramatic situations, and continually varying instrumentation, tonality and tempo. The composer of the Four Seasons, flamboyant as ever, sets his unique operatic stamp.’