Coming Soon,
Forthcoming vocal highlights for the autumn
It's a particularly rich autumn for vocal releases, so here are some details about the operatic and song-recital recordings that we're especially keen to hear over the coming months: French song discs from an up-and-coming mezzo and a veteran baritone, French operatic rarities from a leading bel canto tenor and a rising young soprano, and Schubert from one of the world's greatest lieder duos and an extremely promising BBC New Generation Artist…
Mozart hasn't featured much in the career of the high-flying Peruvian tenor to date, though he's dropped hints that it will play a significant role in his future: here he makes his debut on Sony with a collection of arias from Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Il Re Pastore and La clemenza di Tito, plus the rarely-recorded concert-scene 'Misera! O sogno…Aura che intorno spiri'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Eternamente – The Verismo Album
Angela Gheorghiu (soprano), PFK - Prague Philharmonia, Emmanuel Villaume
For her first solo recording in several years, the Romanian soprano focuses on ‘slice of life’ Italian operas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including snapshots of roles she’s made her own on stage in recent years such as Tosca and Magda in La Rondine, and rarities such as Leoncavallo’s I Zingari and Giordano’s Siberia. Joseph Calleja joins her in excerpts from Cavalleria rusticana, Boito's Mefistofele, and Andrea Chénier.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This elegant young French mezzo (who sings Ascagne on Erato's forthcoming recording of Berlioz's Les troyens) made a sensational Proms debut just last week with a sensual, vivid account of Ravel's Shéhérazade, a work which also appears (in the version for voice and piano) on her second solo recording for the same label alongside songs by Debussy, Duparc, Fauré, and the pianist Fazil Say.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Now a BBC New Generation Artist, this Istanbul-born lyric tenor made me (and, I'm sure, many others!) really sit up and listen during the 2015 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, where the radiant sweetness of his timbre and his naturally communicative manner marked him out as one to watch; his Schubert in the Song Prize final was a real highlight, so I'm hugely looking forward to hearing him in his first recital-disc.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
This compelling, glamorously-sung solo recording debut from Lebanese-Canadian soprano Joyce El-Khoury focuses on the extraordinary career of the Belgian diva Julie Dorus-Gras (1805-96), including excerpts from the wide range of roles which she originated, such as Alice in Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable, Princess Eudoxie in Halevy’s La Juive, and Teresa in Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A Tribute to Gilbert Duprez
John Osborn (tenor), Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, Kaunas State Chorus, Constantine Orbelian
Dorus-Gras’s frequent stage-partner Gilbert Duprez – the French tenor credited as the pioneer of the operatic ‘high C’ as we know it - is certainly flavour of the month this September: as well as a tribute from El-Khoury’s Opera Rara stable-mate Michael Spyres, there’s this collection of arias from his compatriot John Osborn, which includes excerpts from Verdi’s Jérusalem, Donizetti’s Les martyrs, and Rossini’s Guillaume Tell.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
This distinctive French contralto already has an impressive oratorio and operatic discography to her name, but this collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century motets, cantatas and sacred arias is her first solo album; the programme includes music by Brevi, Caldara, Jommelli, Porpora, Stradella and Vivaldi.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Gerhaher and Huber recorded this cycle in 2004 for RCA (praised by Gramophone as 'interpretation of Lieder at the highest level'), and have performed the work together on a regular basis over the intervening years; I for one look forward to hearing how their perspective on Schubert's miller-lad has evolved over the course of the past decade!
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Sampson and Davies have previously joined forces on disc in Handel and Bach; here they turn their attention to later repertoire in the form of lieder and duets by Mendelssohn, Quilter and Schumann, and Purcell realisations by Benjamin Britten. Their Proms lunchtime concert of this programme last September was described by The Independent as 'chamber music of the highest quality'.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Currently singing Hans Sachs at Bayreuth (a performance described as 'probing and sensitive' by The Guardian earlier this week), the charismatic German baritone has established himself as one of the world's leading interpreters of roles such as Wolfram, Amfortas, Wotan/The Wanderer, and most recently The Dutchman, all of whom appear in excerpt here.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
French music features prominently in his operatic repertoire, but this is Hampson’s first recording dedicated to mélodie; here he explores songs by Bizet, Chabrier, Chausson, Gounod, Magnard, Massenet, Meyerbeer and Saint-Saëns (including ‘Danse macabre’, a little gem which has been unfairly eclipsed by the tone-poem for violin and orchestra that was based upon it!).
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
