Gluck: Se mai senti spirarti sul volto (from La clemenza di Tito)

“It's playful, as well as an ideal vehicle for her glorious mezzo voice in which the most fiendish coloratura ornaments and trills sound effortless.” The Observer, 30th January 2011

“I can find nothing but praise...This recording gives enormous pleasure in rare as well as familiar repertoire...the mezzo invariably finding the right colour for each portrayal...Perhaps the best thing about this recital is that everything DiDonato sings sounds spontaneous, as if the character her- or himself were actually experiencing it for the first time.” International Record Review, March 2011

“she is steadily terrific: technically secure, nimble and clean in her flourishes and roulades, always alert to dramatic nuance. Nor do we lack variety. First, a swaggering, tipsy aria for Cherubino from the luxuriously coloured Chérubin (Massenet again). Then we jump to Mozart’s Susanna, intimate and tender in The Marriage of Figaro. So it goes: jolting, fascinating, entertaining.” The Times, 11th February 2011 ****

“[This collection] draws together paired arias of male and female roles from the same story...the youthful Siebel's declaration of love for Marguerite, from Gounod's Faust, receives an anachronistic response from Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust. Clever stuff.” The Independent, 11th February 2011 ***

“DiDonato’s is a five-star voice, perhaps the finest lyric mezzo before the public today...Ono’s Lyons orchestra and chorus give her voice luxury support, and her growing army of fans won’t be disappointed.” Sunday Times, 20th February 2011 ****

“[DiDonato] underlines what has been increasingly obvious from her stage appearances – she is a consummate professional” Financial Times, 11th February 2011 ****

“DiDonato's tone and phrasing catch a genuine male authority in the first entry of Bellini's Capuleti Romeo...Cendrillon and the (to Anglophones) rare Ariane are utter, and quite dark, delights. Elsewhere the Mozart is enjoyed and well negotiated - the lower colouring makes Susanna sound mature and knowing.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2011

“Proof of DiDonato's consummate musicianship is everywhere here...For sheer beauty of tone, legato that defies gravity and singing that restores your faith in human nature, listen last of all to what Joyce DiDonato does with Berlioz's 'D'amour l'ardente flamme'. Diva or Divo, this is the real thing.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2011 *****

“Listening to DiDonato depict both [Cherubino and Susanna]...brings home just how deeply this singer can inhabit character...The American mezzo delivers this ambitious, imaginative programme with intelligence, musicality, vocal brilliance and immense charm. There's some lovely playing from the Lyon Opera Orchestra too.” Classic FM Magazine, May 2011 *****

“on this disc Cecilia Bartoli makes clear that Gluck was a formidable musical dramatist even in his early, pre-'reform' works...This CD, in short, is a tour de force of dramatic singing, in the widest sense of the term: and it is also full of really beautiful sound; rich, warm, out.” Gramophone Magazine, 2001

“Ian Page's subtle survey explores the development of certain textures...Ailish Tynan, Sophie Bevan and Anna Stéphany blend beautifully in the brief trio from Paride ed Elena...the playing is consistently incisive.” The Independent, 23rd May 2010

“In January, Ian Page’s young British troupe ransacked the [Gluck] treasure house with delightful results in a Wigmore Hall concert. And here it is, with Sophie Bevan wonderfully anguished in her aria from Alceste, Anna Stéphany darkly dramatic...[Page's group are] incisively suave.” The Times, 26th June 2010

“...there is some first-rate dramatic music here...Sophie Bevan sings the Tito excerpt with such intensity as to make one almost sympathise with Sesto...'Che Faro' [is] taken at a cracking pace by Ian Page and sung with desperate urgency by Anna Stephany...This is a terrific, unmissable disc.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2010

“The three singers here all make a good showing, Ailish Tynan with her direct engagement with recitative...and as a sentient, fearful Euridice...[Stéphany] scores highly as Clytemnestra in Iphigénie en Aulide, her smoky timbre encompassing the anger of Agamemnon's wife...Sophie Bevan cuts a charmingly determined figure as Colette” BBC Music Magazine, September 2010 ****

“Conductor, instrumentalists and singers alike, mirroring Gluck's reformist aims from the 1760s onwards, make sounds the servant of the sense, with stylish, eloquent and dramatic music-making of the highest order” International Record Review, September 2010

“[Gluck's] music is fiery. Ian Page understands this, as his live recording of excerpts from a dozen operas bears witness. His soloists deliver the long-breathed melodic lines expressively, and Anna Stéphany is a strong Clytemnestra.” Sunday Times, 23rd January 2011 ***

“Kozena's voice is silvery but lacks power in coloratura arias by Mozart and Myslivecek. Tender Gluck in a fascinating collection.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2012 ***

“This is something very much out of the ordinary. These eight arias, taken variously from Gluck's early operas (those preceding his 'reforms' that began with Orfeo in 1762) or his non-reform later ones, are almost wholly unfamiliar, but they have great power and character; and they're sung with an extraordinary emotional force and technical skill, not to say a sheer beauty of tone, that can't be matched by any other singer today. Cecilia Bartoli's range is formidable. In the first aria, from La clemenza diTito, she sings with trumpet-like tone and brilliance of attack, throwing off wide-spanning arpeggios with evident abandon and dispatching coloratura with fluency and precision, each note articulated and perfectly tuned. The second, an elegantly pathetic little piece from the later IlParnaso confuso, is a tour de force of delicate, tender pianissimo singing. The third, from Ezio, begins with an orchestral recitative of thrilling dramatic urgency and goes on to an aria of great passion. Bartoli is described as a mezzo-soprano here, and her voice does indeed chiefly lie in that range; but most of these are soprano arias, and she happily goes well above the stave – there's one slightly squally high C sharp in the first aria but she's usually pretty comfortable in her top register. The accompaniments are splendidly sensitive and alert. A quite outstanding disc that no one who loves fine singing can miss.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010