Rossini: Zelmira: Riedi al soglio

“This sparkling disc brings together a collection of arias Rossini composed for one of the great prima donnas of the 19th century, his wife, Isabella Colbran. It's tempting to wonder whether even she could match Cecilia Bartoli, one of the most luscious, most exciting voices in opera. All those dazzling chromatic runs, leaps, cadenzas and cascading coloraturas are handled with consummate ease. Throughout she sounds as if she's enjoying the music; there's always an engaging smile in the voice, although she's properly imperious in the extracts from Elisabetta and disarmingly simple in the prayerful 'Giusto ciel, in tal periglio' from Maometto II. The orchestral and choral forces provide a delightful intimacy, with some cheeky woodwind solos and fruity brass passages.
The recording, produced at the Teatro La Fenice by Decca veteran Christopher Raeburn, favours the voices but gives it just enough distance to accommodate high Cs and astounding A flats at the bottom of the range. The orchestral perspective is changeable but satisfactory. For Rossini and Bartoli fans, this disc is a must.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Rossini is a difficult composer to anthologise.
Callas and Walter Legge or Sutherland and Bonynge might have come up with something fascinating and fabulous had they been so minded. Caballé did: the eminently collectable Rossini Rarities disc she produced for the Rossini bicentenary in 1968. For the rest, successful recitals have been few and far between, indifferent singing or poor planning principally to blame. Not so Opera Rara's Rossini Gala. Patric Schmid's inventive programme focuses on Rossini's Naples period and the extraordinary array of roles he created for the great Spanish soprano Isabella Colbran. What distinguishes this recital is that it doesn't only anthologise set-piece arias.
Rossini gave Colbran some grand entrances and some even grander exits, and there are examples of both here: Queen Elizabeth's arrival and Zelmira's final florid song of thanksgiving. But there are also two wonderful quartets, two exquisite duets, a famous coup de théâtre (the Act 2 finale of Mosè in Egitto with its terrific lightning- strike), and one of Rossini's finest pieces of music-theatre: the scene near the start of Act 2 of Semiramide where the Queen and her lover, the adulterous regicide Assur, have rows worthy of the Macbeths over events which are beginning to overshadow them.
Miricioiu isn't a bel canto specialist; Santuzza is as much her territory as Semiramide. In neither role is the technique perfectly honed, but the effect is rarely less than compelling. Every one of the heroines presented here is vividly depicted, with a distinguished supporting cast helping to etch each scene into the imagination.
The gala ends with an intriguing rarity which has nothing to do with Colbran or Miricioiu.
Vallace is a shortened, revised and relocated version of Guillaume Tell prepared for La Scala, Milan, in 1836-7. Austrian tyranny being an uncongenial subject to Milan's Austrian rulers, the libretto was recast to show English tyranny instead: Edward I's bloody crusade against the Scots, with William Wallace as a Scottish Tell.
Rossini wasn't much involved in the adaptation, though he did agree to recast the finale scene so that the opera could end with a reprise of the overture's famous pas redoublé. It's that revised finale we have here, a travesty of Schiller (and Rossini), but great fun.
Playing, choral work and conducting for this Rossini Gala are all of a high order of excellence.
As is the engineering (the lightning strike in Mosèin Egitto isn't for the faint-hearted). As always with Opera Rara, the accompanying 116-page booklet is superlatively informative. At the price of a single full-price CD, the disc is a terrific bargain, not least for the splendid hawk's-eye view the programme provides of 'serious' Rossini.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“A brilliant recording” Penguin Guide