Strauss, R: Das war sehr gut, Mandryka (from Arabella)

Multi-award winning opera singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, praised for the ‘pristine beauty of her lyric soprano’ (The Guardian), was revered in opera houses worldwide and is perhaps most famous for her Mozart roles. However, she was also at home on the concert stage and this collection combines her acclaimed portrayals of Donna Elvira, Countess Almaviva and Richard Strauss’s Marschallin, among others, with her affecting interpretations of lieder and song-cycles.

A setting of poems by Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff, Richard Strauss’s 'Four Last Songs' afford ultimate proof of Strauss’s unique ability to write soaring melodic lines for the soprano voice. Many outstanding Strauss sopranos have faced up to the challenge and now Anne Schwanewilms joins them, ahead of her Proms performance on 17th July.

She is one of the most sought-after Strauss sopranos of our day; a regular visitor to all the world’s leading opera houses and festivals, from Salzburg Festival and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, to the Bavarian, Dresden and Vienna State Operas. She has also been heard in many of Strauss’ works at the Cologne Opera, most recently at a recital in 2011, when she was joined by the Gürzenich Orchestra under Cologne’s general music director, Markus Stenz, which included excerpts from roles with which she is most closely associated. The valedictory tone of the songs contrasts with that of the final scene from 'Arabella,' in which Schwanewilms strikes just the right balance between the simplicity of the opening and the increasingly jubilant note on which the opera ends. In the final scene from 'Capriccio', this last-named quality is combined with the singer’s ability to achieve the parlando style ideally demanded by Strauss. In the 'Rosenkavalier' trio her emotionally-charged singing captures the Marschallin’s rejection in favour of a younger woman with an immediacy that is altogether overwhelming.

Dame Kiri te Kanawa was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Classical Brits 2010.

Decca’s first-ever compilation devoted to the two composers most closely associated with Kiri te Kanawa: Mozart & Richard Strauss.

Selection includes arias from operas by both composers which te Kanawa has sung on stage as well as concert arias and songs she has featured in concert.

Kiri te Kanawa is accompanied by two of her greatest musical mentors – Sir Georg Solti - in his dual role as conductor and pianist – and Sir Colin Davis (with whom she first sang the role of the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1971.

Producer and Audio-Restoration engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn.

Acclaimed as one of her generation’s finest interpreters of Richard Strauss (the composer himself identified her as his ideal Arabella), the Swiss soprano Lisa della Casa was blessed with a seemingly effortless, shimmeringly beautiful voice as well as an innate sense of musical style.

In the words of the distinguished critic John Steane: ‘Della Casa remains one of the best of all sopranos in Richard Strauss. Her voice has that touch of spring and silver that Strauss loved and wrote for; her tone will float and soar’.

These vivid recordings are essential for every collection.

Following her superb Katya in Katya Kabanova, her Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Case, recorded live at the London Coliseum, and her Butterfly for Chandos Opera in English, we were delighted to have enticed Cheryl Barker into our studios to record these thrilling samples of her dramatic artistry in music both familiar and fresh.

The repertoire chosen for the solo disc includes works, actually performed by her on stage, as well as arias Cheryl has always enjoyed listening to.

‘There were two arias that I was very keen to include one was the scene from The End of the Affair by the brilliant American composer Jake Heggie. I premiered the role of Sarah in Houston and I think this scene is dramatic and fantastically composed. I am very proud to have recorded the aria Each Afternoon from the Violins of St Jacques by Malcolm Williamson, a fellow Australian. It is very atmospheric with its simply vocal line. I have also included some popular arias and some repertoire performed by Dame Joan Hammond with whom I studied with as a student.’

‘As an English speaker, performing these arias in English means that I can relay the emotions of the arias in my native language and I think it is interesting to an English speaking audience to hear the arias in their native tongue. Also, it is important to have an accurate translation of the original text and I think in these arias we have that.’

No singer at the Vienna State Opera or elsewhere has been as closely associated with the title role in Strauss's Arabella as Lisa Della Casa, who celebrates her 90th birthday on 2 February 2009, and yet we should be guilty of doing the Swiss soprano a grave disservice by reducing her repertory to this one role alone.This point is well illustrated by an impressive portrait of the singer that is released as part of ORFEO's series 'Wiener Staatsoper live'. Lisa Della Casa took part in the opening performances in the rebuilt house in 1955, a bundle of nervous energy as Donna Anna under Karl Böhm, with Anton Dermota as Don Ottavio.With the silvery gleam of her soprano and her crystalline high notes, she was also a natural choice as Eva in Die Meistersinger, a role she also sang at Bayreuth and the Met. Here she demonstrates that she was capable of raising standards to those worthy of an international festival whenever she appeared with other world-class singers.The same is true of the closing scene from Capriccio under Georges Prêtre and of the scene from Arabella in which her sister, Zdenka, is played by Anneliese Rothenberger in an inspired piece of casting. As Lucile in Gottfried von Einem's Dantons Tod, under Josef Krips in 1967, she proved a worthy successor to Maria Cebotari, who at the start of Della Casa's career had recommended her younger colleague for more challenging roles.Von Einem's opera by no means marked a new direction in the singer's career: far from taking on character roles in the later stages of her career, she was still singing lyric soprano roles until shortly before she retired from the stage. A unique voice, with distinctive simplicity and even phrasing.