Joyce DiDonato: Stella di Napoli: Bel Canto Arias

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everyone who cares about singing should promote it immediately to the top of their letters to Santa. Creamy, sumptuous, almost flawless - every adjective may be a cliché, but how else to describe... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2014, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 1st Sep 2014
Catalogue No: 2564636562
Label: Erato
Length: 72 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

25th August 2014
BBC Music Magazine Awards

2015

Vocal Award Winner
BBC Music Magazine

December 2014

Opera Choice
Gramophone Magazine

November 2014

Editor's Choice
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2014
Gramophone Awards

2015

Finalist - Recital
Diapason d’Or de l’Année

2014

Récital lyrique
International Classical Music Awards

2015

Winner - Vocal Recital

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Excerpt, Pacini: Stella di Napoli

Work length4:29

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Héloise Mas (mezzo-soprano)
Opéra National de Lyon, Choeur De l'Opéra National De Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Ove t'aggiri, o barbaro" (Stella, Marta)

Track length4:29

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Excerpt, Bellini: Adelson & Salvini

Work length6:25

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)
Opéra National de Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Dopo l'oscuro nembo" (Nelly)

Track length6:25

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Excerpt, Carafa: Le nozze di Lammermoor

Work length9:20

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Jean-Michel Bertelli (clarinet)
Opéra National de Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"L'amica ancor non torna... Oh, di sorte crudel" (Lucia)

Track length9:20

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Excerpt, Rossini: Zelmira

Work length8:13

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Rémi Mathieu (tenor), Nabil Suliman (baritone)
Choeur De l'Opéra National De Lyon, Opéra National de Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Riedi al soglio" (Zelmira, Polidoro, Ilo)

Track length8:13

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Excerpt, Mercadante: La vestale

Work length4:23

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)
Opéra National de Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Se fino al cielo ascendere" (Giunia)

Track length4:23

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Excerpt, Donizetti: Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth

Work length7:33

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Morgane Fauchois (glockenspiel)
Opéra National de Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Par che mi dica ancora" (Amelia)

Track length7:33

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Excerpt, Bellini: I Capuleti e I Montecchi

Work length4:07

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)
Opéra National de Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Tu sola, o mia Giulietta... Deh! tu, bell'anima" (Romeo)

Track length4:07

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Excerpt, Valentini, C: Il sonnambulo

Work length5:09

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Héloise Mas (mezzo-soprano)
Opéra National de Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Lasciami... Se il mar sommesso mormora" (Adele, Sofia)

Track length5:09

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Excerpt, Donizetti: Maria Stuarda

Work length8:04

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Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano)
Opéra National de Lyon, Choeur De l'Opéra National De Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Io vi rivedo alfin... Deh! Tu di un'umile preghiera" (Maria)

Track length8:04

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Excerpt, Pacini: Saffo

Work length14:24

Album only

Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano), Rémi Mathieu (tenor), Nabil Suliman (baritone), Héloise Mas (mezzo-soprano)
Opéra National de Lyon, Choeur De l'Opéra National De Lyon
Riccardo Minasi

"Flutto che muggi... Teco dall'are pronube... L'ama ognor qual io l'amai" (Saffo, Faone, Climene, Alcandro)

Track length14:24

Album only

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Recording of the Week, Joyce DiDonato sings bel canto arias

25th August 2014

Katherine listens to Joyce DiDonato's Stella di Napoli, which explores the Neapolitan school of bel canto opera arias.

World premiere recordings and Italianate rarities from the queen of Bel Canto and coloratura. Following the success of her crowd-sourced ‘Best Of’ collection reJoyce and her electrifying Drama Queens album of Baroque arias, Joyce DiDonato returns to her heartland repertoire to celebrate the birth of Bel Canto opera in 19th-century Naples.

On Stella di Napoli (Star of Naples), the American mezzo-soprano’s creamy tone and dramatic prowess breathe new life into little-known arias by Mercadante, Michele Carafa (a student of Cherubini and close friend of Rossini), Carlo Valentini and the prolific opera composer Giovanni Pacini, whose Stella di Napoli (1845) gives the album its title. Joyce worked closely with Italian conductor Riccardo Minasi (whose previous projects include Bellini’s Norma with Cecilia Bartoli) to bring three unjustly neglected arias to light in new editions and world premiere recordings.

Alongside these little-known gems, Joyce presents a sumptuous Bel Canto banquet with music by the three greats — Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti — including the latter’s Maria Stuarda: a tour-de-force signature role for Joyce, recently screened in cinemas and released on DVD from the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Joyce DiDonato won a 2013 Grammy for her last Bel Canto album Diva, Divo, declared “an ideal vehicle for her glorious mezzo voice in which the most fiendish coloratura ornaments and trills sound effortless”. (The Observer)

“Ms DiDonato’s performance will be pointed to as a model of singing in which all components of the art form — technique, sound, color, nuance, diction — come together in service to expression and eloquence. Ms. DiDonato is simply magnificent, singing with plush richness and aching beauty.” The New York Times

Reviews

December 2014

everyone who cares about singing should promote it immediately to the top of their letters to Santa. Creamy, sumptuous, almost flawless - every adjective may be a cliché, but how else to describe singing of this quality?

November 2014

warm tone, perfect control, a deeply sympathetic portrayal [of Maria Stuarda]. The finale of Zelmira provides DiDonato with the opportunity of showing off her brilliantly executed coloratura, while her mezza voce at the start of Romeo's farewell to the supposedly dead Juliet in Bellini's opera is sustained to perfection.

25th August 2014

The sole Rossini aria, Zelmira’s imperious ‘Riedi al soglio’, also provides vocal thrills aplenty – but for the most part, this disc is more about long-breathed melodies and plangent laments than it is about pyrotechnics...A must for all fans of DiDonato, and well worth exploring for anyone who fancies an enthusiastic, committed guide to the highways and byways of bel canto.

1st August 2014

They allow this adored US mezzo to display her dizzying technical virtuosity, her acting skills and her extravagant sense of drama. The Opéra de Lyon orchestra give characterful support...You may think bel canto recital discs are not your thing. Let Joyce DiDonato convince you otherwise. She did me.

29th August 2014

this luscious collection of Italian bel canto opera arias presents the incandescent DiDonato on top form, the creamy tones effortlessly whipped into endless, kaleidoscopic threads of melody...Riccardo Minasi and the Orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon bring their own pleasures with flute, harp and clarinet solos beautifully enhancing diaphanous textures.

Opera Now

The highlight, on many levels, is Mary’s prayer from Maria Stuarda – both in musical and performance terms, because here she is really inside the music in a role she knows backwards, and it shows in the freedom, character and control: she knows where she’s going.

Daily Telegraph 18th October 2014

DiDonato seems to have brought the performance and interpretation of the Italian bel canto repertoire to new heights, combining absolute technical security, intense but unmannered musicality, a beguiling range of colour and bell-like clarity of tone at a pitch of artistry that not even her nearest rival, Cecilia Bartoli, can match...This must surely rank as one of the greatest vocal recitals in recorded history.

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Joyce DiDonato: Stella di Napoli

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Recording of the Week, Joyce DiDonato sings bel canto arias

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