Latest stories

Rare baroque vocal delights

12th Nov 2012by Katherine Cooper

Philippe Jaroussky and Max Cencic lead an all-male cast (featuring no fewer than five countertenors!) in the world premiere recording of Leonardo Vinci’s Artaserse, and Christophe Rousset & Company make a splendid case for Antoine Dauvergen’s Hercule mourant.

Rodgers & Hammerstein at the Movies

29th Oct 2012by Katherine Cooper

John Wilson and his orchestra are joined by a stellar line-up of soloists including Maria Ewing, Joyce DiDonato and Anna Jane Casey for a programme of hits from South pacific, Carousel, The Sound of Music and others, given in their glorious technicolour film orchestrations.

Mission: Cecilia Bartoli

15th Oct 2012by Katherine Cooper

The intrepid Roman mezzo explores the music of Agostino Steffani - Italian composer, cleric, diplomat and spy – in a programme of blazing martial show-stoppers, coloratura pyrotechnics, long-breathed laments, and four delectable duets with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky.

Alison Balsom: Sound The Trumpet

8th Oct 2012by Katherine Cooper

In her first solo album to be performed exclusively on the natural trumpet, Balsom joins The English Concert and Trevor Pinnock for a programme of music celebrating real or mythic monarchs by Handel and Purcell, including excerpts from The Fairy Queen, King Arthur and Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni

10th Sep 2012by Katherine Cooper

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s project cycle of Mozart’s major operas on Deutsche Grammophon gets off to a scintillating start with a starrily-cast take on ’Il dissoluto punito’, with Ildebrando d’Arcangelo as the eponymous libertine, and Diana Damrau and Joyce DiDonato as Anna and Elvira.

Stephen Hough's French Album

3rd Sep 2012by Katherine Cooper

The British pianist’s ‘musical dessert-trolley’ includes popular favourites by Ravel, Debussy and Bach-via-Cortot, curiosities by Chabrier, Alkan and Chaminade, and his own transcriptions of bonbons by Massenet and Delibes.

Max Emanuel Cencic on Handel's Alessandro

1st Sep 2012by Katherine Cooper

The Viennese countertenor talks to Katherine about recording the title-role in Handel's 1726 opera.

Carmen from Berlin with Kaufmann and Kožená

20th Aug 2012by Katherine Cooper

The light-voiced Czech mezzo and heavyweight German tenor are an appropriately chalk-and-cheese pairing as the free-spirited gypsy and her obsessive soldier lover, with Kožená’s husband Simon Rattle conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker in a performance which emphasises the score’s opéra comique pedigree.

Hans Rott’s First Symphony

30th Jul 2012by Katherine Cooper

Paavo Järvi and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra make a great case for the sole symphony by a composer who was described by his friend Gustav Mahler as ‘the founder of the new symphony as I understand it.’

L’Olimpiade: The Opera

23rd Jul 2012by Katherine Cooper

The Venice Baroque Orchestra and a fine line-up of singers present a pasticcio setting of a libretto by Metastasio, with contributions from composers including Caldara, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Hasse and Paisiello.

New Shostakovich discovery - Orango

2nd Jul 2012by Katherine Cooper

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the world premiere recording of an embryonic opera which Shostakovivch abandoned partway through the Prologue, fleshed out and orchestrated here by Gerard McBurney.

Two terrific Italian Renaissance reconstructions

18th Jun 2012by Katherine Cooper

A new Venetian Coronation from Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort, and a reconstruction of a typical Italian Vespers programme from circa 1612 from Robert Hollingworth and I Fagiolini.

Bach's St Matthew Passion

4th Jun 2012by Katherine Cooper

Peter Sellars’s ‘ritualization’ of the work with Simon Rattle conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker packs a powerful punch, thanks in no small part to Mark Padmore’s harrowing central performance as the Evangelist.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

21st May 2012by Katherine Cooper

Handel in England

14th May 2012by Katherine Cooper

The Edinburgh-based Dunedin Consort record Esther, Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company make a fine case for the incidental music for Smollett’s Alceste, and a legendary Glyndebourne Theodora makes its first appearance on CD.

Kathleen Ferrier

23rd Apr 2012by Katherine Cooper

On the centenary of Ferrier’s birth, Katherine pays to tribute to the great Lancashire contralto and explores her legacy on disc via two comprehensive commemorative sets from Decca and EMI, which includes folksongs, Bach and Mahler.

New and forthcoming Opera DVDs

9th Apr 2012by Katherine Cooper

Angela Gheorghiu and Jonas Kaufmann in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur from Covent Garden, Juan Diego Flórez, Diana Damrau and Joyce DiDonato in Rossini's Le Comte Ory from the Metropolitan Opera.

Wagner - Klaus Florian Vogt and a new Parsifal

26th Mar 2012by Katherine Cooper

The sweet-toned German tenor presents a portfolio of heavyweight heroes, whilst Marek Janowski’s Wagner cycle on Pentatone continues with a marvellously paced Parsifal, starring Christian Elsner as the ‘holy fool’.

Jules Massenet - Werther & Don Quichotte

12th Mar 2012by Katherine Cooper

Rolando Villazón brings apposite wildness and fragility to Goethe’s tortured poet, with Antonio Pappano presiding over a visceral, near-Italianate performance from the Covent Garden orchestra, whilst Ferruccio Furlanetto is heart-breaking as the ‘knight of the doleful countenance’ from the Mariinsky.

Aleksandra Kurzak and Renée Fleming

20th Feb 2012by Katherine Cooper

Up-and-coming Polish soprano Kurzak radiates ‘gioia’ in her debut solo album of operatic arias by Donizetti, Bellini, Puccini and others, whilst Fleming is on ravishing form in an all-French programme of orchestral song-cycles by Ravel, Messiaen and Dutilleux (the latter composed for her in 2007).