Rossini: Zelmira
Joshua Stewart (tenor), Luca Dall'Amico (bass-baritone), Silvia Dalla Benetta (soprano), Marina Comparato (mezzo-soprano), Federico Sacchi (bass), Mert Süngü (tenor), Xiang Xu (tenor), Emmanuel Franco (baritone), Górecki Chamber Choir, Virtuosi Brunensis, Gianluigi Gelmetti
The music is a magnificent mix of everything that Rossini had polished in Naples - grand marches, hair-raising crescendos, bubbling woodwinds and dizzying cabalettas…The Wildbad cast hesitates...
Rossini: Zelmira
Joshua Stewart (tenor), Luca Dall'Amico (bass-baritone), Silvia Dalla Benetta (soprano), Marina Comparato (mezzo-soprano), Federico Sacchi (bass), Mert Süngü (tenor), Xiang Xu (tenor), Emmanuel Franco (baritone), Górecki Chamber Choir, Virtuosi Brunensis, Gianluigi Gelmetti
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The music is a magnificent mix of everything that Rossini had polished in Naples - grand marches, hair-raising crescendos, bubbling woodwinds and dizzying cabalettas…The Wildbad cast hesitates...
About
Zelmira was the last opera Rossini wrote for Naples, knowing it would also be his calling card to Vienna where he had been assured performances. Keen to reconcile the alleged incompatibility between ‘Italian’ melody and ‘German’ harmony, Rossini employed exciting and daring harmonies and a raft of dazzling orchestral effects in this tragedy in which a daughter saves her father, the king, and her son, from usurpers to the throne. The opera was acclaimed wherever it was heard, and this recording presents the revised and triumphant Paris version Zelmira was the last opera Rossini wrote for Naples, knowing it would also be his calling card to Vienna where he had been assured performances. Keen to reconcile the alleged incompatibility between ‘Italian’ melody and ‘German’ harmony, Rossini employed exciting and daring harmonies and a raft of dazzling orchestral effects in this tragedy in which a daughter saves her father, the king, and her son, from usurpers to the throne. The opera was acclaimed wherever it was heard, and this recording presents the revised and triumphant Paris version.
Contents and tracklist
- Joshua Stewart (tenor), Luca Dall'Amico (bass-baritone), Silvia Dalla Benetta (soprano), Marina Comparato (mezzo-soprano), Federico Sacchi (bass), Mert Süngü (tenor), Xiang Xu (tenor), Emmanuel Franco (baritone)
- Górecki Chamber Choir, Virtuosi Brunensis
- Gianluigi Gelmetti
Awards and reviews
April 2020
The music is a magnificent mix of everything that Rossini had polished in Naples - grand marches, hair-raising crescendos, bubbling woodwinds and dizzying cabalettas…The Wildbad cast hesitates at first but Mert Süngü’s Ilo gains in confidence even if strained under pressure…In the pit Gianluigi Gelmetti steers a safe course, though sometimes the balance is rocky on the ear.
September 2020
Silvia Dalla Benetta's dynamic shading [in the Prayer] is remarkable and throughout the performance her florid singing is much more fluent and agreeable in tone than that of her colleagues...Understandably, perhaps, the conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti, who has excellent Rossinian credentials, seems focused at times more on helping the singers to negotiate the score without incident than on shaping the music with dramatic insight.
Opera Now March 2020
Two singers stand out. Silvia Dalla Benetta in the title role, sounding a confident dramatic coloratura with interesting colours in her voice and … tenor Mert Süngü, whose bright tone sails through some excruciating and high-lying coloratura with seeming ease
