A Limited Edition, Original Jackets collection showcasing the artistry of the magnificent American soprano, Kathleen Battle. Kathleen Battle enraptured opera audiences of the 1980s and 1990s. Here was a lyric soprano combining unsurpassable beauty of tone with a keen musical intelligence, a way with words and a communicative warmth that drew listeners to Strauss and spirituals alike. She has the easy phrasing of a great jazz singer combined with the breath, breadth and precise projection of a trained voice. James Levine coached her at the Metropolitan Opera, and when he accompanied her at the 1984 Salzburg Festival and DG recorded the recital as Battle's debut solo album, nothing less than a phenomenon was launched.
A Limited Edition, Original Jackets collection showcasing the artistry of the magnificent American soprano, Kathleen Battle. Kathleen Battle enraptured opera audiences of the 1980s and 1990s. Here was a lyric soprano combining unsurpassable beauty of tone with a keen musical intelligence, a way with words and a communicative warmth that drew listeners to Strauss and spirituals alike. She has the easy phrasing of a great jazz singer combined with the breath, breadth and precise projection of a trained voice. James Levine coached her at the Metropolitan Opera, and when he accompanied her at the 1984 Salzburg Festival and DG recorded the recital as Battle's debut solo album, nothing less than a phenomenon was launched.
Sony Classical presents legendary soprano Kathleen Battle in nine of her foremost studio recordings in her ‘Complete Sony Recordings’. In the course of a remarkable career, launched in 1973 by mentor James Levine in their shared hometown of Cincinnati, Kathleen Battle has captivated international audiences. She has taken home numerous awards – among them five Grammys and London’s Olivier Award for her 1985 Covent Garden debut as Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, the first American singer to win that prestigious prize – and become one of classical music’s best-selling artists.
It would be hard to imagine a better performance of Donizetti's comic masterpiece. If there was one role that ideally suited Luciano Pavarotti's voice and stage personality, it was Nemorino, the impoverished and not-very-bright peasant who worships the village's prettiest and richest young woman from a distance, is swindled by a traveling vendor of "miracle" medicines, but wins her hand by dumb luck. The story has comedy, pathos, and a put-down of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (or at least the Tristan story) written long before Wagner composed it.
If you could only have two Christmas CDs, Kathleen Battle's "A Christmas Celebration" would definitely be one (and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" would be the other.)While Battle has been known to be a temperamental diva (leading to a quasi-banishment from operatic roles), her pretty, soaring soprano is without peer. So good is her voice that I would consider several of the cuts on this disc to be definitive performances, not only of Battle's repertoire, but of all performances ever of that song. Case in point would be her rendition of Gounod's "Ave Maria". Haunting and stunning at the same time, it's as if the angel itself were singing.
An enthralling production from the Metropolitan Opera under James Levine, with an unbeatable performance from Jessye Norman as Ariadne, and spotless coloratura from Kathleen Battle as Zerbinetta. James King offers sterling support in the taxing role of Bacchus. (James Longstaffe)
Ravello Records presents SOPRANO SUMMIT from revered saxophonist Paul Cohen. Alongside his work as a performer, Cohen is known for his passionate scholarship, rediscovering long-forgotten saxophone works as well as arranging related music for the instrument. In this, his latest contribution, Cohen presents an album of music for the soprano saxophone in chamber and solo settings. The range and diversity of the soprano saxophone is stunning, from Cohen’s arrangement of Percy Grainger’s Arrival Platform Humlet (solo soprano saxophone) to Amanda Harberg’s first piece for saxophone, Feathers and Sax, (soprano saxophone and piano) and Jeff Scott’s new work The Gift of Life (piccolo, soprano/alto saxophone and piano). SOPRANO SUMMIT is both a celebration of the soprano saxophone as a concert instrument and a revelation of new, lost, revived, and beloved works.