Miri Yusif Dəli Duman

This outstanding concert performance of Manon Lescaut with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov was the absolute highlight of the 2016's Salzburg Festival – a moment of operatic glory, captured live for this unique release.
Anna excelled herself and fascinated the audience with the perfection of her exceptional voice, her unrivaled interpretation and her devotion to this very part – she is the Manon Lescaut of our time. While Verismo already features the aria "In quelle trine morbide" and the fourth act of Manon Lescaut in a breathtaking studio-version, documenting her great passion to this work, the complete recording of Manon Lescaut will be a great addition to Anna's fans and opera lovers alike.

The first work, ‘Qual prodigio è ch’io miri?’, is often cited, quite correctly, as a source for some of Handel’s ‘plague’ chorus melodies in ‘Israel in Egypt’ – including flies and lice, hailstones and ‘he led them forth like sheep’. But I imagine not all that many listeners will have heard Stradella’s original music, and hearing these passages in their original form is in itself a cause of fascination and delight; for a sample, try the Sinfonia (track 9). The work takes the form of a conversation between two male lovers and the female object of their affections, and is here sung by two sopranos and a bass. All three singers are excellent - as is the superb Alessandro Stradella Consort, directed by Estevan Velardi, who have already brought us several first-class recordings of Italian baroque music including other works by Stradella.