Opera Rara

Nelly Miricioiu and Renée Fleming, as Eleanor of Aquitaine and the fair Rosamund, battle for the love of Bruce Ford (Henry II of England) in one of Donizetti’s more intimate serious works. A cholera epidemic in 1837 prevented the performance of the revised ending – given here complete for the first time – in which the jealous Eleanor stabs her rival. 'The performance could hardly be improved. … Renée Fleming … one of the most lovely voices to be hearde in our time' (John Steane, The Gramophone)

Cammarano’s horrific libretto is given some of Donizetti’s most beautiful music. After eloping with her lover and being deserted by him, Maria is believed dead but returns home to discover her father has died and left everything to her cousin Matilde. Maria’s ex-lover stabs her and again Maria is believed dead, but in the gripping final scene – a gift for a soprano – Maria stabs Matilde and then confronts Corrado, telling him in her dying moments that she still loves him. This scene alone was enough to ensure many productions throughout Italy and Europe in Donizetti’s lifetime and beyond.

Based on Victor Hugo’s passionate play about Mary Tudor, Maria regina d’Inghilterra was one of Pacini’s most successful operas. Written in 1843, the vocal portrait of the central character is among the composer’s best creations. Joy, tears, outrage and forgiveness are all contained in the vivid vocal characterisation that was Pacini’s hallmark.

Bianca e Falliero has enough fine music to get the blood boiling, the toes tapping, and the hands clapping. It is strong in rhythmically exciting pieces and showy, virtuosic singing, both of which are in ample supply in this performance. Jennifer Larmore gets through Falliero's music with incredible aplomb and a truly handsome tone. Majella Cullagh's Bianca is just as technically fine as Larmore's Falliero, and she, too, pays close attention to expressing her predicament. Contareno, Bianca's cruel father, is sung by the exciting, accomplished tenor Barry Banks, who seems to understand that Rossini occasionally uses high notes and difficult roulades as expressive weapons. The others in the cast don't let us down. David Parry conducts with an inner tension that keeps the listener riveted. (Robert Levine)

Maybe you’ve come across this plot before: a damsel-in-distress is saved by a knight in shining armour. This is the standard ‘fairy tale’ we all learned as children. Yet the surprising thing about Adelaide di Borgogna is that the story is true. Oh yes: in an important but rarely remembered piece of Italian history, Otto II, emperor of Germany, came to the rescue of Adelaide, widow of Lotario, king of Italy. And what did Rossini do with this? He covered it, as always, with the most beautiful music, writing arias, duets, quartets and finales to melt your hearts. This is virtually guaranteed to happen when Jennifer Larmore and Majella Cullagh bring their amazing voices together in one of those moments that recording producers pray for. But the joys in this recording are not confined to the contributions of those talented ladies. Bruce Ford, once again the bad guy, is at his virile best with his father, Mirco Palazzi, at one elbow and Rebecca Bottone, as his mother, at the other. This trio of malcontents doesn’t have much chance against Cullagh, who has a formidable aria just before the end of the evening. But Larmore, as Ottone, puts the seal of triumph on the whole evening with a rondo finale of outstanding verve and panache.

This remarkable romantic melodrama was all but forgotten after it was cold-shouldered by its original Venetian audience in 1835. This completely new performing edition reveals it as a vocal showcase of huge variety. Bruce Ford takes the title role, giving a bravura performance as the Burgundian duke caught in tragic conflict between love and duty. Jennifer Larmore and Elizabeth Futral are the rival leading ladies, whose final confrontation is a duet of exceptional virtuosity.

Giovanni Mayr is known today primarily as the teacher of Donizetti, but in the very late 1700s and first two decades of the 1800s, this German-born, Italian-by-adoption composer was all the operatic rage, combining the fiorature and niceties of Italian vocal writing with a German penchant for orchestration (Medea’s opening aria has a violin obbligato of the type that you simply do not find with the Italians, for instance). Medea in Corinto is considered Mayr’s masterpiece; in fact, it’s a long score, not quite as poweful as Cherubini’s, but with plenty of flavor of its own.