Piccolo Coro Mariele Ventre Dell'antoniano Che Paura!

This tragicomedy was apparently the greatest success of Giovanni Paisiello’s career, some claim considering that he wrote around 90 operas and that his Barbiere di Siviglia both inspired Mozart to produce Le nozze di Figaro as a sequel and caused later audiences to criticise Rossini for daring to tackle the same subject. Although Paisiello (1740-1816) is interesting enough to deserve some attention today, his musical accomplishments are more reminiscent of Cimarosa than anyone else. He did, however, enjoy a colourful life, and served European rulers as diverse as Catherine the Great and Napoleon. When Nina was first performed at La Scala, the title role was taken by none other than Floria Tosca, the singer who was later to inspire Sardou and Puccini.

From 1992 Pavarotti annually hosted the "Pavarotti and Friends" charity concerts in his home town of Modena in Italy, joining with singers from all parts of the music industry, including Bryan Adams, Céline Dion, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Sting, Bono, Queen, Deep Purple, Sheryl Crow, the Spice Girls, and Jon Bon Jovi, to raise money for several UN causes.

Adelaide di Borgogna es uno de los títulos más infrecuentes en la producción operística de Rossini, siendo ésta la número 23 de las 39 que el compositor llegó a escribir. Se trata de una composición de escritura musical no muy habitual en el pesarés, resultando bastante sobria y austera en lo que a canto canoro se refiere, haciendo primar sobre ello un equilibrio vocal, sobre todo en lo tocante a los roles de Adelaide y Ottone.

Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739), remembered best today for some attractive instrumental music, including some virtuosic works for oboe, and his satire of the opera house, Il teatro alla moda, also wrote a small group of oratorios, including a pair of allegorical pieces for the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin at Macerata. One of these was Il pianto e il riso delle quattro stagioni from 1733. It has been described as a "highly poetic, generally mellow, faintly comic" work, in which Marcello employed "the whole arsenal of techniques he had mastered over a quarter-century"; in fact, not only is there amazing attention to detail in the string articulation, but it also provides an important record of a composer's expectations of his string orchestra. Few oratorios from this locale and period are available in modern editions, and this example has all the formal characteristics associated with the genre of oratorio in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Mercadante had lived in Spain, where his operas had been popular and appreciated, and it was here that he had started to think about an opera based on a typically Iberian subject to win the appreciation of the local public: the story of the king of the Asturias Pelagio, who in 718 (or, according to other sources, in 722) defeated the Arabs in the battle of Covadonga. The story have left a strong mark on the composer, for almost thirty years later, in 1855, he entrusted the production of a libretto to Marco D’Arienzo, who had already worked with him writing. First performed at the San Carlo theatre in Naples on 13th February 1857, Pelagio is the last but one of the operas that Mercadante saw on stage but in chronological terms, however, this was his last one.

Cecilia Bartoli remains one of the world's finest Rossini singers and she proves it again with Il Turco in Italia, her 1st complete Rossini recording since 1993. The performance was recorded in Milan, with the power of the La Scala Orchestra & Chorus and the best Rossini an cast possible, led - of course - by Cecilia Bartoli's coloratura, more brilliant than ever.