Paolo Maria Noseda

Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles, set in Sri Lanka, is known above all for its unforgettable duet for tenor and baritone, but it its score is full of delightful and dramatic music. When recently staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York it proved a major success, both for the production by Penny Woolcock and the musical performance, conducted by Paolo Noseda, with (once again) Diana Damrau as the priestess Leïla and, as the two men competing for love, the tenor Matthew Polenzani (Nadir) and the baritone Mariusz Kwiecien (Zurga). Woolcock’s concept brought the production up to date, with photographic and video references to the 2004 tsunami, and offered a superb ‘aquatic’ spectacle during the overture: the whole stage appeared to be beneath the Indian Ocean and acrobatic divers ‘swam’ down from the surface (located in the flies of the theatre).

This publication aims to be the first of two volumes, the second of which will contain the other two sonatas. Believe me, this project has not been driven by the wish to add yet another complete recording of complete works to the catalogue. What it has been driven by is a real desire to redress the balance and to ensure Weber's compositions receive the attention they so richly deserve.

This project has not been driven by the wish to add yet another complete recording of complete works to the catalogue. What it has been driven by is a real desire to redress the balance and to ensure Weber's compositions receive the attention they so richly deserve.

The Antoniana Library in Padua holds a manuscript called Cantate alla virtù della Signora Maria Pignatelli. A true vocal anthology of the early 18th century, this period canzoniere contains forty-eight secular cantatas, almost all unpublished, by seventeen composers from the great artistic centres that Italy had around 1700: Rome and the Papal States (Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna), the Duchy of Milan, Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, and Venice.

Written in French in 1828 for the Paris Opéra, Le Comte Ory has maintained its success to this day. Re-using some of the music of his Viaggio a Reims, Rossini turns the disguise-based libretto into a spirited play of erotic lightness. Lluís Pasqual’s witty and clever production was recorded at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. The dynamic, international young cast is headed by tenor Yijie Shi in the title role, Laura Polverelli as his astute page and María José Moreno as Countess Adèle. Paolo Carignani conducts with verve and brio.