Patrick Joyce

In Great Scott, the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano, one of today’s best-loved classical singers, creates a role conceived specifically with her in mind. The character she plays, Arden Scott, just happens to be an opera star, and she is the lynchpin of what Fred Plotkin of WQXR, the USA’s leading classical music radio station, welcomed as a “deeply moving and musically brilliant work” that “should enter the standard repertory just as Heggie’s two previous masterpieces – Dead Man Walking and Moby-Dick – already have”.

Tenor superstar Juan Diego Flórez adds the role of Prince Ramiro in Rossini’s sparkling comedy La Cenerentola to his rapidly growing catalog of performances on Decca. In Joan Font’s strikingly colorful, toy-town staging, he is joined by one of today’s great Cinderellas, the American mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato. The two have wowed audiences with their virtuoso performances in the Metropolitan Opera’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia which was broadcast live in HD to movie theaters and on PBS.

Fizzing with operatic brio, Rossini's ever-popular setting of Cinderella tells the much-loved tale through spectacular arias and irresistible ensembles. Superstar tenor Juan Diego Flórez in his signature role as the Prince, and American star Joyce DiDonato in the title role, lead an outstanding international cast in Joan Font's witty and dazzlingly colourful production - filmed 'live' at Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu.

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has gained a strong following with novel, even fearless programs, flawlessly executed. The stimulus for In War & Peace was extramusical: DiDonato temporarily shelved a different project in the wake of the terrorist attack at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. The concept is ambitious: the booklet includes quotes about finding peace from figures as varied as Patrick Stewart, Riccardo Muti, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and an inmate at New York's Sing Sing prison. Does it directly connect with DiDonato's program of Baroque arias? Listeners will have to decide for themselves, but the good news is that the program stands on its own.

The author of such classics as "Dubliners", "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", "Ulysses", "Finnegans Wake", and more, James Joyce is one of the greatest writers of all time. Known for his experimental use of language, Joyce endured controversy surrounding much of his work, including one of the most famous censorship trials in history. …