Piccinni

This is my favorite Sutherland collection. It has so much from so many periods. The bits from The French Opera Gala are beyond belief. It is some of the best coloratura she ever did and was recorded at a great part of her career. Both the Wagner and the Mozart discs were recorded when she was close to 60, which doesn't mean that much with Sutherland. Still it would have been great to have heard the Wagner recorded a decade earlier when she recorded the Turandot. She would have been better at Wagner than anyone around today. Not Nilsson or Flagstad's equal, but better by far than Voigt, who isn't bad. On the Mozart bits, a couple sound old, but the rest are as good a performance of Mozart as you are ever going to hear. Many people only like the young Sutherland, but I like the color and richness her voice developed with age.

For approaching a century and a half in France – across the reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI – the Palace of Versailles played host, both indoors and outdoors, for an extraordinary sequence of dramatic musical performances. Un Opéra pour trois rois, conducted by György Vashegyi, represents the legacy of that time, a specially constructed operatic entertainment drawn from works by composers from Lully to Gluck, commissioned – and even, on occasion, performed – by kings, their queens and inamoratas.

Frattamaggiore, 31 March 1684; d Naples, 30 Sept 1755). Italian composer. A pupil of his uncle in Naples, he also spent time in Rome and probably abroad before working as primo maestro at the Naples conservatory Poveri di Gesù Cristo, 1728-39. From 1742 he was primo maestro at's Maria di Loreto, the largest Neapolitan conservatory, and from 1745 also at StOnofrio. He was venerated as the finest composition teacher in Naples; among his pupils were Pergolesi, Anfossi and Piccinni.

In October 2007, the Centre Musical de Baroque de Versailles celebrated its 20th anniversary, together with the best French musicians around. To complete this anniversary, they now present the release of a 20-CD box with numerous musical highlights, both of the anniversary concerts as well as releases from the previous 20 years. Thanks to this jubilee box, you can now witness this landmark of French Baroque music.

Vivaldi doesn't get as much respect as his contemporaries Bach and Handel, but the ongoing Vivaldi Edition from Naïve may be changing that perception. While introducing us to many superb but little known works by the Red Priest, it is also offering new perspectives on familiar ones, such as the Gloria RV589. This recording also includes the lesser known Gloria RV588. In addition, both Glorias are prefaced by solo motets that, according to conductor Ricardo Alessandrini, were designed to "enrich" and "decorate" the main musical event–"Ostra picta" ("Crimson-hued rose") and "Jubilate, O amoeni chori" ("Rejoice, O delightful choirs")… By Paul Van de Water

Sandrine Piau and Véronique Gens have a longstanding rapport and dreamed of making a recording together. Here they pay tribute to two singers who, like them, were born within a year of each other, Mme Dugazon (1755-1821) and Mme Saint-Huberty (1756-1812): both enjoyed triumphant careers in Paris, inspiring numerous librettists and composers. Gluck even nicknamed Saint-Huberty ‘Madamela- Ressource’, while ‘a Dugazon’ became a generic name for the roles of naïve girls in love, and later of comical mothers. Rivals? They very likely were, given the quarrelsome spirit of the operatic world of the time, even if they never crossed paths on stage.

The Venice Baroque Orchestra and a fine line-up of singers present a pasticcio setting of a libretto by Metastasio, with contributions from composers including Caldara, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Hasse and Paisiello. In the eighteenth century, 1,300 years after the last Olympic Games in ancient times, the Olympic theme was highly fashionable. Many composers based operas on the libretto L'Olimpiade by Metastasio. This recording has been structured to contain all of Metastasio’s original arias; it is a pasticcio in the sense that the music is by 16 different composers amongst the many that set the libretto between 1733 and the end of the century.