Act 2025

The Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo continues to present early works by Donizetti that have been unjustly neglected for decades. Alfredo il Grande, a love story that explores the defeat of the invading Danish army by the victorious Britons, was first performed in 1823 and was revived in this production two centuries later. Skilfully orchestrated, it features memorable arias for the hero Alfredo, and includes a superb concluding rondo for the heroine Amalia, as well as a radiant quintet. The opera is heard here in Edoardo Cavalli’s 2021 critical edition. Gramophone called it ‘a vocally accomplished performance’ and ‘a fine revival’.

In 1674, Lully and Quinault unveiled a new collaboration: Alceste, a tragedie en musique combining the dramatic power of the Greek myth from which it was inspired with the musical richness of the French Baroque. Despite criticism from the rivals of Lully and Quinault, this opera seduced the court of Louis XIV, reinforcing the new genre of the tragedie en musique. Stephane Fuget explores a world where love, sacrifice and duty intertwine, supported by sumptuous arias and choruses of unprecedented expressivity, sublimely performed by Les Epopees and the Choeur de l'Opera Royal.

Régine Crespin Notwithstanding her great success in the German repertory, Régine Crespin was quintessentially a French artist. With an unmistakable sensuality betraying her origins in Mediterranean France, she was guided by an unfailing sense of elegance. Whether as Kundry, the Marschallin, Carmen, Didon, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, or Sieglinde, her large, lush voice was deployed with refined abandon. Her top register, powerful and soaring when it was working as the singer wished, sometimes emerged congested, as tones that began as clarion would cloud over and lose their cutting edge. As it became increasingly problematic, Crespin looked toward roles only equivocally soprano, where she could rely on the luxurious amplitude of her middle and lower registers. Her Carmen, presented at the Metropolitan Opera in 1975 after a period of vocal restudy and a loss of weight, was distinctive for its subtle danger and meticulous delivery of text and vocal line. Following studies at the Paris Conservatoire with Georges Jouatte and celebrated bass Paul Cabanel, Crespin made her debut in 1950 singing Elsa at Mulhouse. In August of that same year, she appeared for the first time at the Paris Opéra, the role once again being Elsa.

The Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo continues to present early works by Donizetti that have been unjustly neglected for decades. Alfredo il Grande, a love story that explores the defeat of the invading Danish army by the victorious Britons, was first performed in 1823 and was revived in this production two centuries later. Skilfully orchestrated, it features memorable arias for the hero Alfredo, and includes a superb concluding rondo for the heroine Amalia, as well as a radiant quintet. The opera is heard here in Edoardo Cavalli’s 2021 critical edition. Gramophone called it ‘a vocally accomplished performance’ and ‘a fine revival’.

In 1674, Lully and Quinault unveiled a new collaboration: Alceste, a tragedie en musique combining the dramatic power of the Greek myth from which it was inspired with the musical richness of the French Baroque. Despite criticism from the rivals of Lully and Quinault, this opera seduced the court of Louis XIV, reinforcing the new genre of the tragedie en musique. Stephane Fuget explores a world where love, sacrifice and duty intertwine, supported by sumptuous arias and choruses of unprecedented expressivity, sublimely performed by Les Epopees and the Choeur de l'Opera Royal.

Chilean-American tenor Jonathan Tetelman and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Musical Director Daniel Harding announce their upcoming album, on which they are joined by an array of performers to present Puccini’s operatic thriller Tosca.

Jenůfa is pregnant, but she isn't married. In her isolated mountain village this means disgrace, or even death. The composer pondered his characters' predicament for many years. The opera he eventually completed is a blazing vision of human suffering and redemption, rooted in the rhythms of everyday life. Jenůfa brings together a remarkable cast, including Agneta Eichenholz's heartbreaking portrayal of a vulnerable young woman and Katarina Karnéus' achingly powerful Kostelnička. The third in a series of Janáček operas presented by Conductor Emeritus Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO, this next installment follows the critically acclaimed Katya Kabanova, released in 2024, and The Cunning Little Vixen, released in 2020.

Acknowledged as a definitive model of Italian Romantic melodrama, Lucia di Lammermoor was one of Donizetti’s greatest triumphs, and its popularity led him to produce a French version for Parisian audiences. Lucie de Lammermoor became the ‘other Lucia’, with the opera’s tragic tale of feuding families and doomed romance modified in a way that deepens the characters and makes it an even more brutal and emotional theatrical experience than the original. This new Lucie de Lammermoor made its debut in 1839 with enormous success, becoming a cornerstone of French culture.

Two traditions coalesce in Casanova e l’Albertolli (1937), the third of the four operas by the Swiss late-Romantic composer Richard Flury (1896–1967): Italian bel canto and the Swiss Festspiel – high art and popular culture. Styled a ‘Commedia lirica’, it invests the comic intrigue onstage with sweeping melodies of Puccinian richness, combining them with choruses based on Ticino folksong – it even has a yodelling chorus – in an engaging hybrid that deserves to be far better known. At the end, of course, evil is banished and love rewarded, but the entire score is dappled with happy inspirations that will bring a smile to the listener’s lips.

These two ballets reveal a specific facet of Stravinsky’s genius, his skill in pastiche. Having used music from eighteenth-century Naples for Pulcinella, he turned to Tchaikovsky for Le Baiser de la fée.On both occasions, he succeeded in transforming the exercise of homage into a highly personal work.Stravinsky had a special artistic affinity with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which amply repays the debt with this new recording.