Donizetti 24

Rolando Villazón as Nemorino exhibits a real gift for comic acting, manipulating his rubber face into dozens of hilarious poses, flawlessly turning stock comic gestures into laugh-out-loud moments, and even juggling apples with the panache of a circus performer. More important, he uses his lyric tenor to sing the part with impressive subtlety, suggesting Nemorino's desperation while singing of his love for Adina. His big show-stopper, "Una furtiva lagrima," features melting pianissimos and a breathtaking decrescendo in its final phrase. Netrebko's Adina is every bit as good, with deft acting and a lovely lyric soprano voice that makes you understand why she's the only girl for Nemorino.

Diana Damrau’s reputation as the world’s leading coloratura soprano has been built on her extraordinary technical virtuosity, her sensitive musicianship and her acute psychological insight. In Katie Mitchell’s sometimes radical production of Lucia di Lammermoor from the Royal Opera House, she is, as the Financial Times wrote, 'brilliantly convincing'. Award winning director Katie Mitchell took a revisionist approach to the drama, updating the action to the mid-19th century and applying a feminist slant as she added new and unexpected elements. Mitchell also made extensive use of a ‘split screen’ effect on the stage, counterpointing two different pieces of action at key moments.

This production of Anna Bolena faithfully meets the musical vision proposed by Fabio Biondi. The mise-en-scène, therefore, excludes any explicit reference to the plot’s historical time, and the events have been set at the beginning of the 1800s, when Donizetti’s opera was premièred.

Soprano Diana Damrau assumes the crowns of three different Tudor queens, the central characters in operas by Donizetti: Anne Boleyn (Anna Bolena), Mary, Queen of Scots (Maria Stuarda), and Elizabeth I (Roberto Devereux). With Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra and Chorus of Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, she performs the substantial and climactic final scene of each work. When Damrau sang Maria Stuarda at the Zurich Opera, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote: “She commands a voice that seems to have no limits. Her coloratura is stunning, her vocal range impressive, and her dynamic shadings are breath-taking. Damrau is in a class of her own.”

This blu-ray release was originally broadcast live in HD from The Met on February 7, 2009. In addition to Netrebko’s spectacular performance, Mariusz Kwiecien’s Enrico delivers theatrical truth with a matchless baritone with the luster of polished mahogany. This Met performance of director Mary Zimmerman’s “imaginative staging…and nuanced portrayals” (Times) is a tour de force of music and theatricality. Having dazzled opera audiences from St. Petersburg to L.A. as Lucia, Anna Netrebko triumphantly returns to the Metropolitan Opera in this touchstone coloratura role!

With her sensational role debut at the Vienna State Opera, superstar diva Anna Netrebko displays a performance of rare vocal and dramatic power. The Russian soprano sings the role of the unjustly accused second wife of British King Henry VIII, ‘veering between indignant fury and tender righteousness’ and demonstrating a new level of confidence in her technique with excellent ‘passagework, particularly in trills, and seamless runs even to the lowest notes’ (Opera News).

Enrico di Borgogna is a melodramma per musica that was premiered in Venice in 1818, marking Donizettis stage debut. The plot of this rarely performed opera follows a rather traditional scheme: Enrico wants to defeat the son of the villain who usurped his fathers throne and is about to marry his beloved Elisa. Fortunately, he succeeds in stopping the marriage and regaining his inheritance. This release is a world première video recording of the 2018 Donizetti Opera Festival performance, which received excellent reviews for its brilliant staging.

Dedicated by Donizetti to Rubini (the part of the protagonist was written expressly for the famous tenor), Gianni di Parigi is a delightful opera, rich in brilliant music and often very inspired, alternating pages of high virtuoso belcanto singing to others of gentler melodic effusion, already truly romantic, and reaching to the highest levels of Donizetti's comic spirit in the long articulated scene of the two buffi, justifiably the best known piece of the opera.

This selection of scenes and arias, all very familiar items, is distinguished by the imaginative accompaniments under Evelino Pidò. …here we have one of the great opera personalities of our time - it's a lovely voice, used with a formidable technique.