Collection The Heritage of Monteverdi Whether they played violin, cornet, harpsichord or theorbo, Italian musicians of great renown called Buonamente, Castello, Pesenti and Ferro crossed the Alps to take up much-coveted posts at the courts of Emperors Ferdinand I and II. Their splendid music surged forth, blending the blaze of the brass with the sweetness of the strings in an unceasing tourney of virtuosity and emotions depicted in sound. A major rediscovery of this music as an instrumental prelude to the first madrigal of Monteverdis 8th Book, which ends this new recording of La Fenice.
As is now customary, the first part of the 2012 New Year‘s Concert from Teatro La Fenice is exclusively orchestral, with “Symphony No.5” by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The second part, with soloists Jessica Pratt, Walter Fraccaro and Alex Esposito as well as the choir, is dedicated to melodrama, ending with the traditional chorus “Va pensiero” from “Nabucco” and the toast “Libiam ne lieti calici” from “La Traviata” by Giuseppe Verdi…
ECM continues the series of Keith Jarrett's live archival recordings with La Fenice. The recital occurred in 2006 at the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice, some four years after the pianist had resumed performing solo following his recovery from a long illness. Given that these outings are all spontaneously improvised, it stands to reason that no two are alike, from the spacious and lyrical Koln Concert from 1975 through the 1995's transcendent La Scala, through 2017's kaleidoscopic four-disc release of A Multitude of Angels, captured in four cities on a tour of Italy some 20 months after La Scala. Interestingly, the La Fenice show took place some ten months after Jarrett's triumphant July 2005 Carnegie Hall Concert.
Italian alchemists and power trio Ufomammut return with their ninth studio album, Fenice via Neurot Recordings.
But not as we’ve heard them before, now “more intimate, more free.”
For over 20 years, the band has combined the heaviness and majesty of dynamic riff worship with a nuanced understanding of psychedelic tradition and history in music, creating a cosmic, futuristic, and technicolor sound destined for absolute immersion.
Fenice (meaning Phoenix in Italian) symbolically represents endless rebirth and the ability to start again after everything seems doomed. The album is the first recording with new drummer Levre, and truly marks a new chapter in Ufomammut history.
Whilst the band are well-known for their psychedelic travels into the far reaches of the cosmos, Fenice is a much more introspective listening experience. Fenice was conceived as a single concept track, divided in six facets of this inward-facing focus. Sonic experimentations abound in the exploration of this central theme; synths and experimental vocal effects are featured more prominently than ever before as the band push themselves ever further into the uncharted territory of their very identity.
When it comes to Mozartian perfection on the opera stage, one needn’t always seek it in Milan, Vienna, Salzburg or New York! At the Sferisterio Opera Festival in the centralltalian city of Macerata, a rapt audience was treated to a production of Don Giovanni ..that will enter the annals of opera (ForumOpera.com). This magnificent reading of Mozart’s timeless masterpiece sweeps the viewer into a libertine, 1B’h-century society dominated by sensuality and erotic impulses. They are acted out on the stage’s main prop, a large, unmade bed, not only by Don Giovanni, but also by justabout everyone eise in the .. nearly faultless cast” (ForumOpera.com). ln his role debut as the title hero, lldebrando D’Arcangelo is .. incandescent” (Gazzetta di Parma) and “doesn’t do Don Giovanni; he is the Don. Unsurpassable” (24 Ore).
There's little doubt that to have heard Sutherland in 1961 must have been really something. It was the year she found New York, and New York found her. This recording, along with the live recording of her early 1961 New York debut in Beatrice di Tenda are legendary moments. Both are concert performances, conducted by Nicola Rescigno.
This Sonnambula was in Carnegie Hall in December and just after her Met debut. The voice is astonishing. The 'Ah, non guinge' is sung with almost wild abandon, absolutely thrilling, and was described the next day by Harold Schonberg as "flawlessly performed pyrotechnics".
Here we have the first recording of Handel's final Italian opera with a period instrument orchestra, chorus and a superb American cast. Deidamia was Handel's last opera. He began work on it in October, 1740, at the same time he was completing its companion work, Imeneo, which he had begun two years earlier. On November 8, Handel presented his London winter season - with some new works, some revivals - and for this purpose had engaged the Theatre Royal at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Opening night saw a semi-staged version of the serenata Il Parnasso in festa; later in the month came the premiere of Imeneo. Despite a superb score and fine cast, the production was a failure and was offered only once again in early December. The fact is that opera - Italian opera - was passe in London by this time. The public had turned to other musical delights - stage works in English of a more frivolous nature than Handel's offerings.