Opera Legros 2024

This production of Massenet's dramatic Werther features four artists making their long-anticipated Houston debuts.

In 2022, Ngaiire and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra gave a sold-out performance on the Forecourt of the Sydney Opera House as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations, with thousands of people captivated by this extraordinary performer. For the first time ever, the recording of this magnificent concert will be available to own on vinyl and CD.

Born and raised in Vienna, Josef Krips trained as a choirboy and studied with Felix Weingartner, who then hired him as a repetiteur at the Volksoper.

Born and raised in Vienna, Josef Krips trained as a choirboy and studied with Felix Weingartner, who then hired him as a repetiteur at the Volksoper. He his debut there in 1921, before graduating to the Vienna State Opera in 1933. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was Krips above all who reformed and re-trained the State Opera as a world-class ensemble, and in the most difficult conditions. His pragmatism and understated authority made him a model recording conductor, and Decca hired him to work with orchestras in several of their centres of activity.

The 16th-century composer, Cypriana Bazylik, was born in Sieradz, an important commercial and cultural center at that time. He composed only for a short period of his life, when he was employed in the court band of Prince Mikołaj Radziwiłł in Vilnius. Several of his songs and several psalms have survived and are included on this CD. The music, masterfully presented by the Ensemble Jericho vocal group, is largely an original adaptation of the musicologist and organist Bartosz Izbicki - voices, new harmonies, and sometimes changed rhythmic formulas have been added.

Wagner's genius is often associated with his unique sense of orchestration. These transcriptions and paraphrases for piano reveal the beauty and boldness of his harmonic language, whose suggestive power was unparalleled at the time. With Nikolai Lugansky, who is both narrator and virtuoso here, the listener is immersed in a world of legends where heroes - with sublimity - tell of human torments and longings.

This new recording by Matteo Cicchitti and his ensemble Musica Elegentia is devoted to Michele Mascitti, a Baroque composer who, already in his time, was particularly esteemed and rightly considered a major testimonial of Italian instrumental music in France in the 18th century. In particular, this world premiere recording of his Triosonatas op. 1, published in Paris in 1704, spotlights the composer's attempt to recall the tradition of the Corellian sonata, while complying with the French 'gout' of the dedicatee, the Duke d'Orléans.

Nikolo Kotzev's Nostradamus is a rock opera in three acts written by Nikolo Kotzev about the life and times of Nostradamus. It was released in a 2-CD set in 2001; it has been performed live for the first time in Ruse, Bulgaria, on November 18 and 19, 2016. Several members of Kotzev's main project, Brazen Abbot, also appear on this album.

The French potpourri overture of the 19th century was often frowned upon in the 20th century, as it was said to be merely a series of melodies from the following work. However, Neeme Järvi and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra prove with their recording that this can be very effective if the pieces are played with virtuosity and verve.

To celebrate the 225th anniversary of Gaetano Donizetti’s birth, Opera Rara has restored L’esule di Roma (1828), an opera which is considered a milestone in the composer’s illustrious career.