Real Traviata

Norah Amsellem as Violetta leads a cast of outstanding talent in Pier Luigi Pizzi’s beautiful production filmed with High Definition cameras and recorded in multi-track surround sound. Jesus Lopez Cobos conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Real (Madrid Symphony Orchestra and Chorus) in an acclaimed reading of one of Verdi’s greatest works.

This new Traviata belongs near the top of the fine recorded versions of the opera despite a serious vocal problem in the middle. The great news is in the casting of the two lovers: Rolando Villazon's Alfredo is just about perfect. He sings with handsome, shaded tone, great attention to the text–his anger feels as real as his grief and passion–and absolute freedom throughout the range.

With this new production of La traviata at the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival, Natalie Dessay made her first European appearances as Verdi’s Violetta, a pinnacle of the soprano repertoire. She made her debut in the role in 2009 at the Santa Fe Festival in the US, and subsequently sang Violetta in Japan. Dessay’s 2011-12 season will include La traviata at the Vienna State Opera (in this Aix-en-Provence production by French theatre and opera director Jean-François Sivadier) and the New York Metropolitan.

Mula is blessed with superb poise and wonderful assurance together with a tremendous ability to emotionally affect the listener.
Lyric-coloratura soprano Inva Mula has released an alluring recital of French and Italian arias for the Virgin Classics label. ‘Courtesan’ might be a more appropriate title for the disc as by my reckoning four of the heroine roles operate in that profession.
– Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

Baritone Simon Keenlyside is a rarity in an era of focus on specific repertoires: a real operatic generalist whose interests and expertise range from the very earliest – L'Orfeo – to the newest – premieres of Adès' The Tempest and Maazel's 1984. Tales of Opera is limited to just a fraction of that span, from the late eighteenth to the very early twentieth centuries. The album's focus on the standard repertoire seems geared to bringing Keenlyside, whose discography, which, with a few exceptions, is weighted toward less familiar works, to the attention of the traditional opera lover.

Gheorghe Zamfir is a Romanian musician, known as "The Master of the Pan Flute", a leading figure within the history of international pan flute music. Zamfir is known for playing an expanded version of the traditional Romanian-style pan flute (nai).