Tali je ne Sais Quoi

Another French obscurity from the 70's by a band relatively unknown to the public. MEMORIANCE existed and recorded between mid-70's and early-80's,having two full-length albums and two singles on their backs…

Werther is one of Rolando Villazón's signature roles and it's easy to see why; he brings both intensity and vulnerable sensitivity to the part of the anguished poet, and he's a terrifically nuanced singing actor. All of the elements of the live 2011 performance from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in fact, are so strong that this recording easily takes a place among the most effective and affecting accounts of the opera. Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House, draws impassioned playing and sumptuous, sensual tone from the orchestra. The group responds beautifully to Pappano's subtly inflected and dramatically charged vision of the score.

With a world-beating roster of exclusive opera singers including Luciano Pavarotti, Cecilia Bartoli, Renee Fleming and Joan Sutherland, Decca Classics has always invested infinite energy and enormous care on its productions, blending the greatest casts with experienced opera orchestras and great conductors. The result of this mix of world-beating artists, unrivalled technical skill and know-how is an opera catalogue of matchless artistry and superb sound, garlanded with award around the world.

Hard on the heels of a triumphant Lohengrin, Decca follows up with an equally astonishing debut performance from Jonas Kaufmann: Goethe’s love-lorn hero Werther, in Massenet’s romantic opera. His premiere appearance in the role, in Paris in January 2010, took the French operatic world by storm, his performance being hailed by Le Monde: “Werther is portrayed by the tenor of the moment, the German Jonas Kaufmann. He brings to the part a sublime timbre (warm, at times “baritonal” and musky), exceptional musicality, a very wide palette of tonal shadings and immaculate diction. Add to that his histrionic gifts and matinée-idol appeal and you’ve got a cocktail of qualities that rarely all come together at the opera.”