Verdi & Donizetti Opera Arias with Michael Fabiano is his debut recording on Pentatone. The album also features the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Enrique Mazzola and the London Voices with Chorus Master Terry Edwards.
From my first days of study in opera, I’ve always had a deep intrigue with the era of late bel canto leading into Verdi’s works. The late bel canto era of opera (1835 and beyond) is a reckoning in time of a paradigm shift in operatic composition. The beautiful line of Bellini or crispness of Rossini gave way to the fire-laden later works of Donizetti. And it’s in this fire that Verdi’s works become even more relevant. A keen listening to Ernani and Poliuto next to each other reveals a symbiosis of sonority between the two composers. The works that Donizetti and Verdi wrote between 1835 and 1875 are of great interest to me because they reveal a drastic development in musical architecture and drama, bringing instrumentation, harmony, and layers of text and music much closer to each other than they were in decades before. My album is but a taste of this big bel canto era.
– Michael Fabiano
Tracklist
Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.Total time: 00:56:28
Additional information
| Label | |
|---|---|
| SKU | PTC5186750 |
| Qualities | |
| Channels | 2ch Stereo, 5 Channel Surround Sound, 2ch Stereo & 5ch Surround |
| Artists | |
| Composers | |
| Genres | |
| Executive Producer | Renaud Loranger |
| Conductors | |
| Instruments | |
| Original Recording Format | |
| Producer | Anna Barry |
| Recording Assistant | Louisa Clogston |
| Recording Engineer | Andreas Wolf, Jean-Marie Geijsen |
| Recording Location | Saint Jude-on-the-Hill, London, August-September 2018 |
| Recording Software | DSD 64 |
| Release Date | May 17, 2019 |
Press reviews
Forum Opera
This album dedicated to Verdi and Donizetti is the first album of the exclusive partnership sealed last July between tenor Michael Fabiano and the Pentatone label. From Poliuto and Maria di Rohan by Donizetti to the Verdian operas Oberto and Il Corsaro, the recording includes some little heard tunes including the “Sparsi bloody qual” and the original version of La Forza del Destino St. Petersburg in 1862.
The title of the album puts the two composers side by side, but the heart of the tenor is obviously towards Verdi, who is taking the lion’s share here, thus marking the will of Michael Fabiano to invest more and more. in the future the lands of the Busetto Master.
If Verdi represents for Michael Fabiano the future, Donizetti remains none the less the pedestal on which passion has become a vocation. And it is perhaps in this repertoire that the tenor best finds here the ideal balance between power and elegance.
Languorous and fiery, he gives us an Edgardo di Lucia di Lammermoor of great intelligence with the text and an equal voice over the entire length. The show knowing perfectly marry the nuances of the score with a touching lyricism. In Poliuto, he opts for a song that is both heroic and romantic. He finds the half-tones necessary for the elegance of the writing in a balance between Adolphe Nourrit, who was the intended role, and Gilbert Duprez who created it in the French version.
Under the baton of Enrique Mazzola, head of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the music is heard with an Italian but with French elegance. There is in this direction permanent jubilation which is a real listening pleasure.
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