Ralph P. Locke
A delightful recording — and the first ever! — of arias from Hasse’s and Gluck’s operas about Tigranes and Cleopatra of Pontus. Plus four arias by Vivaldi for that same Cleopatra.
Read MoreCross-gender disguises and comic banter liven up the melodrama in this presentation of Antonio Cesti’s famous opera, thanks to a spirited and virtuosic traversal by a mostly Italian cast.
Read MoreThe composer of Les huguenots and L’Africaine was already an accomplished master at age 26, as this first-rate recording reveals.
Read MoreAt this point in his career, Mayr is contributing to the development of the musicodramatic conventions that would set the stage for the masterpieces of Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi.
Read MoreAttention is being paid today to talented composers who have been sidelined or disdained because of their race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Reynaldo Hahn qualifies on several counts.
Read MoreJust in time for Passover: another fine world-premiere Rossini recording, the 1827 French version of his Moses-in-Egypt opera.
Read MorePerformed 1600 times in Paris, then forgotten, Hérold’s brilliantly witty, Le pré aux clercs shines again in a splendid recording.
Read MoreThe world-premiere recording of a first rate production of a brilliant, fantastical opera, unstaged and unheard since 1914.
Read MoreThis splendid world-premiere recording proves that, as an opera composer, Johann Simon Mayr had “the whole package.”
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