NEW on NAXOS the World’S Leading Classical Music Label AUGUST 2019 © Pierre Grosbois
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NEW ON NAXOS The World’s Leading Classical Music Label AUGUST 2019 © Pierre Grosbois Michael Spyres and Marion Lebègue This Month’s Other Highlights © 2019 Naxos Rights US, Inc. • Contact Us: [email protected] www.naxos.com • www.NaxosMusicGroup.com • www.NaxosMusicLibrary.com • blog.naxos.com NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2019 © Pierre Grosbois Michael Spyres and Marion Lebègue 2.110632 Charles GOUNOD (1818–1893) Playing time: 139 minutes La Nonne sanglante Picture format: NTSC 16:9 Sound format: PCM Stereo and DTS 5.1 7 47313 56325 8 (‘The Bleeding Nun’) Language: French Libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne Subtitles: French, English, German, Japanese, Korean Region code: 0 (worldwide) Vannina Santoni, Soprano • Marion Lebègue, Mezzo-soprano No. of disc/s: 1 (DVD 9) Michael Spyres, Tenor • accentus • Insula orchestra Price Code: OB Laurence Equilbey, Conductor • David Bobée, Stage Director Key Features: The plot of Gounod’s opera La Nonne sanglante (‘The Bleeding Nun’) ● Gounod’s work is unjustly forgotten after its premiere in 1854. is drawn from Matthew Lewis’s once famous 1796 novel In 2008 the opera was produced for the first time on a German The Monk. The subject is a Gothic melodrama featuring warring stage, and in 2018 had a rare Paris revival at the Opéra Comique, families, two lovers, and the vengeful spectre of the Nun, to which in commemoration of the bicentenary of the composer’s birth, Gounod responds with music that fuses Romanticism with the staged by David Bobée. supernatural on the grandest scale. This ground-breaking production features memorable set pieces enhanced by the stark drama of the ● Opera News wrote about the performance: stage setting and brilliant cinematic lighting effects. ‘The production was directed by David Bobée and conducted by Laurence Equilbey, leading her Insula orchestra of period instruments with passion and precision. There was a ALSO AVAILABLE ON ‘Hammer Horror’ quality to Bobée’s direction BLU-RAY VIDEO: of the cast; the crowd scenes were particularly NBD0097V successful, with the Accentus chorus and Playing time: 143 minutes the dancers caught in a chaotic maelstrom of Picture format: HD 16:9 cinematic movement, which had a naturalism © Julien Benhamou Sound format: PCM Stereo and DTS-HD 5.1 rarely seen on the opera stage.’ Language: French Subtitles: French, English, German, ● In praise of the cast, Opera News added: Japanese, Korean ‘Another reason for the rarity of revivals of this Region code: A, B, C opera is the demands that the score places on No. of disc/s: 1 (BD 50) the singers, particularly in the central role of Price Code: OB Rodolphe. Tenor Michael Spyres conquered the wide range of the role with disconcerting ease, combining caressing lyricism with firm heroism when required. His perfect French © capucinedechocqueuse diction and tireless commitment more than 7 8 30099 00976 warranted his triumphant reception… As the bleeding nun, mezzo Marion Lebègue had the right touch of the sepulcher in her voice while rising to defiant heights where necessary and acting with a ghostly air of glazed, eye-rolling intensity. As the Companion Titles – ill-fated Agnès – a character in a constant state of distress – the Outstanding opera productions from Naxos Audiovisual attractive soprano Vannina Santoni provided some thrilling high NEW notes on the edge of her vocal possibilities.’ Supplementary Marketing Materials: ● Key Release Kit ● Sales Sheet ● Video Trailer ● Facebook cover and post 2.110631 2.110584-85 2.110630 2.110597 (NBD0096V) (NBD0083V) (NBD0095V) (NBD0092V) 2 NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2019 8.660454-55 Playing Time: Paolo Carignani Price Code: NXP 2:14:41 7 30099 04547 6 Franco FACCIO (1840–1891) Key Features: Amleto ● This recording of Faccio’s opera produced by the Bregenz Festival is already available on audiovisual formats, so this new (‘Hamlet’) audio release will very much attract completists/connoisseurs. Libretto by Arrigo Boito Reviewing the production, The Telegraph (UK) wrote: ‘this after William Shakespeare marvellous opera, anticipating the musical language of later Iulia Maria Dan, Soprano Italian verismo composers, combines lovely musical interludes Dshamilja Kaiser, Mezzo-soprano with superb vocal writing, and under the baton of Paolo Carignani Pavel Černoch and Paul Schweinester, Tenors with the Wiener Symphoniker and Prague Philharmonic Choir Claudio Sgura, Baritone • Eduard Tsanga, Bass it carried terrific punch.’ • Prague Philharmonic Choir Wiener Symphoniker ● The title role was sung by the tenor Pavel Paolo Carignani Černoch. Opera News praised his performance: ‘The role of Amleto, as it’s billed, is demanding First performed in 1865, Amleto (‘Hamlet’) represented a radical new both dramatically and vocally, with much of the development in Italian opera, the nuovo melodramma. Composer writing parking in and above the passaggio. Franco Faccio and his librettist Arrigo Boito sought a greater degree Pavel Černoch projects the part in full, brilliant, of musical unity in staged productions and a more equal relationship ringy tones… His manic, alienated gaze and between text and music. In Hamlet, a play that many then considered hunched, stiff-armed demeanor work well for this un-operatic, they found the perfect medium through which to explore role…’ (Critic’s Choice) the work’s philosophical and dramatic power – not least the great set-piece scenes: Amleto’s soliloquy ‘Essere o non essere!’ (‘To be ● Romanian soprano Iulia Maria Dan (Ofelia) or not to be’), Ofelia’s Mad Scene and the fight scenes – in a way that graduated from the National University of Music strikingly prefigures the verismo operas yet to come. in Bucharest and made her debut at the Opera Națională București as Gilda in Rigoletto. Since About Paolo Carignani 2018 she has been a member of the Semperoper Dresden ensemble where she has appeared in Paolo Carignani conducts in many Italian opera houses and roles such as Contessa di Almaviva (Le nozze international venues such as the Wiener Staatsoper, the Staatsoper di Figaro), Micaëla (Carmen) and Musetta © Kartal Karagedik Berlin, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the (La Bohème). Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. Among his ● Arrigo Boito’s popular opera Mefistofele, available on 8.660428-49, recent engagements are Il trovatore, Falstaff, Otello, La traviata, can be promoted alongside this new release. Macbeth, Nabucco and Norma in Munich, Giovanna d’Arco at the Salzburger Festspiele, Nabucco, Tosca and Andrea Chénier in Vienna, Otello in Zurich, Tosca in Barcelona, Turandot and Carmen at the Bregenzer Festspiele, and Turandot, Carmen and La Bohème in New York. Companion Titles – Italian Operas © Jan Slavík NEW Prague Philharmonic Choir 8.660466-67 8.660248-49 8.660357-58 8.660261-62 © Andreas Balon © Wiener Symphoniker 3 NEW ON NAXOS | AUGUST 2019 WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS © Gary D Gold 8.559871 Playing Time: Price Code: NXP 58:41 David Alan Miller 6 36943 98712 4 Derek BERMEL (b. 1967) Key Features: Migrations ● Eclecticism has been an important and popular 1 2 stylistic movement in 21st-century classical Migration Series • Mar de Setembro music, and few do eclecticism as well as A Shout, a Whisper, and a Trace composer and performer Derek Bermel. He has Luciana Souza, Vocals 2 • Ted Nash, Saxophones 1 premiered and performed on four continents, Derek Bermel, Clarinet 1 • Juilliard Jazz Orchestra 1 has collaborated with an eclectic array of artists, Albany Symphony • David Alan Miller and received commissions globally. His work Voices for clarinet and orchestra was nominated © Richard Bowditch Migrations provides a generous view of Derek Bermel’s superb for a GRAMMY® Award. craftsmanship and eclectic style, in which classical forms, world music, jazz, blues and American folk music create a mix that reaches ● GRAMMY® Award winner Luciana Souza directly into the body and the heart. Commissioned by Wynton is a leading jazz singer and interpreter. Her Marsalis, Migration Series has its roots in African American music, work as a performer transcends the traditional its impeccable counterpoint and biting rhythms expressed through boundaries of musical styles, with roots in jazz, orchestration that sounds like a city coming to life. Mar de Setembro a sophisticated lineage in world music, and an was inspired by Luciana Souza’s bell-toned voice and the intense enlightened approach to new music. © Kim Fox feelings of Portuguese saudade, while A Shout, a Whisper, and ● The Juilliard Jazz Orchestra (JJO), the premier large ensemble a Trace honors Bartók’s last years in New York, referring to the for Juilliard Jazz, was founded when the program began Concerto for Orchestra as well as to jazz and Balkan music. in 2001. Led by resident conductor Jerome Jennings, the ensemble performs a wide spectrum of American jazz music, About David Alan Miller to contemporary composers including Jimmy Heath, Wynton GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller has Marsalis and Ted Nash, among many others. established a reputation as one of the leading American conductors ● The Albany Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Alan of his generation. Music director of the Albany Symphony since Miller has produced some of our most acclaimed recent American 1992, Miller has proven himself a creative and compelling orchestra Classics releases in recent years, including Daugherty’s builder. Through exploration of unusual repertoire, educational Dreamachine