In the imposing Arena di Verona, soprano Sonya Yoncheva and tenor Vittorio Grigolo present with dramatic and passionate synergy an evening of the most beautiful operatic love arias and duets in opera history. Passion that burns, consumes and sometimes kills is the central theme of this concert including arias from Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod as well as from Puccini´s Tosca, La bohème, Madama Butterfly and Verdi´s La traviata, all conducted by Plácido Domingo. Sonya Yoncheva has the full and vibrant timbre of a true lyrical soprano while Vittorio Grigolo, like Cavaradossi and Rodolfo, plays the cards of ardor and passion, with sweet and affectionate colors. An overall successful evening.

In the imposing Arena di Verona, soprano Sonya Yoncheva and tenor Vittorio Grigolo present with dramatic and passionate synergy an evening of the most beautiful operatic love arias and duets in opera history. Passion that burns, consumes and sometimes kills is the central theme of this concert including arias from Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod as well as from Puccini´s Tosca, La bohème, Madama Butterfly and Verdi´s La traviata, all conducted by Plácido Domingo. Sonya Yoncheva has the full and vibrant timbre of a true lyrical soprano while Vittorio Grigolo, like Cavaradossi and Rodolfo, plays the cards of ardor and passion, with sweet and affectionate colors. An overall successful evening.

It is good to have this uninhibitedly tuneful setting of the mass back in the catalogue, particularly in this warm and energetic Parisian performance. Gounod here in almost every section presents melodies that to us today have a hint of hit tunes, particularly the brash theme that underpins the "Credo" (which later returns Cut La forza) and the deliciously inappropriate tune for "Agnus Dei". The fact that vulgarity is only just avoided somehow adds to the attractions, and certainly no Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiast should miss hearing the work. The performance is even more enjoyable than I had remembered with excellent work from the soloists as well as the choir.

Callas’s only operatic appearances in Germany were Lucia di Lammermoor, with Karajan conducting, in Berlin in 1955, and La sonnambula in Cologne in 1957, but in both 1959 and 1962 she made concert tours of the country, visiting Hamburg twice. The video recordings of her concerts in the city showcase her in a dazzling variety of Italian and French repertoire for both soprano and mezzo-soprano: three consisting Verdi roles (Lady Macbeth, Elvira from Ernani and Elisabetta from Don Carlo); Imogene from Bellini’s Il pirate; Giulia from La vestale; Chimѐne from Massenet’s Le Cid; Verdi’s most explosively dramatic aria for mezzo-soprano—Eboli’s ‘O don fatale’ from Don Carlo; Carmen’s seductive Habanera and Séguedille and, from Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Angelina’s final rondo, which magically combines modest charm and sparkling virtuosity.

The production and video direction are by British film-maker Ken Russell who puts his own stamp on the production. Russell told an interviewer he felt the plot was "silly" so he turned Marguerite into a young nun, eliminated the Walpurgis Night ballet, had Marguerite use sign-language for Valentin's deaf-mute children, and had Mephistopheles disrespectfully urinating in the stoup in church. However, the overall effect is visually engrossing, the vivid sets and costumes by Karl Toms are effective. And the singing is outstanding.

Double Tony Award winning stage director Desmond McAnuff s production, hailed by the New York Times as rich with ideas and theatrically daring , presents Faust as an atomic scientist inhabiting a dark world shot through with Cold War resonances. Alongside Kaufmann, a typically gold-standard Met cast includes the phenomenal René Pape as Méphistophélès and the ideally-suited Marina Poplavskaya as Marguerite. Star conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin draws an elegant, darkly textured performance from the Metropolitan Opera orchestra.

Praised for his “smooth, rich and sweet sound and impeccable virtuosity”, guitarist Thibaut Garcia releases his second album on Erato, a recital of works composed and inspired by Johann Sebastian S Bach.
“Bach has been part of my life as a musician since the very start,” he says. Taking Bach’s mighty Chaconne as his centrepiece, he ranges wide: from Gounod’s much-loved ‘Ave Maria’ and Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras No 5 to music by Agustín Barrios Mangoré, Alexandre Tansman and the contemporary Serbian-American composer Dušan Bogdanović.

If your ideal vocal recording places the performer next to your seat and your ideal vocal performance has the performer singing directly into your ear, this disc by mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená will be just about ideal. No matter what the repertoire – and Kozená performs everything from Bach to Gounod to Shostakovich – and no matter what the context – and Kozená takes on everything from song to opera to oratorio – Kozená is right next to the listener, singing straight into his/her ear. Given her exceedingly warm tone, her extremely rich delivery, and her extraordinarily sibilant pronunciation, Kozená's intimate delivery may be too much for those with heart conditions or those all too easily affected by singers. But for those made of sterner stuff, Kozená's performances here will be the stuff dreams are made of.

Having dazzled us with her coloratura ability in arias by Mozart, Gluck, and her fellow Czech, Myslivecek, this luscious young mezzo-soprano now offers us a generous program of French arias–15 of them, widely varied in tone, weight, dramatic intent, and style–and conquers and convinces in them all. Beginning again in coloratura territory, an aria from Auber's rare Le domino noir catches our attention with the heroine's opening words, "Je suis sauvée enfin!" ("I am safe at last!"), in which she paints the picture of our out-of-breath heroine immediately.

French Touch is soprano Petibon's 2003 release which features the works of such French composers for example Delibes, Massenet and Offenbach to mention a few. Petibon sings with much enthusiasm and joy which makes it a very enjoyable recording. Yves Abel leads the national orchestra and choir of Lyon. On track she sings duet with mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes.

This is a beautiful anthology of sacred liturgical music. Chung coordinates his forces in larger choral pieces with power and vertical balance. Contributions by Cecilia Bartoli find the mezzo in top form, and Bryn Terfel brings charismatic presence to “Pie Jesu” from the Fauré Requiem. Also included are the interminable "Song for Athene" by John Taverner and a great performance by Andrea Bocelli in Eric Levi's hymn for the world, "I Believe".

After Polyeucte (1878), Gounod tackled the operatic genre for the last time in 1881 with what is probably his most ambitious work, Le Tribut de Zamora. The action takes place in ninth-century Spain – from Act Two onwards, on ‘a picturesque site on the banks of the Guadalquivir before Córdoba’. Here Gounod – finally noted more for his neoclassical pastiches (Le Médecin malgré lui and Cinq-Mars) and his ardent Romanticism (Faust and Roméo et Juliette) – was given an opportunity to display his talents as an orchestrator and colourist in an exotic setting. He produced an epic in the tradition of French grand opéra, with numerous ensembles and showpiece airs. Despite an unequivocal success on its first run, despite the stirring national anthem ‘Debout! Enfants de l’Ibérie’, Le Tribut de Zamora sank into oblivion within a few short years. We can now appreciate in this opera precisely what certain detractors complained of at the time: the fact that we meet here once again the irresistible lyricism of Faust and Roméo et Juliette.

Volume 23 in the Hyperion Liszt series validates Liszt's phenomenal mastery of transcribing, and in the case of Berlioz's "Harold in Italy," translating an orchestral work with viola obbligato into a magnificent chamber work for piano and viola. The excellent content of Berlioz's work alone can easily earn five stars, but the other three substantial transcriptions of Gounod and Meyerbeer enhance the splendor of this recording even further.

The Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg is one of the most prestigious opera and ballet venues in the world. Built in 1860 and named in honour of Maria Alexandrovna of Hesse-Darmstadt, wife of Czar Alexander II, it is home to the famous Mariinsky Ballet as well as numerous international stars and ensembles. After the turn of the millennium it was painstakingly restored; and since 2013, St. Petersburg's Theatre Square has been crowned with the "Mariinsky II" an imposing new arts and performance venue. At its inauguration on May 2, 2013, the highly gifted conductor Valery Gergiev led a veritable who's who of the classical music world.

The masterpiece of French opera – Gounod’s ‘Faust‘ – still has surprises in store for us. Originally conceived in the spirit of opéra-comique, the 1859 score alternated between spoken dialogue and music, intermingling witty comedy and Romantic pathos. It is that ‘first Faust’ that the Palazzetto Bru Zane reveals in this recording, and particularly the many numbers that were subsequently deleted or altered.