"Lava", "La Diva", "Bel Canto" - these are the names of some of Simone Kermes' highly praised and successful albums. Their new album "Inferno e Paradiso" is thematically about "Heaven and Hell" about "Virtues and Deadly Sins" - musically illustrated with 14 titles from four centuries from baroque to rock, from Bach to Sting, from Vivaldi to Led Zeppelin.

With more than a million copies sold, the soundtrack of Gérard Corbiau's film 'Farinelli' contributed considerably to the international renown of Les Talens Lyriques, in 1994. Back then the voice of the castrato Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli (1705-1782), was created using a computer to mix the voices of countertenor Derek Lee Ragin and soprano Ewa Mallas-Godlewska. On stage, in 2011, rather than a falsettist, world-renowned mezzo Ann Hallenberg, was chosen by Christophe Rousset to portray the first rock star in the history of music.

Renowned for portraying the music of the baroque like no one else, Cecilia Bartoli presents her new recording of arias famously performed by legendary castrato, Farinelli. Exploring the complex gender roles of the world of baroque opera, and highlighting the phenomenon of the castrati, a horrifying practice which led to some of the most celebrated work of the period. Featuring works by Farinelli’s brother, Riccardo Broschi, and his mentor, Nicola Porpora, as well as Hasse, Caldara and Giacomelli. Including two new world premiere recordings, from Porpora’s Polifemo and Broschi’s La Merope.

Concerto Köln – the silver-toned Rolls-Royce of period ensembles – handles this journey with suave style and flawless control…Valer Sabadus makes for a refined Farinelli, and where his smoky voice lacks in power, it gains in agility. He breezes through the coloratura arias, with their virtuoso roulades and vertiginous leaps…He really shines, though, in the more intimate arias.

Rokoko is Croatian counter tenor Max Emanuel Cencic's 2014 release on Decca, in which he explores the elaborate and emotionally stirring arias of Johann Adolf Hasse, one of the neglected masters of 18th century opera. These 11 vocal selections reflect the popular taste of the period, oriented as it was to the extraordinary abilities of the great castrati. Supported by George Petrou and the period instruments group Armonia Atenea, which plays with authentic rococo sonorities, rhythmic vigor, and precision, Cencic displays astonishing virtuosity and power in the arias taken from Hasse's long forgotten operas, Arminio, Il Siroe, Tito Vespasiano, L'Olimpiade, Ipermestra, Il Trionfo di Clelia, La Spartana Generosa, and Tigrane, as well as an aria from the oratorio, Il Cantico de’ Tre Fanciulli.

Decca’s new release brings together five of the world’s most renowned countertenors, who bring the rich world of baroque opera to life. Once rarely heard, countertenors are now firmly established on the operatic stage and concert platform and their popularity has reached an all-time high. This album features virtuosic highlights from baroque opera and showcases the extraordinary abilities of five astonishing artists: Max Emanuel Cencic, Yuriy Mynenko, Valer Sabadus, Xavier Sabata and Vince Yi.

Sacred music written for female singers and instrumentalists of the Ospedali became celebrated during the 18th century. This unique musical tradition became widely famous largely through the works of such notable composers as Vivaldi, Hasse, Porpora and Galuppi, who were active as teachers at the four "Ospedali grandi".

Recording an album of arias written expressly for Farinelli, one of the most legendary castratos of the eighteenth century, is brave; his name invokes a world of superhuman vocal feats, remarkable pathos, and a uniquely strong and brilliant tone that, for obvious anatomical reasons, will not be replicated by modern singers. But that clearly does not scare Vivica Genaux who, along with René Jacobs and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, dives into Farinelli's repertory as if it were her very own. She reveals a voice capable of dizzying speed and agility, and a refreshing ability to find in the highly ornamented, expression-through-excess style that typified opera seria of the time a sincerity and musical integrity that makes a case for its wider exploration.

Known for her idiosyncratic performances of baroque repertoire and eccentric personal style, the German coloratura soprano Simone Kermes trained in her native Leipzig, with early successes including the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. Bach has not, however, figured prominently in her career since then – Kermes gravitated towards Vivaldi, Handel and the Neapolitan composers who wrote for the great castrati, such as Riccardo Broschi, Alessandro Scarlatti and Porpora. (She has recorded several solo albums of such repertoire for Sony, including Dramma, and Colori d’Amore – reviewing the latter, BBC Music Magazine described her as ‘a remarkable artist, charming, fascinating and boldly risk-taking by turns’).

Following the trend of singers releasing recitals based on the repertoire of great performers of previous centuries – Cecilia Bartoli's tribute to Maria Malibran and Juan Diego Flórez's to Giovanni Battista Rubini, for instance – countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has devoted a CD to the repertoire of eighteenth century castrato Giovanni Carestini, who was a rival of Farinelli's. According to contemporary accounts, Farinelli was the more virtuosic of the two, with a hair-raisingly dazzling coloratura, and Carestini was noted for the beauty and purity of his tone, and his profound musical and dramatic characterizations. The demands of the arias collected here make it clear that Carestini must also have had a fully developed technique, because they require remarkable agility and an awe-inspiring range that essentially encompasses both soprano and contralto registers, as well as great interpretive sensitivity.

Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Mary-Ellen Nesi presents thirteen arias most of them recorded here for the first time inspired by ten Greek female archetypes. George Petrou and the brilliant Armonia Atenea add fire to this exciting collection of 18th-century masterpieces. MDG listeners will be familiar with Mary-Ellen Nesi from several outstanding Handel recordings. In her most recent recital the acclaimed mezzo-soprano turns to dramatic roles from Baroque and classical operas.

The Venice Baroque Orchestra and a fine line-up of singers present a pasticcio setting of a libretto by Metastasio, with contributions from composers including Caldara, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Hasse and Paisiello. In the eighteenth century, 1,300 years after the last Olympic Games in ancient times, the Olympic theme was highly fashionable. Many composers based operas on the libretto L'Olimpiade by Metastasio. This recording has been structured to contain all of Metastasio’s original arias; it is a pasticcio in the sense that the music is by 16 different composers amongst the many that set the libretto between 1733 and the end of the century.

This 3CD box unites three recitals that showcase the virtuosity, elegance and expressivity of mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux. Together, the programmes, recorded between 2003 and 2009, offer a survey of the repertoire that has figured most strongly in Genaux’s career – music from the 18th and early 19th centuries by Vivaldi, Handel, Hasse, Rossini and Donizetti. The spectacular recital of arias by Vivaldi, ‘Pyrotechnics’ was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2010.

The rediscovery of the almost forgotten opera seria repertory of the 18th century has led to spectacular aria recitals by stars as big as Renée Fleming as well as a host of European and American specialists. Recordings of entire operas, other than those by Handel, have been a good deal rarer; even Vivaldi hasn't really gotten his due. Now comes this major-label release of an opera by Johann Adolf Hasse, a German composer who conquered Italy (they called him "Il Caro Sassone," the dear Saxon) and married one of the leading sopranos of the age, Faustina Bordoni. Siroe is an adapation of a story also set by Handel, in a slightly different version; the libretto here is by Pietro Metastasio, despite his cancer-evoking name the most famous operatic dramatist of the century.

An invitation to the intimate setting of an Austrian or Italian Court at the beginning of the XVIIIth century.
Contrasting voices and instruments performing as a solo or together will compete with charm and impetuosity to conjure up the vivacity and the beauty of the Italian music at the time. In the early years of the 18th century the mandolin was an integral part of the Baroque musical scene. As such, it is found in a hundred or so operas.