1.- SALIERI: Cublai, gran Khan dei Tartari – “Fra I barbari sospetti”
2.- RIGHINI: Il natal d’Apollo – “Ove son? Qual’aure io spiro”
3.- SALIERI: L’europa riconosciuta – “Numi, respiro”
4.- RIGHINI: Il natal d’Apollo – “Ombra dolente”
5.- MOZART: Magic Flute – “O zittre nicht”
6.- MOZART: Magic Flute – “De Holle Rache”
7.- SALIERI: Cublai, gran Khan dei Tartari – D’un insultante orgoglio”
8.- MOZART: Lucia Silla – “In un instante”
9.- SALIERI: Der Rauchfangkehrer – “Basta, vincesti”
10.- SALIERI: Semiramide – “Sento l’amica speme”
11.- MOZART: “Basta, vincesti”
12.- SALIERI: L’europa riconosciuta – “Quando piu irato freme”
13.- SALIERI: La finta scema: “Se spiegar potessi appieno”

Diana Damrau – soprano
Le Cercle de l'Harmonie (Ensemble)
Patrick Beaugiraud – oboe
Alexis Kossenko – flute
Jani Sunnarborg, Peter Whelan – bassoon
Thomas de Pierrefeu – double-bass
Jérémie Rhorer – conductor

I know Diana Damrau’s voice from a couple of complete recordings. With this background I expected pinpoint accuracy, easy delivery, beautiful but fairly thin tone with some edge to it, well controlled vibrato, expressive readings and good enunciation. I got what I expected on this recital – as far as I know her first solo disc. This is highly accomplished music-making, technically infallible and engaging.

The title of the disc “Arie di bravura” is certainly apt since every piece is a demonstration of stunning vocal fireworks, but this doesn’t imply that the music is musically vacuous. What is more the selection we are offered is mostly un-hackneyed. Even the Mozart items, apart from the Queen of the Night arias, are far from standard. When it comes to Salieri he is probably better known, not least through the film Amadeus, for his part as a rival and once supposed murderer of Mozart than for his music. Righini may not even be a name to some readers. Much of this music has been collecting dust in archives for more than 200 years. Diana Damrau says in the booklet that when she was searching material for this disc she “was provided with around 50 kg of illegible handwritten orchestral scores of masterpieces that had never or rarely been performed”.

I agree with her that this is highly attractive music and it is a shame that it has been hidden away for so long. Salieri’s music has been performed and recorded before, even complete operas. I have a Falstaff by him that may not be his masterpiece but it has a great deal to offer. It is well-crafted music and inspired too. But the two Righini arias were the real finds, especially the second of them (tr. 4), which is an evocative piece with sparse ‘minimalist’ accompaniment, over which the soloist sails in weightless cantilenas, expressing longing for death.

I mentioned Ms Damrau’s expressiveness and in the two arias from Die Zauberflöte - music that I have heard an infinite number of times - she made me listen anew. She creates a touching portrait of this evil but basically unhappy woman, and even manages to avoid making a show of the stratospheric excursions.

I believe that Salieri had the great misfortune to be contemporaneous with Mozart and thus unfavourably compared to the younger composer. Time and again on this disc one registers how good he was, D’un insulante orgoglio from Cublai, gran Khan dei Tartari (tr. 7) perhaps the best example. It is a two part aria, starting dramatically with a slow and lyrical second part. Even Mozart would have been proud to have written a piece like this. His aria from Der Rauchfangkehrer, a setting of a Metastasio text, is both beautiful and evocative. Interestingly Mozart set the same test in his concert aria K295a, which is also included on this disc and invites comparison. Like so many of his concert arias this is marvellous music and the only reason why these pieces are not well known is the fact that they are concert arias with no known connection to a story. Most of us are unaware of his early opera Lucio Silla, but we instinctively feel that this is dramatically effective music, written by a 16-year-old! It too is littered with coloratura.

The last two Salieri arias are also virtuoso pieces of the highest order, leaving the listener breathless and wondering how Diana Damrau can sing them without losing her breath.

The orchestra, playing on period instruments, was new to me. Their playing is spirited and assured and together recording engineer, orchestra, conductor and singer have made a disc that is superb in all respects. There is a good essay, Prima la voce, on the music and full texts and translations are included. ---Göran Forsling, musicweb-international.com

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1.Stornello (Damrau)
2.6 Romanze II : No. 4. Lo spazzacamino (Damrau)
3.Romanze II : No. 2. La zingara (Damrau)
4.Romanze I : (1838) No. 5. Perduta ho la pace (Damrau)
5.Romanze II : (1845) No. 6. Brindisi (Damrau)
6.Romanze I : No. 2. More, Elisa, lo stanco poeta (Edelmann)
7.Romanze I : No. 4. Nell’orror di notte oscura (Edelmann)
8.La seduzione (Edelmann)
9.Romanze I : (1838) No. 1. Non t’accostare all’urna (Edelmann)
10.L’esule (Edelmann)
11. Il poveretto  (Edelmann)
12.Brindisi (1st version) (Gutiérrez)
13.6 Romanze I : No. 3. In solitaria stanza (Gutiérrez)
14.6 Romanze I : No. 6. Deh, pietoso, oh Addolorata (Gutiérrez)
15.6 Romanze II : No. 3. Ad una stella (Gutiérrez)
16.6 Romanze II : No. 1. Il tramonto (Gutiérrez)
17.6 Romanze II : No. 5. Il mistero (Gutiérrez)

Diana Damrau - soprano
Paul Armin Edelmann - baritone
César Augusto Gutiérrez - tenor
Friedrich Haider - piano

If we admire Verdi’s operatic music for its humanity and dramatic power, his canzoni (“songs”) reveal different lightness and spirit. These are graceful pieces, far from the most sorrowful situations of human condition and primarily directed to entertainment. Verdi composed most of them at the beginning of his career. Two volumes of Romanze date to 1838 and 1845, and later he add more songs to his catalogue only sporadically. He wrote only seven of them between the 1850s and 1894, the year of his last song, Pietà Signor. The total number of Verdi’s songs is therefore small: less than thirty works. Furthermore, as almost all of them date to the years when the young composer moved his first steps in the musical world, they irremediably appear as preliminary sketches, as test-beds of the future musical genius and nothing more than this.

Even though the present recording brings together seventeen songs, it is not inappropriate to state that it presents a wide collection of them – more than half of the total. ---themusicgala.com

Diana Damrau is arguably one of the finest artists in the opera world in the early 21st century, with exquisite phrasing, drama, and heartfelt emotion. One need only hear her interpretations of German lieder, the Queen of the Night, or even Bernstein. Yet these Verdi canzoni are rather a disappointment, given Damrau's prodigious talent, though César Augusto Gutiérrez and Paul Armin Edelmann seem to be better suited to this repertoire. Damrau's Stornello begins this album, and there is too much scooping and added drama in the voice. The legato lines are lost, and Damrau interprets them in a more spoken fashion. Lo spazzacamino comes across as too bright and shrill; the drama seems to be coming more from the artist putting something into the song, rather than organically coming from the song itself. Sometimes the pitch variation in Damrau's vibrato creates a bit too much distortion, such as when she sings "Perduto ho la pace" in the song of the same name. However, here, one can hear Damrau's beautiful lower voice, and perhaps this song succeeds more because there is more restraint in her interpretation. Brindisi (2nd version) in particular demonstrates the general problem with all of these songs: it needs more darkness and heft in the voice, and these are generally not qualities for which Damrau is renowned. This is not to say that brighter, lighter voices should not sing Verdi, for Gilda is not a spinto role; rather, Damrau's voice is not suited to these particular Verdi canzoni. Regarding the other artists, Edelmann's baritone is tender and lyrical, as in La seduzione and in Nell'orror di notte oscura, for he evokes sympathy in the listener, he has the ability to touch you. His legato and lyricism are like that of a tenor. But sometimes, one feels that the fire and passion needed for Verdi are a bit lacking; Non t'accostar is turned into a lied. The most successful match is Gutiérrez with the Verdi songs. He has more brightness and power, such as in the Brindisi and Il mistero (which is executed flawlessly), solid technique, and a consistent sound that never breaks. Sometimes his phrasing tends to run all the same, as does Edelmann's on occasion. Overall, this is not the most ideal choice of artists for Verdi, but this in no way disregards the great abilities of these opera singers. ---V. Vasan, AllMusic Review

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1. Re di Ponto, opera, K. 87 (K. 74a): Al destin che la minaccia Mitridate
2. K. 620: Ach, ich fuhl's Die Zauberfote (The Magic Flute)
3. K. 492: E Susanna non vien... Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
4. K. 492: Dove sono Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
5. K. 492: Giunse alfin il momento... Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
6. K. 492: Deh, vieni, non tardar Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)
7. K. 51 (K. 46a): Senti l'eco, ove t'aggiri La finta semplice
8. K. 384: Durch Zartlichkeit u Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio)
9. K. 384: Martern aller Arten Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio)
10. O Dio, aria for soprano & orchestra, K. 418 Vorrei spiegarvi
11. K. 527: Crudele? Ah no, mio bene... Don Giovanni
12. K. 527: Non mi dir Don Giovanni
13. K. 621: S'altro che lagrime La Clemenza di Tito
14. K. 527: In quali eccessi... Don Giovanni
15. K. 527: Mi trade Don Giovanni
16. K. 621: Ecco il punto... La Clemenza di Tito
17. K. 621: Non piu di fiori La Clemenza di Tito
18. No, Che Non Sei Capace K.419

Diana Damrau – soprano
Le Cercle de l'Harmonie:
Julien Chauvin - Concert Master, Violin
Nicola Boud - Basset Horn, Clarinet
Emilia Gliozzi - Cello
Alexis Kossenko - Flute
Amelie Michel - Flute
Antoine Pecqueur - Bassoon
Jean-Marc Philippe - Oboe
Susanne Regel - Oboe
Peter Whelan - Bassoon
Javier Zafra - Bassoon
Jérémie Rhorer 	- Conductor

Pearly tone, flexible coloratura, fire and sweetness: Diana Damrau has it all

Her recent substitution for a pregnant Anna Netrebko at the Met has seen Diana Damrau’s star firmly on the rise. Which is all to the good. Because, as this selection of Mozart opera and concert arias proves once again, she yields to nobody in all-round ability – marrying a sunny, beautifully spun voice with depth of interpretation and word-craft. Stunning.--- Gramophone [3/2009], arkivmusic.com

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