WHAAT?! You haven’t heard it? Vocal music nuts everywhere – especially art song fans and singers – owe it to themselves to get smart about Lang’s striking creations. And here’s your best chance yet to get it all for bottom dollar. Delos has released two volumes of Lang’s songs: Love is Everywhere (DE 3407) and New Love Must Rise (DE 3410) … AND, through the end of March, you can download either – or BOTH – of them from iTunes for $5.99 each!

IMPORTANT REMINDER: If you own the physical CD of Vol. 1, you know that it comes with a handy-dandy companion data disc that contains printable PDFs of the complete song texts and scores (plus other goodies) for BOTH volumes. But – while the iTunes downloads come with complete booklets, the data disc’s contents are not included. Almost all of the songs are in English, and Mr. George’s diction is so good that you can understand every word. BUT – if you want or need the texts and scores (like, if you want to sing them yourself), you can download them from the Delos website for FREE, right HERE. Just think: YOU can be the first in your neck of the woods to introduce Lang to the audience at your next recital (they’ll LOVE her)!

So, we invite you to climb aboard the Lang bandwagon, and hear what the fuss is all about. And you’ll never get these albums at a better price: BOTH will set you back less than twelve buck$: much less than the price of most CDs. Check ‘em out at iTunes, and sample a few tracks … fair warning: you’ll be hooked in no time!

Listen to the podcast here:

Download the podcast in iTunes!

Download New Love Must Rise

Click here to download the Data Disc Materials available in Volume I

This offer coincides with Dmitri’s ongoing (and already critically acclaimed) run of Ernani performances at the Metropolitan Opera. The download – which will be available beginning this coming Friday morning and continuing through the weekend – will further coincide with Dmitri’s CD/DVD signing session at the Met’s gift shop. The track will come to you via Hi-Res download: a 44.1kHz/16bit .wav file (playable pretty much universally).

If you want to learn more about this fabulous DVD (and its associated CD), scroll down a couple of posts to Lindsay Koob’s more detailed, two-part description of both products.

From Flowing Prose:

“Back in October I reviewed a CD of songs by a woman composer called Margaret Ruthven Lang and who until then was unknown to me… The present CD is the second volume of Lang’s songs, entitled “New Love Must Rise“. Could it be as good as the first? I remember wondering. Well, actually it’s better! It will take you on a delightful, charming journey, full of heart-warming, adorable songs, throwing in a few mini masterpieces along the way. Take the time and listen to it. You won’t regret it.” — Margarida Mota-Bull Flowing Prose

Read her full review (with some nice quotes and references to the first release) here!

And read her MusicWeb International reviews here: Love is Everywhere; New Love Must Rise

Download New Love Must Rise

Click here to download the Data Disc Materials available in Volume I

Let’s fast-forward now to Dmitri’s much-anticipated debut appearance as Don Carlo in the Met’s production of Verdi’s Ernani just this past weekend. We’re not at all surprised at the critical raves he’s gotten thus far. For starters, ClassicalReview.com made note of his commanding stage presence: “Other baritones simply walk through a door; Hvorostovsky, instead, conveyed all of his character’s predatory hauteur with the tilt of his head and the snake-like glimmer of his eyes before he had sung a single note.”

The New York Post spoke of perhaps his supreme Ernani moment: “His third-act aria with quiet cello accompaniment began exquisitely, a master class in Verdi singing.”

The New York Times reported that “… baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky chose this evening to introduce a new role for him, Don Carlo … he sang it splendidly. The tessitura of the part, which sits on the high side for Verdi baritone roles, well suited Mr. Hvorostovsky, who shaped floating phrases with mellifluous, honeyed sound.”

Finally, as Martin Bernheimer wrote in the Financial Times, “Dmitri Hvorostovsky illuminated the majestic agonies of Carlo with rolling legato phrases, endless breath and poignant dynamic nuance. Confounding some predictions, he has become a Verdi baritone with few peers. Although ‘golden age’ is a dangerously hyperbolic term, it actually may apply in these remarkable cases.”

In closing – if you weren’t there, don’t despair: you can hear Dmitri have his wondrous way with that high-point third-act Ernani aria in either of two extraordinary Delos recordings. Dmitri’s Verdi Arias (DE 3292) offers that very number, among many other attractive selections. Then there’s Delos’ brand-new DVD, Hvorostovsky in Moscow (DV 7006, soon to be released), with guest artist Sondra Radvanovsky joining Dmitri for a pair of stunning duet scenes from Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Il Trovatore.

The DVD duplicates much of the content of another outstanding CD, Verdi Opera Scenes (DE 3403); both derive from the same 2008 Moscow concert performance that was recorded and broadcast throughout Russia by Russian television. Conductor Constantine Orbelian and his select Philharmonia of Russia offer sterling support. In particular, the DVD’s double-whammy of sparkling surround-sound and vivid video captures the intense, crackling chemistry between Dmitri and Sondra, to dynamite “you-are-there” effect … it’s guaranteed to shiver your timbers and leave you limp with ecstatic artistic overload. Just GET it … you’ll thank me (and Delos)!

— Lindsay Koob

Still, it seems almost a shame that — in order to generate some excitement in an area not exactly famous for its support of the fine arts — publications like the Phoenix New Times found it appropriate to resort to pop metaphors to get peoples attention in its concert preview: “Dmitri Hvorostovsky is to opera what … Brad Pitt is to Hollywood. He’s the Lady Gaga of the aria set. And he’s coming to town.”

But a much more meaningful preview came from the pen of Mr. Bob Stump: a local politician and arts patron who works tirelessly in support of Phoenix Opera: an institution that — in Stump’s words — seeks to “recalibrate (Phoenix’s) reputation” as something other than “a haven for sunshine and golf.” In his “guest opinion” piece, “Opera in the Valley of the Sun: a telenovela gone wild”, he still uses trendy language, targeting readers who may think of opera as “fusty, antiquarian, elitist” — in a noble effort to convince them that opera is well worth discovering — and that anyone can learn to dig it. And he uses Dmitri’s many virtues as a singing actor to support some of his points. He describes him, quite rightfully, as “One of the finest voices of the past 100 years — and arguably the greatest living baritone” … as well as one of “People magazine’s 50 most beautiful people.” He goes on to speak, with wonder and reverence, of the power of great singers’ voices to “elicit listeners’ awe” with their “… vocal pyrotechnics … their razor’s-edge virtuosity,” with the result that “Human beings become, on the opera stage, forces of nature.”

Stump further employs other devices, like sports metaphors, to catch everyman’s attention. Citing the fragility of the human voice and the onstage risks that even the best singers must take, he points out that “… singing resembles the exhilarating high stakes of many sports: a singer ascending to a series of high Cs may be analogous to a baseball player hitting a home run.” Personally — as a rabid fan of both opera and football — I can appreciate that approach. So let me take that trick one step further: how about a moment of sheer vocal glory, at the apex of a supremely dramatic opera scene, bringing on the same kind of edge-of-your-seat excitement and spinal chills as a come-from-behind, fourth-quarter airborne fingertip catch of a hail-Mary pass in the end zone with seconds left on the clock? Hey, it works!

There are many other worthwhile aspects of Stump’s essay that are beyond this post’s scope. But, trust me, it remains one of the most convincing pieces of operatic advocacy I’ve ever seen. And we at Delos are purely tickled that the author has picked our cherished Dmitri to help make his points. READ it, save it, and share it … like with that friend you’ve been trying to drag to an opera for years, kicking and screaming. If Mr. Stump can’t convince him of opera’s irresistible grip and excitement, nobody can.

BTW, despite such advance ballyhooing of Dmitri’s appearance in Phoenix, I found no official press review following the event. But go to Opera Phoenix’s website – right HERE…

Part Two coming up later this week!

—Lindsay Koob