Opera News named Gathering: Songs by Ben Moore a September 2022 issue Critic’s Choice! “This album joins a starry array of artists to perform romantically lush and vibrant songs by Ben Moore (b. 1960), whose compositions range from American-songbook selections to art songs, song cycles and three operas… Moore’s compositions, some of which receive their first…
Oksana Dyka, Constantine Orbelian, and the Kaunas City Symphony’s In Questa Reggia recording is an Opera News Critic’s Choice! “Ukrainian Soprano Oksana Dyka’s debut solo album is a welcome throwback… In Questa Reggia, which takes its name from the title track, is a statement piece, featuring twelve of the most well-known and difficult arias in…
The November 2021 issue of Opera News names Lawrence Brownlee, Sarah Coburn, and Constantine Orbelian’s I Puritani as a Critic’s Choice! “This new Puritani is made memorable by its leading man, Lawrence Brownlee, whose singing sets a new standard. The glorious, consistently golden-toned ease of the American tenor’s vocalism is already obvious in his first…
Oksana Volkova, Constantine Orbelian, and the Kaunas City Symphony’s Poison d’Amour album is named an Opera News Critic’s Choice! “an audacious compilation of mezzo-soprano (and soprano-adjacent) arias… Poison d’Amour announces Volkova as the real deal: a full-bodied, lyric mezzo-soprano with intelligence, passion, nuance and a healthy dose of chutzpah… And Constantine Orbelian’s decadent and limpid conducting…
Opera News names Isabel Bayrakdarian, Jory Vinikour, Constantine Orbelian, and the Kaunas City Symphony’s The OTHER Cleopatra recording, a Critic’s Choice! “The soprano’s musical intelligence, along with her rich sound, impressive range and sensitivity to text are solidly at home in the Italian eighteenth century, so these excerpts from settings by Vivaldi (1724), Hasse (1729)…
Opera News names Continent’s End: Song Cycles by Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli a Critic’s Choice! “Anderson-Bazzoli employs a largely tonal approach, with varied musical characterizations… the work is very well crafted. It’s gracious for the voice and engaging for the piano. Mezzo-Soprano Buffy Baggott has a warm sound and elegant phrasing. She manages the varied challenges of…
Opera News names Stephen Costello‘s A Te, O Cara recording with Constantine Orbelian and the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra a Critic’s Choice! “the tenor sounds better than ever on his latest album, featuring bel canto’s greatest hits. … Take, for example, the album’s opener, La Fille du Régiment’s ‘Ah! Mes amis.’ Costello does not reach for…
Opera News names Herschel Garfein‘s Mortality Mansions: Songs of Love and Loss After 60 an October 2018 Critic’s Choice! Garfein handpicked eleven poems from the large output of Donald Hall, the 2006 poet laureate who died in June at eighty-nine, creating—as Hall puts it in the notes—a cycle that has ‘a wholeness I could never…
OperaNews names Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s Verdi: Rigoletto a Critic’s Choice! “ When Rigoletto makes his entrance jeering at Count Ceprano, Hvorostovsky’s sound is shockingly guttural, with flecks of grit I wouldn’t have imagined as part of his arsenal: he had come a long way from the liquid lyricism of his Prince Yeletsky or Don Giovanni. In…
Jamie Barton and Brian Zeger’s new All Who Wander recording is an Opera News “Critic’s Choice” selection: Order Now “[The] A-flat on this disc brings out something very special in Jamie Barton’s voice. The note retains the lush texture of the mezzo-soprano’s middle register, but with the ascent on high now lending the sound an…
Order Now Opera News names Lawrence Brownlee’s Allegro io son a “Critic’s Choice” recording: “Lawrence Brownlee has good reason to be happy, with a flourishing career as one of the most gifted bel canto tenors of his generation. The sheer beauty of his voice would be enough to please any listener, but his technical finesse,…
Opera News starts off 2017 with Delos artist Jamie Barton on the cover! Order Now “Jamie Barton’s voice is a vast, enveloping sound, the sort of thing soprano Carol Vaness calls ‘a voice that blankets.’ This is true whether she is offering a Dvořák song in recital or holding the stage as Waltraute. But nowhere…
Order Now “…it’s superb. Roberto Rizzi Brignoli’s firm yet flexible conducting keeps things moving while giving the vocal and orchestral climaxes their head. Dinara Alieva, the Magda, has a rich, authoritative soprano: she displays a nice conversational immediacy in the midrange and offers full-throated, sweeping climaxes; quieter phrases have lovely spin and float. Charles Castronovo,…
Order now Opera News names Dmitri Hvorostovsky Sings of War, Peace, Love and Sorrow a Critic’s Choice in their December 2016 issue: “A person reviewing the several Delos CDs that unite superstar baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky with conductor Constantine Orbelian is at risk of running out of superlatives. The latest recording…is a real pleasure. As Prince…
Order Now “Mark Abel has devoted most of his composing career to writing song cycles, including those represented on two previous Delos releases. The current disc is a recording of his first opera, Home is a Harbor. Abel spent some formative years as a rock musician, and he has a knack for integrating catchy, interesting…
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