Our Verdi: Messa da Requiem release (now available as a HD downloadable concert film from iTunes) gets a CD review from Rafael’s Music Notes:

“The first solo utterance in the Requiem is given to the mezzo-soprano: here, the superb Olesya Petrova, possessor of a fine dramatic sound capable of descending below the staff with a sensational chest voice, and of then rising to full-voiced phrases in her upper range, as in the Liber Scriptus. She later holds her own in all the quartets and in the touching Quid sum misertrio. The Azerbaijani star Dinara Alieva is the soprano soloist. She excels throughout with the kind of rock-solid vocalism that relies on cutting power and lyric brilliance rather than heft. A Bolshoi favorite, her luscious sound is reminiscent of the great Italian Spinto sopranos of the past century, rather than that of some of her Slavic  peers. … Francesco Meli brings a plangent Italianate sound to his assignment, with an easy top and plenty of squillo for the big moments. He can also pull back to a gorgeous mezza voce in the Offertorium. … The Russian bass Dmitri Belosselsky is familiar to us from his recent appearances as Zaccaria in the MET Nabucco. Not a Russian profundo but more of a basso cantante, he excels in the Confutatis maledictus, with an outpouring of vocal fire and brimstone. Later his singing is bone chilling in his use of mezza voce in Mors stupevit. The quartet of Alieva, Petrova, Meli and Belosselsky is remarkable as an ensemble of equals at the service of the music. When piani and pianissimi are called for they deliver. Cut offs, diminuendi, and crescendi are executed by these four superb artists with precision and utter sensitivity, and with never a hint of vocal competitiveness. The Requiem is first and foremost a choral-orchestral work and maestro Yuri Temirkanov crafts an expansive musical landscape commanding the marvelous Bolshoi Theatre Chorus and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and eliciting sterling work by the musical forces at his disposal. … How appropriate and moving that this praise-worthy recording is dedicated to the memory of the great Siberian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. He too would have been proud of his colleagues and happy with the results.”

—Rafael de Acha, Rafael’s Music Notes

See the full review on RafaelMusicNotes.com

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