Composer: Vincenzo Bellini, Arrigo Boito, Ernesto de Curtis, Clémont Philibert Léo Delibes, Umberto Giordano, Edvard Hagerup Grieg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jacques Offenbach, Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, Sergey Rachmaninov, Giuseppe Verdi
Performer: Anna Netrebko, Yusif Eyvazov, The City of Prague Philharmonic Choir, Boaz Daniel, Rolando Villazón, Jader Bignamini, David Aronson, Elina Garanča
Orchestra: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariinsky Orchestra, Session Orchestra London, Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker, SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg
Conductor: Jader Bignamini, Miriam Nemcova, Antonio Pappano, Bertrand de Billy, Valery Gergiev, Ben Foster, Emmanuel Villaume, Gianandrea Noseda, Marco Armiliato, Lukas Vasilek
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Catalogue: 4835791
Release: 2018
Size: 275 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Puccini: Gianni Schicchi
01. “O mio babbino caro”
02. Curtis: Non ti scordar di me (Arr. for Soprano, Tenor and Orchestra by Giancarlo Chiaramello)
Verdi: La traviata / Act 1
03. “Libiamo ne’lieti calici”
Puccini: Tosca / Act 2
04. “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore”
Puccini: Madama Butterfly / Act 2
05. “Un bel dì vedremo”
Giordano: Andrea Chénier / Act 3
06. “La mamma morta”
Puccini: La Bohème: Act 1
07. “O soave fanciulla”
Boito: Mefistofele / Act 3
08. “L’altra notte in fondo al mare”
Rachmaninov: Songs, Op. 21
09. 7. Zdes′ khorosho
10. Krutoy: Cantami
Grieg: Peer Gynt, incidental music, Op. 23
11. Solveig’s Song
Mozart: Idomeneo, re di Creta, K.366 / Act 1
12. “Quando avran fine omai” – “Padre, germani, addio!”
Delibes: Lakmé / Act 1
13. Viens, Mallika, … Dôme épais (Flower Duet)
Bellini: Norma (Act 1)
14. Casta Diva
Offenbach: Les Contes d’Hoffmann / Act 2
15. Barcarolle
It is rare for an artist to break through the boundaries of classical music stardom and achieve recognition in the wider world, but Anna Netrebko has achieved that and more. In a recording career spanning less than fifteen years so far, she has not only seduced the classical scene with the beauty of her voice, her superb vocal control and supreme musicality, she has also become an international icon. More than an operatic diva, Anna Netrebko is an enormously charismatic individual whose style and stage presence are as celebrated as her musicianship. A passionate advocate for children’s causes, she supports a number of charitable organisations, including SOS-Kinderdorf International and the Russian Children’s Welfare Society. She is a global ambassador for Chopard jewellery.
Born in 1971 in Krasnodar, Russia, Netrebko studied vocal performance at the St Petersburg Conservatory. When she auditioned for the Mariinsky Theatre, she was spotted by Valery Gergiev, who became her vocal mentor. She made her operatic stage debut at the Mariinsky, aged 22, singing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. One year later she made her US debut at the San Francisco Opera. She really started pulses racing in the international opera world with a triumphant Salzburg Festival debut in 2002 as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Since then she has gone on to perform with nearly all the world’s great opera companies, displaying consummate skill and naturalness as she inhabits each new role, including Mozart’s Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Puccini’s Mimì (La bohème) and Manon Lescaut; Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata), Gilda, Leonora, Lady Macbeth and Giovanna d’Arco; Bellini’s Giulietta (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Elvira (I puritani) and Amina (La sonnambula); Donizetti’s Norina (Don Pasquale), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Lucia di Lammermoor and Anna Bolena; Massenet’s Manon; Gounod’s Juliette; Tchaikovsky’s Tatiana (Eugene Onegin) and Iolanta; Wagner’s Elsa (Lohengrin); and, most recently, Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.
Her debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera also came in 2002, and she has returned every season since, becoming the only soprano to have opened the season in three consecutive years (2011–13), as well as captivating audiences worldwide thanks to the Met’s “Live in HD” cinecasts. Anna Netrebko appears every season at the Vienna State Opera – she has lived in Vienna for many years and obtained Austrian citizenship in 2006. Having made her La Scala debut in 2011 as Donna Anna, she returned to Milan in 2012, giving performances as Mimì that won praise from critics and audiences alike. She made her role debut as Verdi’s Lady Macbeth at the Bavarian State Opera in 2014 and was invited back to La Scala to open the 2015-16 season in a production of the same composer’s Giovanna d’Arco, the work’s first performance there for over 150 years and Netrebko’s first stage appearance in its title role.
A greatest-hits album ought to stick to the middle of the road, playing to what an artist does best. Yet it ought not simply wallow in past glories: this collection from Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, arguably the best-known soprano of the present day, hits the spot and can safely be recommended to newcomers. Netrebko is at her best in core Italian repertory like Casta Diva from Bellini’s Norma or Libiamo ne ‘lieti calici from Verdi’s La Traviata. Sample track three to hear the latter: the soprano has an abundant tonal production that enables her to take the kind of chances that generate real charisma. Netrebko’s husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov, is present on this track, which was one of three newly recorded for the album, and there’s no clearer indication of what she’s about than how he stays out of her way. The album also contains verismo arias, into which Netrebko has moved as her voice has darkened in mid-career. Picking out holes in her armament is but another indicator of her dominant position, and certainly she is not as distinctive as a dramatic singer compared with her skills as a sheer tunesmith, and she has less of an instinct for French repertory than for Italian. Yet to hear her Vissi d’arte, from Tosca, is to understand why there has been such a buzz around her performances of this opera in New York and elsewhere (the recording here is with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Antonio Pappano). Deutsche Grammophon does a reasonable job in fusing the various sound sources into a whole, and this is an album few new or old Netrebko fans will want to skip.