Composer: Dimitri Arakishvili, Georges Bizet, Charles François Gounod, Pietro Mascagni, Jules Emile Frederic Massenet, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Charles Camille Saint-Saëns, Giuseppe Verdi
Performer: Anita Rachvelishvili
Orchestra: Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della RAI
Conductor: Giacomo Sagripanti
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Sony
Catalogue: 19075808752
Release: 2018
Size: 1.01 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Bizet: Carmen
01. Près des ramparts de Seville (“Seguidilla”)
Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila
02. Printemps qui commence
Verdi: Il Trovatore
03. Condotta ell’era in ceppi
Verdi: Don Carlo
04. Nei giardin del bello (Canzone del velo)
Massenet: Werther
05. Je vous écris de ma petite chambre (“Letter Aria”)
Arakishvili: The Legend of Shota Rustaveli
06. Cavatina of King Tamar
Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila
07. Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Tsar’s Bride
08. You Wil Pay (“Lyubasha’s Aria”)
Bizet: Carmen
09. L’amour est un oiseau rebelle (“Habanera”)
Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana
10. Voi lo sapete, o mamma
Gounod: Sapho
11. O ma lyre immortelle
Verdi: Don Carlo
12. O don fatale
This is Anita Rachvelishvili’s debut album with Sony Classical. The Georgian mezzo-soprano rose to fame in 2009 when Daniel Barenboim selected the young singer to open the La Scala season and per-form the main role of Carmen alongside Jonas Kaufmann as Don José.
Since this time Anita has sung at prestigious venues including The Metropolitan Opera, the Deutsche Oper, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Arena di Verona and London’s Royal Opera House: the 16/17 season included an appearance in Verdi’s Il Trovatore at the Covent Garden venue.
In the 17/18 season, Anita will appear alongside the London Symphony at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad as Amneris from Aida.
Anita features some of the most popular and enduring opera arias in the mezzo-soprano repertoire; but also features a rare addition of The Cavatina of King Tamar, from Georgian composer Dmitry Arakishvili’s opera The Legend of Shota Rustaveli, demonstrating her Georgian heritage.
It’s one of those fairy stories that the world of lyrical music likes to keep secret. Still an unknown and barely emerged from the La Scala Lyrical Academy, Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili was given the title role in Carmen by Baremboim, alongside Jonas Kaufman: an international career seemed to beckon for the young singer. And so here we will hear some of opera’s great tunes, including, of course, the hits from Carmen, but also the two great arias from Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns, a pair from Verdi, a touch of Mascagni, some Rimski – less-frequently performed, it is true – and a rarity from his compatriot Dimitri Arakishvili (1873-1953) whose style is solidly anchored in the Russia of his day, with several, probably regional, twists. Since 2009, she has sung Carmen’s role around three hundred times, and we can only hope that she never gets bogged down in it – and takes on Santuzza, Eboli, Dalil: in other words, the great characters of the dramatic mezzo repertoire.