Le Comte Ory

The work was recorded at the Rossini Opera Festival in the composer’s hometown of Pesaro, a festival that is internationally renowned for ist innovative stagings and musically impeccable productions. ‘Le Comte Ory’ boasts a young, dynamic and international cast headed by tenor Yijie Shi, who ‘outstandingly mastered’ (Il Giornale) the title role, and María José Moreno, ‘a countess with an extremely supple coloratura, great stylistic refinement and seductive elegance’ (Il Giornale di Vicenza). Paolo Carignani conducts the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna with verve and brio.

Demetrio e Polibio

Rossini’s very first opera, written when he was a teenager, was premiered i Rome in 1812 and revived at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in 2010. Young stage director Davide Livermore, heading a production of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, turns the libretto into a ghost story, setting the action at night, behind the stage of an opera house. Thanks to various “phantasmagorical” tricks, Livermore creates an enchanting atmosphere that is musically rendered by the Orchestra Sinfonica Rossini under Corrado Rovaris. Each giving outstanding performances are the four young soloists Maria José Moreno, Victoria Zaytseva, Yijie Shi and Mirco Palazzi, “stars of the highest international order” (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

Verdi, Messa da Requiem

Celebrated conductor Lorin Maazel, a young orchestra of outstanding musicians, four high-caliber soloists and one of the great choral works of musical literature – this alone would make this live recording of Verdi’s Requiem a stand-out document of filmed music. But there is more: the venue of this grandiose performance, the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, with its shimmering golden Byzantine mosaics framed by mighty pillars and arches. Modeled on Constantine the Great’s Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, the 11th-century basilica has been the workplace of many a great musician in the past, such as Claudio Monteverdi, Adrian Willaert and Giovanni Gabrieli. Lorin Maazel, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, is also the Music Director of the Symphonica Toscanini, a young orchestra founded in May 2006 that has performed under Zubin Mehta, Georges Prêtre and Kurt Masur. ‘In recent tours of Europe and the U.S., the musicians expressed their unique musical potential by playing so harmoniously and compellingly as a group that they conquered every audience,’ said Maazel.