On May 20 it will be released by the Roman record label Alpha Music the new album of the trio of the singer, pianist and jazz author Salento Elizabeth Guidowith the Milanese musicians Mirko Fait (sax) and Martino Vercesi (guitar), with whom he has been a close-knit band for at least 3 years…

Magdalena Kožená is back with another early music adventure on Archiv Production after her highly acclaimed ‘Vivaldi’ and ‘Lettere Amorose’ albums. In this recording, Kozena explores the early Italian Baroque Music of Claudio Monteverdi. She duets with Anna Prohaska on tracks ‘Pur ti miro’ and ‘Zefiro torna’, plus there are guest performances from David Feldman, Jakob Pilgram, Michael Feyfar and Luca Tittoto. Kozena sings with La Cetra Barockorchester Basel and Andrea Marcon.

Callas did not make complete recordings of Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Bellini's Il pirata, though, as the queen of La Scala, she enjoyed triumphs in both roles in 1957-1958. The vocally and dramatically demanding final scenes of both operas feature in this recital with Ophélie's mad scene from Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, another coloratura extravaganza. When this recital first appeared in 1959, Gramophone wrote: 'This is a most remarkable record, not only for its material… but for its astonishing vividness and dramatic poetry… It has been a thing of much wonder for me'.

Giulia Semenzato, already renowned for her interpretations of the Baroque repertory and her Mozartian roles, presents here her first solo album. The programme, entitled Angelica diabolica , is devoted to the female protagonists of Ludovico Ariosto, author of the epic poem Orlando furioso , whose emblematic figure is Angelica, a revolutionary heroine, ready to resort to any trick in order to regain her freedom.

Monteverdi’s Fourth Book of Madrigals, published in 1603 after an eleven-year gestation, bears witness to the metamorphosis of the madrigal and the rapid evolution of music at the turn of the two centuries. It is also a model of the genre and may be regarded as one of the most innovative and emblematic of its composer’s style.

“The world’s greatest tenor” – at any given moment, across the history of opera and classical singing, those would have been fighting words. Today, it seems only logical that London’s The Telegraph would use them to describe Jonas Kaufmann.

Enrico Rava is a jazz trumpeter and arguably one of the best known Italian jazz musicians. He started on trombone, then changed to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis. In the 1970s and 1980s he worked with Pat Metheny, Michel Petrucciani, John Abercrombie, Joe Henderson, Richard Galliano, Miroslav Vitouš, Andrea Centazzo, Joe Lovano, Gil Evans and Cecil Taylor. Chiefly an exponent of bebop jazz, Rava has also played in avant-garde jazz settings.

Born in Catania, Italy, the son of a popular song singer, during his youth sang in various small choirs. Years after he accompanied Franco Califano, Peppino Di Capri, Fred Bongusto, Rosario Fiorello and others on their Concert tours. After a long series of participations with Italian and international artists, and a small production of disco music, during 2006 he achieved success with the Schema Records album Handful of Soul…

Massimo Bubola is an Italian singer-songwriter, record producer and arranger. During his career, he cooperated with lot of Italian musicians in writing lyrics and musics, and his most significant cooperation was with Fabrizio De André. As author, Bubola cooperated also with Milva, the Gang, Mauro Pagani, Fiorella Mannoia, Cristiano De André, Kaballà and Grazia Di Michele. Despite of his cooperations with several musicians, he continued writing lyrics for his albums, publishing "Segreti Trasparenti" in 2004.

The Mariinsky label’s opera recordings have garnered acclaim and awards from around the world, most recently for Valery Gergiev’s recording of Parsifal released in 2010. For the label’s fifth opera, Gergiev conducts Donizetti’s masterpiece with a magnificent cast led by Natalie Dessay.

“She managed to unfold a wide array of colours from the historic instruments of the excellent Insula Orchestra and she demonstrates a true passion for music. The evening ends in a thundering applause. This ‘Lucio Silla’ could flourish in Vienna.”
– Salzburger Nachrichten

Gabriel Fauré considered Umberto Giordano’s Siberia to be one of the most interesting and singular works of the early 20th century. The opera’s tragic narrative follows Prince Alexis’s courtesan Stephana. She falls in love with an innocent soldier, Vassili, who is sent to Siberia for killing the Prince. Stephana gives up her life of luxury to follow him but cannot escape her past. With its intensely Russian atmosphere and passionately soaring melodies, Siberia was Giordano’s favorite among his operas. This acclaimed Fiorentino production was greeted with multiple ovations.

Medieval England exerted a strong influence on Johann Simon Mayr, especially during his final proto-Romantic period. Alfredo il Grande was to be one of his last operas, with a narrative that takes us to a land under threat of war with the Vikings. Escaping capture, Alfred the Great travels incognito, ultimately defeating the enemy and rescuing his beloved Alsvita.