Silvia Chiesa / Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI / Massimiliano Caldi CELLO CONCERTOS

In April 2017, the Houston Symphony and principal cellist Brinton Averil Smith will give the first professional performance of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Cello Concerto in the US since its premiere by the New York Philharmonic and Arturo Toscanini in 1935.
Born in Italy in 1895, Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s reputation grew rapidly thanks to the support of violinist Jascha Heifetz and guitarist Andrés Segovia, who each asked him to compose concertos for them when he was in his 30’s.
Later, a few years before emigrating from Europe to flee religious persecution in 1938, Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote another concerto for the great cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.
In 1935 Piatigorsky premiered the work with the New York Philharmonic and Arturo Toscanini. Despite being championed by powerful advocates and being the work of a well-known composer, the work did not catch on. Piatigorsky, who was unwilling to give up exclusive rights to the work, eventually let it drop and the concerto fell into obscurity, like so many other works by European émigrés who settled in California and began composing primarily for film. 

Fifty years after the death of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Sony Classical releases the first Italian recording of the monumental piece Concerto for cello and orchestra featuring soloist Silvia Chiesa and the RAI Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Massimiliano Caldi. This album also contains two concerts by Gian Francesco Malipiero and Riccardo Malipiero.

Anita Rachvelishvili / Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI / Giacomo Sagripanti ANITA

Anita Rachvelishvili was born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. She at first studied piano at the Mukhran Machavariani School and then singing at the Vano-Sarajishvili Conservatory with Manana Egadze. She received a stipend from the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, and in 2007 won the Paata Burchuladze Prize. While still a student at the conservatory, she debuted at the Opera in Tblisi as Maddalena in Rigoletto and as Olga in Eugen Onegin, subsequently joining the ensemble of the theater in the fall of 2006. In 2007 she was invited to join the Accademia at the Teatro alla Scalla, it was there she was heard by Daniel Barenboim, who then invited her to star in the new production of Carmen which opened the 2009/2010 La Scala Season.

She  became internationally known when on December 7th, 2009, the opening night of the La Scala season, she sang the title role in Carmen opposite Jonas Kaufmann as Don José, in a production staged by Emma Date and conducted by Daniel Barenboim. This performance, which was her first of any major role in the West and which was her debut in the role, was also televised all over the world.

Pretty Yende A JOURNEY

What’s not to love about Pretty Yende? Her voice is delightful, her personality sparkles, and her story is inspiring.

Just 31, Yende has gone from life in a South African township to stardom on the world’s opera stages. Now her first album, titled “A Journey,” documents her impressive lyric abilities, her lustrous tone and especially her mastery of coloratura. Runs and trills are tossed off with seeming ease, and she can soar to a high E natural without sounding strained.

The seven selections, mostly bel canto arias by Rossini, Donizetti or Bellini, reflect stages of her story, triumphs in vocal competitions or important debuts. She sounds lovely, with one reservation: There’s a slightly generic quality to her singing, a lack of interpretive depth beyond mastery of the notes.

In keeping with her personal narrative, she includes the “Flower Duet” from Delibes’ ”Lakme,” with mezzo Kate Aldrich as partner. It’s by now part of Pretty Yende lore that her interest in opera was sparked by hearing the tune in a British Airways TV commercial when she was 16.

The most interesting choice in the album is the “Poison Aria” from Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette,” which requires a heavier lyric voice than bel canto. Yende does a good job of capturing Juliette’s fearfulness and determination, and her voice is surprisingly robust in the climaxes.

Marco Armiliato conducts the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI. (Mike Silverman / The Washington Post)