Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo / Brad Cohen / Emma Matthews IN MONTE CARLO

Bel Canto Emma Matthews is the brightest star out of Australia, the most anticipated since Dame Joan Sutherland. A co-production between ABC Classics and Universal Music in Australia, this CD combines jewels from French and Italian operatic repertoire, as well as music by Bernstein and 2 Australian composers Richard Mills and Calvin Bowman.

Emma made her Covent Garden debut in March/April 2010 in the title role of Cunning Little Vixen at the Royal Opera House, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras and her European concert debut with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and also her debut with conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy as soloist in Mahler’s 4.

This release highlights Romantic opera heroines the Doll Song from Tales of Hoffmann, the Bell Song from Lakme, as well as fearless and thrilling coloratura moments in Proch’s Theme and Variations and Bernstein’s Glitter and Be Gay. There are two world premiere recordings on the disc both from Australian composers - The Nightingale’s Song at the close of Richard Mills opera The Love of the Nightingale and Calvin Bowman’s song Now touch the air softly. (Presto Classical)

Arabella Steinbacher FANTASIES, RHAPSODIES & DAYDREAMS

Until the 2016 release of this album on Pentatone, violinist Arabella Steinbacher had mostly explored heavy repertory of the 19th and 20th centuries on recordings of Strauss, Franck, Shostakovich. She shifts gears with this collection of virtuoso favorites that might easily have appeared on a concert program of a century ago, or nearly that long. It's not a program of encores, which is more common today. The works on this program are substantial and, with the exception of Massenet's famous Méditation, between nine and 15 minutes in length. The novelty here is the opening Carmen Fantasie by Franz Waxman, written for Jascha Heifetz and edited by that great violinist. Despite her disclaimer, Steinbacher takes after Heifetz stylistically with her soaring, Apollonian tone, and this work fits her well. Another highlight is an unusually light, agile performance of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, rather quick, but always seeming under control and not rushed. Steinbacher has plenty of competition here and elsewhere, but in the main, her performances have the refined quality that her classic models achieved, even in broadly popular repertory. She picks her material well, avoiding her polar opposite, Fritz Kreisler. Pentatone's spacious sound, recorded in an unspecified location, delivers on its audiophile claims, and Steinbacher's Booth Stradivarius sounds great. A recommended look back at the age of the star violin virtuoso. (James Manheim)

Ophélie Gaillard EXILES

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States, land of freedom, open to the world, a democracy concerned with human rights, attracted emigrants of all origins. Rightly or wrongly, the young nation, in full economic expansion, embodied a land of redemption for the composers brought together by Ophélie Gaillard.

After Alvorada, her globe-trotting cello leads us in the footsteps of Bloch, Korngold, Prokofiev, Chava Alberstein and Giora Feidmann, singing their exile, whether suffered or deliberately chosen. She makes us vibrate to the sound of a film score (Korngold’s Concerto), a prayer (From Jewish Life), an Hebraic narrative (Schelomo), a lullaby, a wedding dance… The spirit of celebration, tenderness, religious meditation: so many facets of daily life and the culture of several generations of Jewish immigrants, related by Ophélie Gaillard’s humanistic bow.