Academie du Disque Lyrique Awards
Juan Diego Flórez wows UK audiences
Renee Fleming in bloom!
Boris Godunov comes to life with Valery Gergiev
COMING SOON! - Solti Wagner edition

Academie du Disque Lyrique Awards
At the recent Academie du Disque Lyrique awards ceremony at the Bastille in Paris, the Decca Music Group won the following prizes.
Juan Diego Flórez won the Georges Thill award for his new Rossini, only a week after its release in France!. In the same award ceremony, Cecillia Bartoli won the Maris Callas award for Gluck Italian Arias, and Dame Joan Sutherland won the lifetime achievement award.
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Juan Diego Flórez wows UK audiences on release of debut album

Juan Diego has been in London performing Bellini's La Sonnambula at the Royal Opera House. The critics are already hailing his voice as one of the true tenor greats. Juan Diego's Rossini album was recently voted album of the week by the prestigious Sunday Times (UK). Here's what they said about the album [review by Hugh Canning]

"Decca launched Pavarotti to superstardom with the canny slogan “King of the High Cs”, and with this elegant young Peruvian, it hopes to have found Pavarotti’s successor... In fact, for Flórez, top C, D and even E flat are a doddle, because this is a much lighter, more agile and flexible voice, a tenore di grazia — tenor of gracefulness — rather than a lirico spinto or robusto of the traditional and more popular Italian types. As such, it is ideally suited to Rossini and his bel canto successors, Bellini and Donizetti, all of whom treated their tenors like woodwind instrumentalists, expecting athletic velocity in the tadpole notes, daredevil leaps between registers and aerobatics in the tenor stratospheres. Flórez has already made his mark in Rossini at Covent Garden, winning rapturous applause for his Rodrigo (in Otello) and Don Ramiro — the Prince Charming role — in the Italian composer’s version of Cinderella, La Cenerentola. Listening to the eight tenor scenes from Rossini operas — buffa and seria — recorded here, it’s easy to hear why. This is truly a Prince Charming voice, with the liquid legato, attractive vibrato and easy bravura that this hideously difficult music calls for — and all too rarely gets. Rossini tenors have notoriously strangulated top notes (one of the reasons they went out of fashion in the 1840s), but Flórez’s ring bright and clear. This is not exactly popular fare with which to launch a new star, although, ironically, the best-known music here comes in the form of a rarity: Count Almaviva’s spectacular rondo at the end of The Barber of Seville, which most tenors cut because of its difficulty. (Rossini realised this when he transferred it to the mouth of his Cinderella for her concluding pyrotechnics.) This number, along with Don Ramiro’s great scena, Lindoro’s beautiful alternative aria for the 1814 Milan production of L’Italiana in Algeri, and Gianetto’s solo from The Thieving Magpie, whet the appetite for a complete recording: with Bartoli, perhaps, and Chailly, whose alert, ultramusical conducting and youthful Milan orchestra accompany Flórez luxuriously. A winner. "

Read more about the album at www.deccaclassics.com/juandiegoflorez

Renee Fleming in bloom!

Renée Fleming has been immortalised in bloom with the announcement that an iris will be hybridised and named in her honour. The iris was registered with the American Iris Society in 2001 for introduction in May 2004 at Pacific Flora, an international horticulture exhibition in Hamamatsu, Japan. The introduction in the USA will follow in June 2004 in Rochester, NY. Click here to see the flower
Renée returns later in the year with her new album Bel Canto
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Boris Godunov comes to life with Valery Gergiev

To mark Valery Gergiev's performances of Boris Godunov at La Scala, Milan, in April 2002. we have two exciting new releases. Firstly, we have Valery Gergiev's classic stage performance on DVD - available for the first time internationally. The video features Robert Lloyd, the distinguished British bass, who was invited to sing the title role of Boris Godunov and supported by a premiere cast of Russian singers, including Olga Borodina and Sergei Leiferkus. For more information about this release, see DVD new releases

Also this month seees the release of Valery Gergiev's recording with the Kirov forces of the Mariinsky Theatre and Nikolai Putilin in the title role. Since its original release in 1998 this version has established itself as definitive. Click here for more information about this recording
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COMING SOON! - the Solti Wagner Collection
Here's a sneak preview of the Solti Wagner Collection which will be released later this year. The 21 CD box set features totally remastered recordings. Click here to see the box set
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