GIOIA!

Arias by Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, Johann Strauss, Bellini, Moniuszko
Aleksandra Kurzak, soprano,
Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana/Omer Meir Wellber
Decca 478 2730
*****

And still they keep coming! Here is another singer, of whom I had never heard, who seems to be as good as any other now appearing before the public. Kurzak, who is Polish, made her professional debut at 21 as Susanna and has appeared at Hamburg, La Scala, Chicago, Berlin and other famous opera houses. She made her Metropolitan debut in 2004 in The Tales of Hoffmann. Here she presents some of the most famous soprano arias including ‘Caro nome’, ‘Una voce poco fa’, ‘Deh vieni non tardar’, the ‘Laughing Song’ from Die Fledermaus and ‘Ah fors’ e lui’ ... and she is triumphantly successful in all of them. Her voice is of excellent quality, her style and technique are secure, her enunciation of Italian and German satisfactory (her Polish is presumably perfect) and her musical instincts sound. The accompaniments under Omer Meir Wellber leave nothing to be desired. Wellber is an Israeli, born in 1981, and has been appointed Music Director of Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia for the period 2011–2014. The only unfamiliar aria is from a Polish opera The Haunted Manor by Stanislaw Moniuszko (1819–1872) who is the most important figure in the development of Polish national opera. The quality of this aria suggests that more of Moniuszko’s music could be well worth hearing. The excellent tenor Francesco Demuro joins Kurzak in a duet from L’elisir d’amore. The only flaw is that Kurzak does not observe the appoggiaturas in the Mozart aria. – Richard Gate