Joyce DiDonato: Stella di Napoli (CD)
Release Date: September 2, 2014
Conductor: Riccardo Minasi
Artists: Joyce DiDonato
Orchestra: Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon
Label: Warner Classics

Joyce DiDonato’s newest album Stella di Napoli (Star of Naples) celebrates the birth of Bel Canto opera in 19th-century Naples. DiDonato and Italian conductor Riccardo Minasi have assembled a program featuring both familiar and lesser-known composers from the period, including many world premiere recordings. Included are little-known arias by Mercadante, Giovanni Pacini, Michele Carafa (a student of Cherubini and close friend of Rossini), and Carlo Valentini, as well as favorites by Rossini, Bellini. Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, a signature role for DiDonato, is featured.

Joyce DiDonato won a 2013 Grammy for her last Bel Canto album Diva, Divo, which The Observer stated was “an ideal vehicle for her glorious mezzo voice in which the most fiendish coloratura ornaments and trills sound effortless.”

“Perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation” - The New Yorker

Track Listings:

1. Giovanni Pacini: Stella Ove t’aggiri, o barbaro
2. Vincenzo Bellini: Nelly Dopo l’oscuro nembo
3. Michele Carafa: Lucia L’amica ancor non torna...Oh, di sorte crudel
4. Gioachino Rossini: Zelmira Riedi al soglio
5. Saverio Mercadante: Giunia Se fino al cielo ascendere
6. Gaetano Donizetti: Amelia Par che mi dica ancora
7. Vincenzo Bellini: Romeo Tu sola, o mia Giulietta... Deh! tu, bell’anima
8. Carlo Valentini: Adele Lasciami... Se il mar sommesso mormora
9. Gaetano Donizetti: Maria Io vi rivedo alfin... Deh! Tu di un’umile preghiera
10. Giovanni Pacini: Saffo Flutto che muggi... Teco dall’are pronube... L’ama ognor qual io l’amai
 

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