Valeria Girardello - Donizetti: Alfredo il Grande - DVD

Gaetano Donizetti had big shoes to fill at his debut in Naples in 1823, arriving at the Teatro di San Carlo just after Rossini's departure, full of talent but still seeking his true voice. Alfredo il Grande is influenced by Rossini, but also shows hints of great things to come. The narrative is a celebration of heroism and magnanimous royalty, taking us to 9th century England where King Alfred the Great is on the run from the Vikings. Revived two centuries after the spectacular failure of it's premiere, this little-known opera seria can now stand as a reflection on humanitarian values and gestures of resistance against the destructiveness of war.

This is not simply a recording of Norma as staged in January 2018 at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. It's real value is that it is the superb conclusion to the career of Mariella Devia, one of the finest Belcanto singers of our time, which makes the present recording an ideal artistic testament that pinpoints Mariella Devia's total eminence at the end of a long, hard-won career. That career began officially 45 years earlier as Lucia di Lammermoor at the Toti Dal Monte Competition in Treviso in 1973- a role in which Devia would become the standard by which others would by judged. At the beginning of her career, Devia had to emigrate to the USA. Thrown in at the deep end, Mariella Devia's professionalism proved that this emerging young Italian was a force to be reckoned with. She got her Italian break in 1984 with Rossini's Adelaide di Borgogna. Mariella Devia took the step toward Norma in 2013 in Bologna. She proved not only that she could carry the role from start to finish with no hint of loss in consistency but that her class was intact throughout. Her one-of-a-kind Norma achieved impact mainly through her singing, and her approach to expression prized the intimate and the subtly incisive over all-out hyperbole. Over the next five years, she consolidated the role even as she cut back on public appearances, performing it more than any other part. The results heard on the present recording speak for themselves.

Having been granted unprecedented authority by Louis XIV, the Sun King, no one could stage operas in France without Jean-Baptiste Lully's permission. By 1686, however, Lully's authority was waning and his long-standing librettist deserted him to write sacred works. Despite these setbacks, Lully wrote Acis et Galatée, a pastorale héroïque, and one of his final masterpieces. It's plot - the cyclops Poliphème's love for the nymph Galatée - drew from Lully an astonishing alternation of effects, a profound monologue for the nymph in Act III and a magnificent concluding Passacaille, all framed by a succession of dances and vividly conceived choruses.