17 FEBRERO, NUEVO CD WERTHER ROLANDO VILLAZÓN - ROH

El amigo Rafael (gracias!) me acaba de informar que en el Facebook de Deutsche Grammophon se ha publicado la fecha de lanzamiento del esperado CD de Werther, grabado en las funciones de la Royal Opera House de mayo de 2011. Y también  la portada, que, por cierto, me gusta mucho.

More exciting albums are coming up during the next weeks: on February 17 Rolando Villazón will release his live CD recording of Massenet’s Werther, “a perfect fit for him” as The Independent glowed. Have a look at the cover already. More information will follow soon.

VILLAZÓN’S “MAGNIFICENT” WERTHER

London thrills to his “emotion” and “elegance” 


In his return to Covent Garden as Massenet’s tragic hero – one of Romantic opera’s great challenges – Rolando Villazón has moved London critics and audiences to tears and cheers. Inhabiting a character the artist himself describes as “a troubled soul seeking answers, moved to act by his intense inner world”, Villazón is “nothing short of magnificent . . . The raw emotion in his singing was quite wondrous”, wrote the Express, while the Telegraph reviewer was “reminded why this Mexican tenor caused such a sensation when he appeared on the scene seven years ago”. 

And the Independent declared that “in a role which is indubitably a perfect fit for him”, Rolando Villazón’s “vocal elegance and old-fashioned manner are both deeply touching and entirely in character with Werther, the poetic dreamer. ‘Sun, flood me with your radiance’, he sings, the voice opening to its embrace, the sound melting away to rapturous effect. There is a childlike wonder to his singing which works like a charm here, but one should never underestimate the vocal skill which enables him to achieve those affecting dynamic nuances, those subito piano effects achieved on the portamento. Or indeed the big-hearted intensity of feeling which finds release in the top C of act two’s thrilling climax.” 

Four performances are left in this run at the Royal Opera House – May 11, 14, 17 and 21 – with Rolando Villazón’s sensational Werther complemented by “the cool Vermeer-like beauty of Sophie Koch’s Charlotte” (The Independent) and Covent Garden’s brilliant music director Antonio Pappano conducting Massenet’s “palpitating score with all the uninhibited affection it requires” (The Telegraph).