Danielle de Niese’s new Mozart album is out now, and received a big plug from the New York Times Magazine today, and therefore needs no further boost from me. But, it’s a splendid album of opera and concert arias, and you get to hear her with Bryn Terfel and the authoritative Sir Charles Mackerras and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. (Age of Enlightenment Orchestra? Enlightenment Orchestra? No, we need two prepositional clauses, surely.)
An added bonus are the liner notes by Chicago Opera Theater general director Brian Dickie, who brought de Niese to COT and Chicago in 2004 for Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, which she smoldered all the way through. I think the reason for the Harris Theater’s blackened interior is because she burned the paint off it. She’s since returned for Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2005 and then Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Lyric Opera, and will be back in the spring for Le nozze di Figaro. We knew here when…
I reviewed the Britten here, and previewed Lyric Opera’s Giulio Cesare with de Niese here and reviewed the DVD of the Glyndebourne Opera’s production here. There was also a preview of the production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, but Time Out Chicago’s servers seem to have swallowed it whole.
Photo: Decca – Lorenzo Aguis