Description
Deutsche Grammophon: Anna Netrebko — Amata dalle Tenebre | Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Chailly (Audio CD)
Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details:
- Product Type: Audio CD
- Brand / Label: Deutsche Grammophon / Universal Music
- Artist: Anna Netrebko, soprano
- Orchestra: Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala
- Conductor: Riccardo Chailly
- Release Year: 2021
- Genre: Classical / Opera
- Style: Soprano Recital, Romantic & Baroque Opera Arias
- Catalog Number: 486 0531
- UPC / Barcode: 028948605316
- Condition: New / Factory Sealed
Product Features
- Format: CD
- Discs: 1
- Total runtime: 67 minutes 25 seconds
- Repertoire: Strauss, Verdi, Wagner, Cilea, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Purcell
- Cover Photography: Camilla Camaglia
- Manufactured in: EU
- Packaging: Standard jewel case, factory shrink-wrapped
Overview
The title means "loved by darkness" — and the programme makes good on it. Eleven arias and scenes, all of them tragic heroines, drawn from Strauss, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Cilea, Tchaikovsky, and Purcell. Anna Netrebko has been building toward a recital like this for years, and the combination of material and moment is exactly right.
Her voice in 2021 is a different instrument than the one that made her early name in lyric roles. Deeper, more dramatic, capable of a weight and darkness that the earlier soprano simply didn't have. Isoldes Liebestod closes the disc — Wagner's most sustained and demanding soprano writing — and Netrebko delivers it with the kind of full-voiced commitment that makes the choice feel earned rather than presumptuous.
The programme is carefully constructed. Verdi's Aida and Don Carlo anchor the Italian side; the Wagner contributions — Tannhäuser's Elisabeth, Lohengrin's Elsa, and Isolde — mark the dramatic soprano territory Netrebko has moved into. Tchaikovsky's Lisa from Pique Dame is sung in Russian, and Purcell's Dido's Lament arrives as a genuine surprise — stripped back and devastating.
Riccardo Chailly and the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala are ideal partners. The playing is disciplined and supple, and Chailly never overplays the accompaniments. A concert pairing of this repertoire at La Scala drew critical praise from Connessi all'Opera and GB Opera, and the studio recording captures the same intensity.
This is Netrebko at the height of her dramatic powers, on one of the great labels, with one of the world's great orchestras. Few soprano recital discs released in 2021 come close.
Interesting Facts
- Anna Netrebko was born in 1971 in Krasnodar, Russia, and studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory; she made her international breakthrough at the Mariinsky Theatre under Valery Gergiev before becoming a leading figure at Vienna, the Met, and La Scala.
- Her voice has undergone a significant transition over her career — from lyric soprano roles such as Gilda and Lucia to the dramatic soprano repertoire represented on this disc, including Verdi's Lady Macbeth and Wagner's Isolde.
- Riccardo Chailly has served as Music Director of the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala since 2015 and is one of the most acclaimed conductors working in the Italian operatic and orchestral tradition.
- Purcell's "When I Am Laid in Earth" (Dido's Lament) from Dido and Aeneas (1689) is one of the earliest masterpieces of the operatic repertoire — its inclusion here, alongside 19th-century Romantic arias, reflects the broad sweep of tragic soprano writing the album explores.
- Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur — represented here by "Poveri fiori" — has experienced a major revival in recent decades, largely driven by sopranos of Netrebko's generation who have championed the role.
- The album title Amata dalle Tenebre ("loved by darkness") is drawn from a line in Adriana Lecouvreur and serves as a unifying concept for the gallery of dark-fated heroines on the disc.
Track Listing
- R. Strauss — Ariadne auf Naxos: Es gibt ein Reich
- Verdi — Aida: Ritorna vincitor! … Numi, pietà
- Verdi — Don Carlo: Tu che le vanità
- Wagner — Tannhäuser: Dich, teure Halle
- Cilea — Adriana Lecouvreur: Poveri fiori
- Tchaikovsky — Pique Dame: Uzh polnoch blitzitsya … Akh, istomilas ya gorem
- Puccini — Madama Butterfly: Un bel dì vedremo
- Wagner — Lohengrin: Einsam in trüben Tagen
- Puccini — Manon Lescaut: Sola, perduta, abbandonata
- Purcell — Dido and Aeneas: Thy hand, Belinda … When I am laid in earth (Dido's Lament)
- Wagner — Tristan und Isolde: Mild und leise wie er lächelt (Isoldes Liebestod)
Publishers
℗ 2021 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Stralauer Allee 1, 10245 Berlin. A Universal Music Company. Made in the EU.
Heard this disc? A short review helps other opera lovers find it.
