Friday 5 September 2014

Rosenblatt Recitals turns 15

Stephen Costello ©Dario Acosta
Stephen Costello ©Dario Acosta
Rosenblatt Recitals opens its new season on Tuesday 23 September 2014 with a recital by the American tenor Stephen Costello. This new season, again the Wigmore Hall, celebrates 15 years of Rosenblatt Recitals during which a remarkable array of established stars and new talent have appeared. In fact, rather appropriately, Costello made us UK professional debut at a Rosenblatt Recital eight years ago (at the age of 24!).

For his recital Costello is joined by pianist Danielle Orlandi for a programme which arias from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and La fille du Regiment and Massenet's Werther with songs by Bellini, Beethoven, Tosti, and Youmans.

Interestingly Costello will also be performing songs by the contemporary American composer Jake Heggie, as well as an aria from Heggie's recent opera Moby Dick (Costello sang the role of Ishmael (Greenhorn) in the work's premiere in 2010). We don't hear a lot of Heggie's work in the UK so it will make interesting listening.

Looking further ahead the season also includes recitals from the Italian soprano Carmen Gianattasio (who was Elizabeth I in the recent Maria Stuarda at Covent Garden) on 6 October. This is followed by a duo recital from mezzo-soprano Belen Elvira (from Lanzarote) and tenor Jorge de Leon (from Tenerife) who will be including Argentinian, Cuban and Canarian songs (6 November). The final recital of 2014 is the young lyric soprano Aida Garifullina who won the Operalia competition in 2013 (3 December).

In 2015 we have a return From Saimir Pirgu (10/2/2015) the Albanian tenor who appeared first at a Rosenblatt Recital in 2004. And recitals from Italian baritone Simone Piazzola, who won second prize in the 2013 Operalia competition (4/3), English tenor Ben Johnson, who was winner of the Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2013 (8/4), soprano Jessica Pratt who has been making quite a name for herself in  the lyric coloratura repertoire (19/5) and a rare London appearance from the Italian tenor Marcello Giordano (8/6).

You can now, also take Rosenblatt home with you and their CD selection increases this November with recordings from Angel Blue, Leo Nucci and Roger Padulles released with Opus Arte. There is also a nice selection of videos on the Rosenblatt Recitals channel on YouTube, and I below is Guildhall-trained Portuguese tenor Luis Gomes (currently a Jette Parker Young Artist at Covent Garden) from earlier this year.


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