Special offer. Donizetti: La Favorite

Name: Donizetti: La Favorite
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Kate Aldrich (Leonor de Guzman), Yijie Shi (Fernand), Ludovic Tézier (Alphonse XI, King of Castile), Giovanni Furlanetto (Balthazar), Marie-Benedicte Souquet (Ines), Alain Gabriel (Don Gaspar) & Dongjin Ahn (A lord)

Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse & Orchestre National du Capitole de...

The sets are sparse, the pomp and visual grandeur the Parisians are mercifully absent, and the stress is almost wholly on the central triangle...They make a thrilling trio...So strong are the... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2015, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 2nd Mar 2015
Catalogue No: OA1166D
Label: Opus Arte

Donizetti: La Favorite

Recorded live at Theatre du Capitole de Toulouse, February 2014
Kate Aldrich (Leonor de Guzman), Yijie Shi (Fernand), Ludovic Tézier (Alphonse XI, King of Castile), Giovanni Furlanetto (Balthazar), Marie-Benedicte Souquet (Ines), Alain Gabriel (Don Gaspar) & Dongjin Ahn (A lord)
Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse & Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Antonello Allemandi (conductor) & Vincent Boussard (director)

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One of the composer's most beguiling scores, La Favorite is Donizetti's La favorita in its original French form - a tale of love and war that represents a glorious mix of Italian bel canto and 19th century grand opera.

Today's scholarly interest in Donizetti's output has helped bring La Favorite back into circulation, and Vincent Boussard's arresting Toulouse production does full justice to its renewed masterpiece status, accentuating the work's intimacy through economical sets and Christian Lacroix's striking costumes, thus drawing attention to the opera's three main characters.

Three international principals take on these demanding roles: Chinese tenor Yijie Shi is a 'revelation' (La Depeche) as Fernand, with French baritone Ludovic Tezier offering suitably rich-toned authority as King Alphonse XI and lauded American mezzo Kate Aldrich - 'the Carmen of this generation' (San Francisco Sentinel) - plumbing the emotional depths of Leonor's music.

Conductor and bel canto specialist Antonello Allemandi derives every possible nuance form the score, adding to the passionate proceedings on stage.

Running time: 184 minutes

Subtitles:EN/DE/FR/JP/KO

Sound format: Dolby stereo/DTS Surround

Artists

Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse & Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Antonello Allemandi (conductor) & Vincent Boussard (director)

Reviews

August 2015

The sets are sparse, the pomp and visual grandeur the Parisians are mercifully absent, and the stress is almost wholly on the central triangle...They make a thrilling trio...So strong are the lead performances that I got wholly involved in the action.

June 2015

the story is a strong one, almost contemporary in its focus on a heroine who becomes and kind of 'uncle target' for three leading men...Yijie Shi in particular sounds special, a real Jugend-lyrischer with good French...an important opera well worth getting to know.

August 2015

The Fernand of Yijie Shi, a young Chinese tenor absolutely remarkable in the quality of his sung French, raises the drama to a (for me) new level of narrative believability and emotional power through the singer’s shining innocence of face and demeanour: the voice shows itself in full command of the wide vocal range, capable of both fervent ring and captivating soft sweetness. In the person and voice of Ludovic Tézier, currently at the peak of his mature prime, King Alphonse becomes a troublingly seductive figure; his singing of ‘Viens, Léonor’ and ‘Pour tant d’amour’ bears comparisons with the historical greats of the Favorite discography in its smoothness of line and subtle variation of tone colours.

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Special offer. Donizetti: La Favorite

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