Great Baritone Arias - Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Gounod, Rossini, Verdi, Britten

ようやく登場、モーツァルトが光るマッテイのアリア集
1965年生まれ、今日最高のバリトン歌手のひとりペーテル・マッテイ待望のアリア集。これまでなかったのが不思議で、要望の声が非常多かったと言われます。すべて得意な作品ばかりですが、もともとモーツァルトで注目されたマッティのフィガロの伯爵役がさすがに白眉。魅力を存分に堪能できます。
キングインターナショナル

Swedish baritone Peter Mattei has been active on the international opera scene since the mid-'90s, but he hasn't made it into the ranks of superstar baritones who proliferated during about the same period. If this album of a wide variety of arias has the effect of bringing him to the attention of a broader spectrum of the opera-loving public, it will have served a valuable service. The album incontrovertibly demonstrates that Mattei is an artist of the first rank not only because the quality of his vocal equipment but because of the depth and breadth of his musicianship revealed in repertoire ranging from Mozart to Britten. Arias from Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro figure prominently on the album and from the first notes of "Finch'han dal vino," Mattei establishes himself as a natural Mozart singer: confident, lyrical, agile, and fluent in the subtleties of characterization. Then the two arias from Tannhauser (not only the requisite "O, du mein holder Abendstern," but "Blick'ich umher in diesem edlen Kreise") show off a loamy, dark, and deeply resonant voice that makes him seem like an ideal Wagnerian baritone. In the arias from Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, and Faust, Mattei's romantic sensibility comes to the fore, his tone luxuriantly creamy and his bearing fervently passionate. The extended scene from Don Carlo that culminates in the aria, "O Carlo, ascolta," is charged with dramatic urgency. Throughout, Mattei's tone sounds effortlessly produced and his beautifully controlled vibrato is calibrated to the expressive demands of the music. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, under the leadership of Lawrence Renes, provides a stylistically sensitive accompaniment. The sound of BIS' hybrid SACD is clean, balanced, and immediate, providing an ideal acoustic for showcasing Mattei's impressive performances.