Joyce di Donato has entertained us and give us much pleasure and amazing memories. This recording adds to our experience.
Here is a rather long list of what we get to listen to:
Arlen:
Over the Rainbow
Berlin, I:
I love a piano
Bolcom:to,
Amor
Curtis, E:
Non ti scordar di me
Dougherty, C:
Love in the Dictionary
Foster, S:
Beautiful Dreamer
Haydn:
Arianna a Naxos, cantata, Hob.XXVIb/2
Kern:
The Siren’s Song (from Leave it to Jane)
Go Little Boat (from Oh, my dear)
Life upon the wicked stage (from Show boat)
Can’t help lovin’ dat man (from Showboat)
All the things you are (from Very Warm for May)
Moross:
A Lazy Afternoon
Nelson, H:
Lovely Jimmie in Four Irish songs, from an anonymous Irish song
Rodgers, R:
My Funny Valentine
Rossini:
Beltà crudele
Soirées musicales: La Danza
Santoliquido:
I canti della Sera
Villa-Lobos:
Food for thoughts (from Magdalena)
Performed by Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano) & Antonio Pappano (piano)
London’s Wigmore Hall is an intimate place — this hall holds 550 people – and it is one of the world’s great concert halls. Its acoustic is legendary, and great singers of the past who have appeared there include Enrico Caruso, Nellie Melba, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Victoria de los Ángeles.
To open its season is a special honor for any musician, and in September 2014 that honor went for the second time to American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. The pianist for the occasion was none other than Sir Antonio Pappano, who generally devotes his time in London to his duties as Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The Times described the pair as “mezzo diva supreme” and “golden maestro and piano accompanist to the stars”.
The first item on the program was Haydn’s dramatic cantata Arianna a Naxos.
DiDonato, who nicknames herself ‘Yankee Diva’, is from Kansas, and the London-born Pappano moved to Connecticut as a teenager, so it was fitting that the rest of the program was dominated by American composers.
The Guardoan wrote last year:
“Last year’s recital by the dream duo of Joyce DiDonato and Antonio Pappano works wonderfully as a double CD – arguably more effective than the concert itself…DiDonato’s immaculate voice relishes every vowel sound, Pappano responds with pianistic wit and idiomatic invention. Ad libs and applause are judiciously included. All a delight.”
