Casta Diva (CD)

A new collection of Cecilia Bartoli’s finest recordings, including two unreleased arias from Handel’s Alcina.

Featuring beloved arias and duets stretching from Handel and Porpora, through Gluck and Mozart, to the Three Kings of 19th-century Italian song: Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti.

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Decca Classics has assembled some of Cecilia Bartoli’s finest recordings, bonused with previously unreleased material, for a celebration of the operatic genre that has defined her career: bel canto.

Across her nearly four decades on the opera stage, coloratura mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli has proven to the world that bel canto is a more wide-ranging approach to Italian vocal music than generally assumed. On Casta Diva, Bartoli draws on her famous charm, dramatic intensity, and energetic force to reveal that behind the vocal fireworks, bel canto is a musical style that opens up a beautiful and deeply emotive musical world through a sound and well-controlled technique.

Included are unreleased recordings of two arias from Handel’s Alcina as well as duets with Luciano Pavarotti, Bryn Terfel, Juan Diego Flórez, Sumi Jo and Alessandro Corbelli.

Bartoli’s partner for previously unreleased recorded excerpts from Handel’s Alcina is her own orchestra of period instruments, Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco, conducted by Gianluca Capuano.

TRACK LIST

1. Bellini: Norma / Act 1 Scene 1: Casta Diva
2. Rossini: La Cenerentola / Act II: Nacqui all'affanno e al pianto
3. Rossini: La Cenerentola / Act II: Non più mesta
4. Persiani: Ines di Castro: Cari giorni
5. Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore / Act I: Una parola
6. Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore / Act I: Chiedi all'aura
7. Bellini: Norma / Act II: Mira, O Norma
8. Bellini: Norma / Act II: Cedi! Deh, cedi!
9. Bellini: Norma / Act II: Si, fino all’ore estreme
10. Bellini: La Sonnambula / Act 1: Prendi: l'anel ti dono
11. Rossini: Il turco in Italia / Act I: No mia vita, mio tesoro
12. Rossini: Il turco in Italia / Act I: Ed osate…
13. Bellini: I puritani / Act II: O rendetemi la speme
14. Pacini: Irene, o L'Assedio di Messina / Act II: Ira del ciel
15. Bellini: Vaga luna che inargenti
16. Rossini: La danza
17. Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492 / Act II: Voi che sapete
18. Mozart: Così fan tutte / Act II: Il cor vi dono
19. Gluck: La Clemenza di Tito: Se mai senti spirarti sul volto
20. Porpora: Siface: Come Nave in mezzo all'onde
21. Handel: Alcina, HWV 34 / Act I: Di' cor mio
22. Handel: Alcina, HWV 34 / Act III: Ma quando tornerai