Joyce & Tony live at Wigmore Hall
(Music CD)

The 1st work is a cantata; the remaining works are either songs with piano or excerpts principally from musicals.

Title from disc label.

Program notes by Paul Griffiths and biographical notes, in English with French and German translations, and texts of Italian works with English translations (29 pages : color portraits) inserted in container.

Stephen Johns, producer.

Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano ; Antonio Pappano, piano.

Recorded live,2014 September 6 and 8,At Wigmore Hall, London.

These two CDs were recorded live at the Wigmore Hall season-opener and at the repeat concert two days later. The first item on the programme was Haydn's dramatic cantata Arianna a Naxos (which, back in 2003, also launched DiDonato's debut recital at Wigmore Hall). As the Guardian wrote, DiDonato excelled in presenting "the abandoned heroine's progression from grief to fury with all her vocal skills to the fore and Antonio Pappano - rarely heard these days as an accompanist, but an absolute master of the art - seconding her every gesture." The Times described the interpretation as "incandescent ... Daring vocal pirouettes, vivid acting, wide dynamic swings, amazing breath control." Then came two songs by a composer who has played a defining role in Joyce DiDonato's operatic career - Rossini (her unforgettable collaboration with Pappano on Il barbiere di Siviglia at Covent Garden is captured on a Warner Classics DVD 5099969458194) - and four luscious late-Romantic numbers written in 1908 by the little-known Neapolitan composer Francesco Santoliquido.

Sung in English and Italian.