Alberto Veronesi Conducts Mascagni's L'amico Fritz To Be Released by Deutsche Grammophon November 17

Alberto Veronesi conducts Pietro Mascagni’s rarely performed opera L’amico Fritz starring soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna, on a new recording to be released by Deutsche Grammophon Tuesday, November 17, 2009. The album was recorded in 2008 during acclaimed live performances at Deutsche Oper Berlin which were called “a rare musical treat” by Das Opernglas, and for which klassik.com wrote: “The soloists gave of their phenomenal best and the orchestra under Veronesi played sensationally...I can't recall the last time I heard such enthusiastic (and prolonged) applause at the Deutsche Oper.”

L’amico Fritz is Mr. Veronesi’s third album in an ongoing collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon of recordings of lesser known works from the post-Romantic Italian operatic repertoire known as Verismo. The series began in 2006 with the critically acclaimed complete recording of Puccini’s early opera Edgar with Plácido Domingo in the title role. The second recording, Puccini Rediscovered released in September 2009, is an album of original editions and alternative versions of famous Puccini arias and ensembles as well as little-known orchestral compositions sung by Placído Domingo and soprano Violeta Urmana with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Upcoming recordings in Mr. Veronesi’s Verismo series include three additional recordings to be released in 2010-2011: Leoncavallo's La Nuit de mai, an album of songs and arias performed by Mr. Domingo and pianist Lang Lang; Leoncavallo's opera I Medici also starring Placído Domingo; and Giordano's Fedora with Ms. Gheorghiu and Mr. Domingo.

Mr. Veronesi has done extensive research on works from the late 19th to early 20th Century Verismo operatic repertoire by composers such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo and Puccini, among others, and continues to program and record these composers’ lesser known works in an effort to give this underexposed repertoire a wider audience and establish new masterworks.

L’amico Fritz is Mascagni’s second opera; a light-hearted follow-up to his popular Cavalleria rusticana. The opera tells the story of Fritz (Alagna), a wealthy landowner and confirmed bachelor who falls for Suzel (Gheorghiu), the young daughter of one of his tenants, and includes The Cherry Duet (“Suzel, buon di”) – a love duet considered the best known piece from the opera which has long been part of Alagna and Gheorghiu’s repertoire. The cast on the recording is rounded out by Laura Polverelli as the gypsy boy Beppe, a rare trouser role for the time period, George Petean as David, Yosep Kang as Federico, Hyung-Wook Lee as Hanezó and Andión Fernández as Caterina.

Born in Milan, Alberto Veronesi studied at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory and while a student, founded the Guido Cantelli Orchestra, which has since remained in residence at the Conservatory. He directed the orchestra until 2000, including performances at the Salzburg Easter Festival (at the invitation of Claudio Abbado), Teatro alla Scala and Maggio Musicale.

In 1999, Mr. Veronesi was appointed Musical Director of the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago, where he has not only conducted all of Puccini's operas but was also actively involved in the construction of a new opera house. In 2003, his production of La Bohème at the Festival won the Premio Abbiati, awarded by the Italian Music Critics Association. His performances at the Festival in 2009 included a new production of Manon Lescaut and a gala concert with soprano Angela Gheorghiu.

In 2001 Mr. Veronesi was named Artistic and Musical Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo, where he is performing complete cycles of symphonies by Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler and Shostakovich, as well as giving prominence to 20th-century Italian symphonic music and continuing to program contemporary works. He was also recently named Artistic Director of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

As a guest conductor, Mr. Veronesi has led orchestras in New York, Rome, Tokyo, Athens, and Tel Aviv among other cities, and at opera houses such as Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and La Monnaie Bruxelles. He lives in Palermo with his wife and young daughter.


L’AMICO FRITZ
Pietro Mascagni (1863 - 1945)
CD |D|D|D| 000289 477 8358 9 |G|H 2|
2 Compact Discs

Alberto Veronesi, conductor
Chor und Orchester der Deutsche Oper Berlin

Cast:
Fritz Kobus: Roberto Alagna
Suzel: Angela Gheorghiu
Beppe: Laura Polverelli
David: George Petean
Federico: Yosep Kang
Hanezò: Hyung-Wook Lee
Caterina; Andión Fernández

Tchaikovsky Piano Trio No. 50 & Rachmaninov Trio élégiaque All-Star Trio Collaborate on Pianist’s First Chamber Music Recording Released on October 20

NEW YORK, NY – On October 20th, Deutsche Grammophon will release a recording which reveals a side of pianist Lang Lang’s prodigious talent rarely heard before—his finesse as a collegial interpreter of chamber music. In this, his first chamber music recording, Lang Lang revisits two stellar exponents of Russia’s Romantic musical soul, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Making the news of Lang Lang‘s first ever chamber music recording bigger is the fact that he is joined by two giants of the violin and cello: Vadim Repin and Mischa Maisky. Lang Lang could not be in better company to reveal the inexhaustible inventiveness of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio No. 50 in A minor or the tender consolations of Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque in G-minor, a short early masterpiece composed before Rachmaninov was twenty.

People have often bracketed Tchaikovsky’s great A minor Trio together with Rachmaninov’s first Trio élégiaque, and in Lang Lang’s view this is appropriate. Rachmaninov’s teenage work reflects a huge influence by the older composer, he says, and the trios inhabit the same emotional world: “Both works are tragic, but what really makes you cry is their beauty.” Lang Lang, Mischa Maisky and Vadim Repin first performed these works together at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland on July 21st of this year. “We are trying to live through them together,” says Repin. “This is our essential preparation for the recording.”

This concert may have been their first joint foray, but the chemistry is already good. It needs to be, since their personalities are big, their backgrounds are diverse, and – with Maisky at 61, Repin at 38, and Lang Lang at 27 – they effectively represent three generations. The ebullient Maisky, born in Riga, has had a highly unconventional career: his inbuilt rebelliousness led to his being put in jail by the Soviet authorities, then in a work camp, then in a mental hospital, before what he calls his “repatriation” in 1972 to Israel, from where his career as a soloist and chamber player took off. Repin, whose playing is now routinely compared with that of his hero David Oistrakh, only gravitated to the violin because when he was five and wanted to attend the music school in his hometown of Novosibirsk, the one available place was for that instrument. Lang Lang’s well-documented rise from obscure provincial origins in China has catapulted him into non-stop global orbit: he brings not only a different generational approach to this music, but a profoundly different cultural perspective as well. “Lang Lang’s youthfulness makes his playing shine, as though it’s full of light,” says Repin. “Mischa and I are trying to harness that quality.”

In the past ten years, Lang Lang has become an international phenomenon, playing sold out recitals and concerts in cities around the world. His influence and status in China has helped to inspire over 35 million Chinese children to learn to play piano—a phenomenon dubbed by NBC’s The Today Show as "the Lang Lang effect." Earlier this year, Time magazine included Lang Lang in its 2009 list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World."

On October 27th, just a week after the release of this recording, Lang Lang will perform the Tchaikovsky Trio at Carnegie Hall with emerging and established Chinese and Chinese-American musicians in a program entitled “Lang Lang and Friends.” This concert is one of three in which Lang Lang will star during Carnegie’s expansive Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture presented together with the Philharmonic Society of Orange County in Costa Mesa, California. “Lang Lang and Friends” will also be presented there on November 3rd. These engagements are part of a busy performing schedule for Lang Lang in the US this fall which also includes appearances in Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington DC before the end of November.

For more information about this recording, please visit: 
www.deutschegrammophon.com/langlang-repin-maisky



Lang Lang in Performance USA Fall 2009

October 27, 2009
New York Carnegie Hall

Lang Lang and Friends: Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Bizet & Chinese Pieces



October 28, 2009
New York Carnegie Hall

Chen: Piano Concerto, Julliard Orchestra , Michael Tilson Thomas

October 30th
Denver Boettcher Concert Hall

Beethoven: Piano Concerto no. 3, Colorado Symphony, Jeffrey Kahane

November 1, 2009
Seattle Benaroya Hall 

Beethoven: Piano Concerto no. 2 , Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwartz

November 3, 2009
Segerstrom Hall (Orange County Performing Arts Center)

Lang Lang and Friends: Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Bizet & Chinese Pieces

November 8, 2009
Los Angeles Walt Disney Concert Hall

Beethoven: Piano Sonata op. 2; Piano Sonata op. 57; Albéniz: "Iberia" Book 1; Prokofiev: Piano Sonata op. 83

November 10, 2009
New York Carnegie Hall

Tan Dun: Piano Concerto, China Philharmonic, Long Yu

November 13, 2009
Washington Kennedy Center 

Beethoven: Piano Concerto no. 1; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto no. 3 National Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton

November 14, 2009
Purchase SUNY Purchase College / Performing Arts Center

Beethoven: Piano Sonata op. 2; Piano Sonata op. 57; Albéniz: "Iberia" Book 1; Prokofiev: Piano Sonata op. 83


Vadim Repin in Performance USA Fall 2009



October 28-31, 2009
San Francisco Davies Symphony Hall

Sibelius: Violin Concerto, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä

November 5-7, 2009
Washington Kennedy Center

Brahms: Violin Concerto, National Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Vedernikov