Donizetti Songs Reviewed

We’re happy to share the news that the first two volumes of our Donizetti Song Project cycle have received reviews from critics across Europe including Spain, France, Germany and Poland, as well as of course in the UK including coverage on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review.

Sample a selection of the reviews below and head over to this page here to find out how you can purchase the two albums featuring tenor Lawrence Brownlee, baritone Nicola Alaimo and our Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi at the piano: https://opera-rara.com/product-category/default-category/donizetti-songs-project

The first two albums are now available, from tenor Lawrence Brownlee and baritone Nicola Alaimo, both sympathetically accompanied at the piano by Opera Rara’s Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi… Brownlee, an ideal ‘Donizetti tenor’, brings immense warmth of tone and charm to his performance, and is ardent and affecting where the material demands… This is Donizetti the Romantic [in Vol. 2], glancing over the Alps to his northern-European contemporaries, and Alaimo coaxes every drop of Gothic drama from this music. Neither of these albums sounds quite like Donizetti as we are used to hearing him, and to understand the complexity of the man you will want to hear both. BBC Music Magazine

It is notable that Lawrence Brownlee, nurtured on Rossini’s music, kicks things off with an album recorded in the studio in September 2023. The American tenor, at nearly 52 and still in excellent vocal form, embodies the ideal bridge from late bel canto to Donizetti’s neo-belcantist romanticism, which both cultivates and departs from that legacy. Armed with a precise technique, Brownlee successfully meets the challenge. Opéra magazine

Combined with his unshakable vocal accuracy and diction, Brownlee’s performances are indeed satisfying… Alaimo is a highly engaged storyteller… when it’s all finished, I imagine some potentially great anthologies being drawn from the eight volumes. Gramophone

This is an essential edition. The collection allows us to follow the evolution of the composer, from his youthful works set to Italian texts of brief length, to those of his more mature phase, in French and even German, where the structure shows greater complexity… The interpretation of the tenor pieces is performed by Lawrence Brownlee, who displays his beautiful and brilliant light-lyric tone, with carefully crafted phrasing and impeccable musicality. Nicola Alaimo, for his part, envelops his singing with the use of his rich mid-range, bringing the necessary character to the declamations and showing a notable sensitivity in modulating his delivery. Carlo Rizzi perfectly understands his role, accompanying with restraint so that the soloists can fully showcase Donizetti’s writing. Scherzo

In this selection of tenor songs, Lawrence Brownlee can fully utilize his vital singing skills, creative abilities and the radiant height of his voice to maximum effect… In the first track (Al campo della gloria) of the second disc of baritone songs, Nicola Alaimo sings with energetic verve, and in the second (Ov’è la voce magica), with lyrical cantilena… both recordings whet the appetite for the continuation of this cycle. Opera Lounge