In Conversation with Marina Rebeka: More on the Music

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An invitation to travel with the flair of 19th-century chamber music, written by French composers, female and male, sung in French, Italian, German, and Russian.     

Some musical objects resist scholarly classifications. Straddling two genres or requiring an unusual membership, they escape the boxes in which we like to lock each score before carefully storing it in a thematic catalogue. The same goes for mélodies composed by French people on foreign texts: should they be considered as French mélodies? Are they losing their French character? Are they even still mélodies or do they become lieder, songs, or any other form specific to the language used?        

By bringing together works by French musicians composed on French, Russian, German and Italian texts, or in the Tuscan dialect, this album encourages us to make a change of scale, to break the frames and respond to an invitation to travel.    

Most of the mélodies in this recital were composed between 1860 and 1890, that is to say on the threshold of the Belle Époque and the Second Industrial Revolution.

Behind the mirage of national identities, we will perceive a European context conducive to dreams of escape and a cosmopolitanism embodied by great musical figures, such as Henri Duparc, Cécile Cheminade, Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint-Saëns, Charles- Marie Widor, Gabriel Fauré, Charles Gounod, and the extraordinarily talented female composers Marie Jaëll and Pauline Viardot.         

Marina Rebeka and Mathieu Pordoy approach this eclectic repertoire using a rainbow of musical colors, succeeding indeed in capturing the very essence of each piece. An exquisite album for the musically curious and the armchair traveller alike.

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“Rejoice as one of my parents and relatives; your Nephew has had the fortune of making such an event with his opera, that he cannot express it, neither it, nor all my friends, nor I could flatter myself with such an outcome. …the curtain falls and the applause starts; and then the stage calling me out, I presented myself and received the general satisfaction of one cultured public, which, after me, called out also all the singers.”         

Excerpt from Vincenzo Bellini’s letter to his uncle Vincenzo Ferlito, on the public’s reaction at the opening night of Il Pirata, at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on October 27th, 1827.      

This relatively rarely performed opera stands out in the bel canto repertoire for its original musical resources applied by a young but undeniably genius Bellini, who was pushing the limits of the musical traditions of his time. Particularly original is the chorus of the Pirates with the echo effect: this genial page drew a clamorous success and was defined by a critic at La Scala “…a masterpiece of musical science”. A mature Rossini told Bellini in a brief meeting they had in August 1829: “I have known in your operas that you begin where others have ended.”     

This new studio recording of the opera in its uncut version includes all the repetitions, original cadenzas and variations written by the singers, as well as the rarely performed finaletto.        

At Prima Classic, it is our aim to present to the public this masterpiece of composition, beauty, and of incredible technical demands on the soloists, performed by some of the most prominent singers of today.     

With Javier Camarena, Marina Rebeka, and Franco Vassallo performing the leading roles, this album was recorded at Bellini’s homeland, Catania, with the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Massimo Bellini, under the baton of Fabrizio Maria Carminati.        

Learn more about the album from this INTERVIEW by Presto.

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Sacred music that has comforted humanity for centuries

During times of need and tribulation humanity turns its eyes to the Holy, searching for comfort, reassurance, and strength. Marina Rebeka’s new album, CREDO, is an uplifting selection of pieces written by some of the most extraordinary composers of our Western civilization.             

This timeless, heavenly music is particularly meaningful today.           

From Bach and Mozart to Verdi and Mascagni, Handel and Purcell to Brahms and Schubert, but also Fauré, Gounod, and Saint-Saëns; Albinoni, Durante, Stradella, and Caccini (Vavilov).  

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Elle is Marina Rebeka’s fourth solo
album, celebrating the diversity of the female roles in some of the greatest
French Opera Arias of the canon.

From a sweet recounting of the pleasures of love in Charpentier’s Louise, to
the steely determination of Juliette in Gounod’s last scene, passing through
the new-found piety of Thaïs, Carmen’s indomitably wild character, Chimène’s
extreme sadness in Le Cid, and Marguerite’s transformation from an innocent
girl in love into a woman longing for a man who will not return, these and the
many more arias that fill this recording explore the emotional spectrum of the
female roles in French Opera.      

A perfect modern introduction to French Opera for the new listener as well as a
valuable addition to the library of the connoisseur, Elle showcases the
extraordinary art of Marina Rebeka, one of the most complete sopranos of our
times, with not only a unique vocal prowess and range but with unusually deep
interpretative powers, making each aria come to life in a new way.        

Elle is a studio recording featuring the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen
(Switzerland) conducted by Michael Balke.  

Learn more about the album from this INTERVIEW by Presto.