Alieva & Antonenko

I quite agree with the other review of June 9. This album is pure pleasure. Big, healthy, gorgeous voices singing glorious music. No messing around with clever vocal colors or contrived phrasing, or deep intellectual/psychological observations or other pretensions, these singers have the goods to go for the MUSIC and sing it gloriously. Wonderful conducting from the always estimable Orbelian. Highly recommended. Did I mention how BEAUTIFUL these voices are?! 6 stars!

fairly good

Handsomely produced, providing extended excerpts from four great operas, featuring two of the most sought-after young singers on the circuit today and in excellent sound, this is a typically high quality Delos production which will attract opera buffs and novices alike.Dinara Alieva is the best new Verdi singer since Sondra Radvanovsky and here confirms what we have already heard in her solo album of Russian songs and arias for Naxos and her previous recital of operatic plums Delos. She has a big, pure, vibrant sound with a touch of the smokiness which often enhances great voices. If her trill in the “Il trovatore” aria is sometimes a touch sketchy and occasionally one could wish for a more distinct variation in the characterisation of her chosen heroines, these are minor cavils in comparison with the gleam and thrill of her lustrous soprano. To compensate, has any recent soprano sung “gli areca I miei sospiri “ with its concluding B flat with such gorgeous, floating intensity and security?About Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko I am marginally less enthusiastic, if only because I detect an element of forcing in his tonal production which I very much hope will not constitute the onset of consistent the over-singing which can so easily curtail a tenor’s career. Loud top notes tend to spread a little and there is nothing especially distinctive about his sound, which is apparently sizeable – I have not heard him live. However, to some degree his timbre reminds me of some excellent British tenors of yesteryear who were best suited to Mozart, Handel and Elgar rather than the Otello he has been singing and his voice is devoid of that Italianate quality that one might characterise as “full of the warm south”. “Celeste Aida” is very competently sung; he does not attempt the diminuendo on the concluding B flat that Verdi writes but few tenors do. He is unfortunately recorded far too close for the proper dramatic effect in the “Miserere” duet but the concluding duet from “Aida” is impressive. It is odd, however, that mezzo-soprano who sings Amneris – presumably drawn from the Kaunas Choir – goes uncredited when the documentation here is otherwise so thorough.Both artists are unsurprisingly at their best in terms of both vocalisation and drama in Tchaikovsky’s opera, where they sound most at ease with both the language and the musical line.This a generous and gripping recital, most valuable for Alieva’s contribution and certainly of interest to anyone who wants to hear two rising operatic stars.[This review also posted on the MusicWeb International website]

THIS Album Is Another World Class Production by Dinara Alieva With An Outstanding Choice Of Tenor In Aleksandrs Antonenko Who Reminds Me Of The Great Nicolai Gedda.I Also Think That The Choice Of Conductor, Maestro Constantine Orbelian Is Paying Great Dividend Here As He brings Out The Best In Both Singers.WE Have Now The Greatest Pair of Verdi Dramatic Soprano and Tenor In Recent Memory.Brava & Bravo!

Un disco que da cuenta de dos voces actuales en carrera. Cantan correctamente, sacando adelante con dignidad el programa. El tenor en la actualidad da cuenta de un descontrol del vibrato en las notas agudas que aquí, en 2014, no aparece.