Wolf-Ferrari: Susanna's Secret & Serenata

Wolf-Ferrari: Susanna's Secret & Serenata

Marc Canturri (baritone), Anna Tilbrook (piano)

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Avie 2010

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Wolf-Ferrari: Susanna's Secret & Serenata
Vasily Petrenko, the RLPO and the European Opera Centre reunite for a rare, live recording of the one-act opera Susanna’s Secret by Wolf-Ferrari, uniquely coupled with the composer’s Serenata: Five Songs for Baritone.

Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO first collaborated with the Liverpool-based European Opera Centre on a Russian double-bill of Shostakovich’s The Gamblers and Rothschild’s Violin by Fleishman. The resulting 2-CD set on Avie garnered a Gramophone Editor’s Choice and contributed to Petrenko’s winning the Young Artist of the Year accolade at the 2007 Gramophone Awards. The team reunites for a rare, live recording of Wolf-Ferrari’s humorous one-act opera, Susanna’s Secret. Wolf-Ferrari’s neo-classical score is as seductive as the Edwardian plot in which the new wife of a jealous Count attempts to hide her smoking habit. When he catches her, their improbable reconciliation results in a rather different sort of smouldering. The young singers of the EOC throw themselves into their roles with appropriate passion. The recording is uniquely rounded out with Wolf-Ferrari’s Serenata, five songs extracted from his seldom-heard Italian Songbook.

Tracklisting
Il segreto di Susanna
Dora Rodrigues (Susanna), Marc Canturri (Count Gil)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko

Serenata – Cinque Canti Per Baritono
Marc Canturri (baritone), Anna Tilbrook (piano)

Reviews
“This addictive entertainment was as much a showcase for Vasily Petrenko and the Liverpool Phil as it was for Canturri’s incisive, handsome baritone and Rodrigues’s smooth, well-focused soprano” The Independent on Sunday (on the live performance of Susanna’s Secret in Liverpool)

“The songs, a set of five, are as charming as the opera, and like the opera are full of elusive musical allusions. The excellent Anna Tilbrook accompanies, and in the opera the Liverpool Philharmonic plays stylishly for its young conductor Vasily Petrenko.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2010

“This live Liverpool performance (2008) goes swimmingly under Vasily Petrenko. Soprano Dora Rodrigues has allure as Susanna, with baritone Marc Canturri graceful as her volatile husband…Canturri is solid [in the songs] too, with Anna Tilbrook supplying spirited accompaniments.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2010 ****

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