Anna Netrebko & Rolando Villazon: Duets

Soprano: Anna Netrebko - Tenor: Rolando Villazon - Conductor: Nicola Luisotti

The history of opera is full of great partnerships - indeed, collaboration is the major characteristic of the art form. And soprano Anna Netrebko's onstage relationship with tenor Rolando Villazón in productions of Massenet's Manon, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Verdi's La traviata is already the stuff of legend, garnering praise for their instinctive artistic union and their ability to push one another to the limits of emotion. This new album offers a memento of some of the performances they have sung together on the operatic stage, as well as offering duets from some lesser-known operas. I'm a bit perplexed as to why they used up space on the disc with the Act One duet of Mimi and Rodolfo from La bohème; it appeared on the DVD of their Berlin concert with Domingo to celebrate the 2006 World Cup and, more importantly, they have just finished recording the whole opera in Munich. Nonetheless, the piece suits them ideally, exploiting their vocal youthfulness to the full (the duet is used in a music video on the bonus DVD that comes with the CD), and the complete recording is highly anticipated. Both of the other Italian duets on the disc are perfectly matched to their abilities, too. The extended duet for Lucia and Edgardo from the first act of Lucia di Lammermoor occasionally finds Villazón under strain but both he and Netrebko give ardent performances that overcome the music's bel canto demands. The highlight of the disc for me is the Gilda-Duca duet from Rigoletto; the tessitura is better suited to both singers, who sound more relaxed as a result, and their passion is almost tangible. Their reprisals of their stage roles in the duets from Roméo et Juliette and Manon are as sharply characterised as expected, with Manon emerging as particularly ideal material for their voices. A rarity from Bizet's Pearl Fishers is most welcome: the composer depicts the inexorable connection between two lovers with his typical directness, and Netrebko and Villazón don't disappoint in their heartfelt rendition. In what Deutsche Grammophon describes as 'gifts' to one another, the two singers perform a duet in each other's native tongue to round off the recording. The delicate duet from Tchaikovsky's charming fairytale Iolanta is the superior piece of music and gets the superior performance: Netrebko is in electric voice, though Villazón runs into language problems on occasion. It perhaps lowers the tone to include a duet from the Spanish zarzuela (a kind of operetta) Luisa Fernanda, but Netrebko gives it all she's got, while Villazón is undoubtedly in his element in the music's extrovert Mediterranean passion. Having been astounded by the brilliance of Nicola Luisotti's conducting of Il trovatore and Madama Butterfly at Covent Garden earlier in the year, it is nothing short of a pleasure to hear his interpretations of these varied duets. He inspires the Dresden Staatskapelle to its limpid best in the French pieces and draws expansive playing in the Latin works. In all, a joy from start to finish.

Price: $15.98