Michael Spyres, Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques – In the Shadows (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:50 minutes | 1,43 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Michael Spyres is a singer who challenges and reshapes perceptions – as his albums BariTenor and Contra-Tenor have shown. Now, preparing for his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in Summer 2024, he searches In the Shadows to reveal more about Wagner and the origins of his music dramas. “Wagner evokes a varying spectrum of emotions – awe, ecstasy, even trepidation,” explains Spyres. “This album endeavours to illuminate the composers who languish in the shadows, who formed the foundation of Wagner’s compositions and sculpted the framework of vocal writing for the Wagnerian tenor.” In the Shadows culminates with three arias by Wagner – from Lohengrin and the lesser-known Die Feen and Rienzi. Preceding them are early-19th-century arias by composers of the French, German and Italian schools: Méhul, Beethoven, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Weber, Auber, Spontini, Bellini and Marschner. Spyres’s distinguished companions in his exploration are the players of Les Talens Lyriques and their conductor Christophe Rousset.
Read more
Michael Spyres – Baritenor (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:30 minutes | 1,47 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Generally classified into five practical categories: soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass, the characterization of the various vocal typologies is actually subtler and more complicated than that. The baritone voice, for example, serves according to repertoires as an intermediary between the bass and the tenor, but there was also that of barit’enor (baritone-Martin in France) as illustrated by this very pleasant recording of the American singer Michael Spyres, a real vocal phenomenon.
Read more
Michael Spyres – Amici e Rivali (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:50 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Two of today’s most brilliant tenors, Michael Spyres and Lawrence Brownlee, strike sparks off each other as they celebrate the star tenors of Rossini’s time, such as Andrea Nozzari, Giovanni David, and Manuel García. Amici e Rivali – ‘Friends and Rivals’ – comprises arias, duets and trios from seven of the composer’s operas, including the ever-popular Il barbiere di Siviglia and the rarely heard Ricciardo e Zoraide. The ‘duelling tenors’ are joined by the effervescent Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, the prize-winning young Spanish tenor Xabier Anduaga, I Virtuosi Italiani and conductor Corrado Rovaris.
Read more
Michael Spyres & Sabine Devieilhe & Elsa Dreisig & Marc Minkowski – Mozart: Mitridate, rè di Ponto (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:31:06 minutes | 2,77 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Mozart was just 14 years old when he composed Mitridate, re di Ponto for performance in Milan. An opera seria set in ancient times, it boasts a sequence of spectacular arias for its cast of strongly contrasting characters. At the centre of the action is Mitridate himself – the historical Mithridatus, King of Pontus, a ruler of Persian-Greek ancestry who was a formidable opponent of the Roman empire.
Read more
Michael Spyres, Il Pomo D’oro, Francesco Corti – Contra-Tenor (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:12:54 minutes | 2,71 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Michael’s vision is to bridge the gap between ‘early music’ and ‘classical music’, directing fans of both eras to each other’s territory through these unique and distinct album concepts.
Read more![John Nelson, Joyce DiDonato, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Michael Spyres, Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg - Berlioz: Les Troyens (Live) (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2023/03/27/0190295759865_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
John Nelson, Joyce DiDonato, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Michael Spyres, Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg – Berlioz: Les Troyens (Live) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:54:51 minutes | 3,98 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
We will gladly forgive the occasional “weakness” in sound technology in this recording of Troyens by Berlioz (recorded live in concert in April 2017). In light of the first-rate quality of the music and vocals that appear on the disc (a majority of which are French voices, with Stéphane Degout at their head) this immense work is from the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra and the three choirs which have been brought together – because the work demands immense swelling choirs – which are the choir of the Opéra national du Rhin, the Opéra National de Bade, and the Strasbourg Philharmonic’s own choir. This recording rests, of course, on the complete original edition, which gives the listener a chance to hear Les Troyens as the work was performed in 1863, at the Théâtre-Lyrique, in which some intense chopping saw Acts I and II condensed into one part and Acts III to V into another, producing two distinct operas (La Prise de Troieand Les Troyens à Carthage). We also get a taste, naturally, of Berlioz’s immensely rich orchestral innovations: with every new work, he would invent some exciting new prototype from scratch, never content to rest on his laurels. The listener should note the presence of six saxhorns, recently invented by Adolphe Sax (of whom Berlioz was an indefatigable champion, even if he didn’t often use his instruments in his scores, no doubt because of the poor quality of the early instrumentalists who learned – however well or badly – Sax’s instruments); bass clarinet, and an army of percussion pieces including several instruments which must have been rare in those days: crotales, goblet drums, tom-toms, thunder sheets… clearly, this is a milestone in the Berlioz discography.
(more…)
Michael Spyres, Timothy Ridout, Orchestre Philharmonique De Strasbourg, John Nelson – Berlioz: Les Nuits d’été, Op. 7 – Harold en Italie, Op. 16 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:38 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Internationally acclaimed “baritenor” Michael Spyres commands parts for high tenor as well as baritone with the same fulminance and nonchalance – in both registers he has “the operatic world at his feet,” Gramophone Magazine raved. For Berlioz’s collection of art songs Les Nuits d’été, the exceptional singer now makes use of his entire range and presents himself for the first time also in the bass; this makes the recording a unique one worldwide. The melancholy love lament appears on the album Berlioz: Les Nuits d’été & Harold en Italie, recorded by the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg under the direction of John Nelson.
The eighty-year-old American conductor John Nelson is considered one of the most important interpreters of Berlioz’s œuvre. With this new album, he adds two more works to his award-winning Berlioz cycle: in addition to Les Nuits d’été (in the orchestral version from 1856), the symphony for viola Harold en Italie. Berlioz had written it on commission from the devil’s violinist Paganini. Unlike what the latter had ordered, however, Berlioz did not write a virtuoso showpiece; he declared the viola to be a “melancholy dreamer in the sense of Byron’s poetry.” The romantic indulgence is interpreted by “the uncannily talented Timothy Ridout, recently voted among the BBC’s New Generation Artists”
Read more
Michael Spyres, Carlo Rizzi, Hallé Orchestra – Espoir (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:18:20 minutes | 674 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Opera Rara
Hailing from Mansfield, Missouri, Michael Sypres originally set out to pursue a career in musicals before singing opera. He comes from a family of musicians who run an opera company in Springfield MO, and after studying in the US, travelled to Europe to complete his studies in Vienna. He has rapidly established a formidable reputation for his sensitive singing and astonishing vocal range, with leading roles a the Royal Opera House Coven Garden, Lyric Theatre Chicago, Opéra de Paris and Aix-en-Provence Festival. In 2017, he appeared as Don José in Carmen in Paris and sang Enée, opposite Joyce DiDonato in Berlioz’s Les Troyens in Strasbourg.
Read more