In November 2021, a starry ‘touring company’ performed Handel’s Theodora in Vienna, Milan, Paris, Luxembourg and Essen. An elevated and moving oratorio, first performed in 1750, it tells the story of Christian martyrs in ancient Antioch under Roman occupation. Theodora was Handel’s penultimate major work and he considered it among his best.

Leading the company was Maxim Emelyanychev in his capacity as Chief Conductor of the instrumentalists and choral singers of Il Pomo d’Oro. Soprano Lisette Oropesa took the role of the noble Theodora, while mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato portrayed her friend Irene, a leading light of Antioch’s community of Christians; Didymus, a Roman soldier who loves Theodora, was sung by countertenor Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, and his friend Septimius by tenor Michael Spyres, while baritone John Chest held sway as the authoritarian Roman governor Valens.

This recording was made at the performance in Essen. It took place in the acoustically outstanding Alfried Krupp Saal, and was described by the Online Merker as “an evening of top-flight singing of a kind that is only rarely experienced.” The reviewer praised Lisette Oropesa – renowned in such operatic roles as Mozart’s Konstanze, Donizetti’s Lucia and Verdi’s Violetta – for her “dark-toned, full and sensual soprano voice” and “exceptionally refined control of her vocal line”. Joyce DiDonato, meanwhile, demonstrated her “consummate command of the art of 18th century vocal music in all its emotional moods and subtleties” with her “variety of vocal means: dynamic nuance … tone colour, with a spectrum from straight-toned brightness to luscious, vibrant radiance … In the aria ‘As with rosy steps the morn’, DiDonato’s soft shadings evoked the dawn as a reflection of eternal light … Great art in the form of controlled, meditative singing engendered by inner thought.”  Michael Spyres, with his “secure, uninhibited high notes, gleaming middle register and sure-fire agility” had “everything it takes to give masterly shape to Handel’s music,” and Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian was notable for his “even, elegantly produced voice … sparkling like gold brocade in its lower reaches and shimmering like silk in its unforced upper register”. John Chest made an imposing tyrant with his “firm, robust tone” and the chorus “delighted with its bravura phrasing and absolutely clean intonation.” The players of Il Pomo d’Oro offered both “effervescent presence and dramatic accents”.

Earlier in the tour, the performance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris prompted Diapason to say that: “Justifiably, there was a triumphant reception for the interpretation of Maxim Emelyanychev, Il Pomo d’Oro and a stunning line-up of singers.” There was the “astonishing vocal richness of Joyce DiDonato, between vehemence and contained sorrow, breathtaking in the pianissimos,” and the “luminous timbre and delicate top notes of Lisette Oroposa, the ideal representation of the virgin martyr”. Maxim Emelyanychev’s conducting was described as “absolute in its commitment …masterly.” ResMusica judged Michael Spyres’ voice to be “ideal for Handel’s tenor roles … The precision and speed of his coloratura raised the stakes to fine effect,” and praised John Chest for his “rich, strong voice, particularly incisive in its upper reaches.” Crescendo admired the way Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian applied his “substantial vocal resources with touching musical intelligence and dramatic intensity”, and summed up by saying that, by the end of the evening, the audience was “in a state of bliss … as if floating in the air”.

Eden Explores Our Individual Connection To Nature And Its Impact On Our World

Music Programme Includes Specially Commissioned Eden Anthem ‘The First Morning Of The World’ From Academy Award-Winning Composer Rachel Portman

Erato Album Released February 25, 2022

International Tour Begins March 2, 2022

Every Audience Member To Receive A Seed To Plant As They’re Asked: ‘In This Time Of Upheaval, Which Seed Will You Plant Today?’

From prison reform, the plight of refugees, the need for music education for all, to the industry-defining In War and Peace, opera superstar Joyce DiDonato has long been an artist who has dedicated herself to creating and initiating projects that challenge and galvanise the public, transcending the physical confines of the concert hall.

EDEN is DiDonato’s latest multi-faceted initiative, one that she will dedicate much of her time over the next four years to, uniting music, drama, and education to confront questions of our individual connection to Nature. Comprised of a tour of over 45 venues across five continents between 2022-24, an Erato album, ground-breaking education programme, and multiple partnerships, EDEN’s long-term impact and legacy will be far reaching.

DiDonato’s passionate belief, and the driving force behind EDEN, is that a collective return to our “best selves” is needed to not only address our current climate crisis, but the crisis of heart, as well. By examining our relationship to the natural world and our unique place within it, EDEN invites the listener to explore and search for answers about belonging, purpose, and healing.

“With each passing day,” writes DiDonato, “I trust more and more in the perfect balance, astonishing mystery and guiding force of the natural world around us, how much Mother Nature has to teach us. EDEN is an invitation to return to our roots and to explore whether or not we are connecting as profoundly as we can to the pure essence of our being, to create a new EDEN from within and plant seeds of hope for the future.”

Alongside her long-standing orchestral partners, Il Pomo d’Oro and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev DiDonato will collaborate with stage director Marie Lambert and Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman, combining music from different genres with a stage setting designed to connect the audience with the very heart of the natural world around us.

DiDonato describes how, in challenging times, contact with the natural world in conjunction with her musical life makes her “feel connected and sense that I’m an integral part of something bigger. A seed is awakened within me. This is precisely when I seek out the comfort and connection of music: with each passing day I trust more and more in the perfect balance, astonishing mystery, and guiding force of the musical world. Both nature and music are showing us the way – a way dictated by harmony and balance. Will we answer the call?”

The Erato album EDEN is released on February 25th, 2022 and the international tour begins on March 2, 2022 in Brussels. The repertoire for both is richly diverse, pulling from the timeless theme of nature which has captivated composers over the centuries with each track exploring an aspect of humankind’s relationship with nature and will, in DiDonato’s words, “have no boundaries – like a wild garden.”

Ranging from the 17th to the 21st century, and embracing such composers as Handel, Gluck, Wagner, Mahler, Ives, Copland and Oscar-winner Rachel Portman – who DiDonato has commissioned to write a new work specially for EDEN – the programme is at the heart of this visionary project.

Crossing a number of musical genres, EDEN opens with two pieces that pose questions: dating from 1908, Charles Ives’s enigmatic The Unanswered Question, in which DiDonato sings lines usually assigned to a trumpet, and a new commission from the Academy Award winning British composer Rachel Portman. For EDEN, Portman has teamed up with American poet and writer Gene Scheer to compose The First Morning of the World. Scheer, admired for his collaborations with such prominent composers as Jake Heggie (including the song cycle Camille Claudel: Into the fire, written for DiDonato and released on Erato in 2018) acknowledges, through its evocative text, that this is a moment rife with questions, wondering about “the sounds and the songs from the first morning of the world.”

An oratorio aria by Josef Mysliveček is taken from a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve, as the Angel of Justice utters a stern and bitter warning to his people. From the earlier part of the 18th century Handel is represented by his famous “Largo”, a breath-taking ode to the refreshing shade of a plane tree. The early glories of Italian opera are evoked in an aria from Cavalli’s opera of gods and humans, La Calisto. Its story opens on a scorched, arid landscape, but it ends with Calisto, its heroine, ascending to the stars.

Integral to EDEN is a new and industry-defining model that will set a new standard for the local impact artists can have in amplifying the power of their performances. By engaging with multiple international partners, EDEN ensures that its education and community work is central to the project, and that its legacy is real and long-lasting.

As International Teaching Artists Collaborative (ITAC)'s Climate Ambassador, DiDonato has been working with them on the design and delivery of EDEN Engagement—an interdisciplinary music-nature education and community programme for children’s choirs and school groups across the globe, under the guidance of Eric Booth, Co-Founder of ITAC. The vision is to employ local Teaching Artists in every city on the tour, and work with them to amplify young peoples’ and others’ experiences of EDEN, using their voices and creative projects to gain a deeper understanding of nature and their direct impact within the world. Local children’s choirs will also get the opportunity to perform on stage with DiDonato in the EDEN concerts.

Botanic Gardens Conservation International and DiDonato have created The EDEN Sustainability Challenge that poses simple goals which demonstrably bring a more sustainable lifestyle. BGCI are providing native seeds for audience members to plant, bringing a rare and singular opportunity for the classical music community to literally and collectively plant a new “EDEN” across the globe, actively participating in regeneration, awareness and creation.

With her album Songplay, Joyce DiDonato takes a new and creative angle on vocal music from the Baroque and Classical periods, as well as from the 20th century.

The 14 tracks on Songplay succeed in being simultaneously familiar and unexpected. The album serves up music by Vivaldi in both its customary Baroque purity and swinging to the heady rhythm of a samba. It brings a tango sizzle to an aria by Vivaldi’s contemporary Marcello, and it plays with the voice of Bach in George Shearing’s ‘Lullaby of Birdland’.   

“Songplay, as a title, suggests exactly what this album is,” says the pianist Craig Terry, who developed the concept for the album along with Joyce DiDonato.

“We are taking songs that are iconic for people who have studied classical singing and we are trying to reformat them – but in a way that stays true to the original intention of the song.” Making an important point, he adds that, “Joyce sings these songs with her own voice – she is not trying to become a jazz singer. Songplay will allow people to hear these songs and their words in a completely different way. Our goal with this album is to show people that a great song is a great song.”

At the heart of Songplay are the short, apparently simple songs and arias, mostly written in 18th century Italy, that form the ‘schoolbook’ for students of classical singing.

As Joyce DiDonato explains:

“When you are just starting out as a singer, the first score you usually receive is Schirmer's 24 Italian Songs and Arias. These are considered starter pieces, so young singers work at them over and over again, usually growing to resent them deeply, as the difficulty of singing them well as a beginner is overwhelming. I feel, as did Craig, that as a result we’ve lost the magic of these pieces: they’re actually great songs!  And so we began to let our imaginations run wild: we started off by thinking, ‘Maybe this could have a tango feel …’. “Doesn't this actually feel like it needs to be Samba?”, etc.  I feel like, happily, we've rediscovered the joy of these Italian art songs.”

Part of that rediscovery came from the connection she made between these arie antiche and numbers from the American Songbook. “When my parents were having a martini on a Sunday afternoon (cocktail hour!), my dad would pull out his jazz LPs and I would sing along in full voice with Benny Goodman and his big band … This was music that I deeply loved.

“As Craig and I were playing with the Baroque selection for this album, there was a voice in my head saying, ‘But this song ‘Tu lo sai’, composed in the 17th century, expresses the same yearning as Duke Ellington’s ‘Solitude’, written in 1934. In a sense, they feel like the same song. So, as we were playing with this music, I thought it would be incredible to draw on both these genres – the aria antica and the American popular song – and show that we have essentially been singing the same songs for 400 years. These worlds line up in a truly organic way.  They simply require willing musicians and the desire to tell the stories.”

In March 2018 the Songplay musicians gathered at Skywalker Sound, the studios at George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch, just north of San Francisco.

As Joyce admits: “We didn’t quite know what Songplay was until we assembled all the players in the studio. Craig and I knew we would rely on the input of these wonderful musicians from other genres to help us find this new sound- world we wanted to create. Everybody was a little anxious, I think, when they arrived, because we didn’t really know what was going to develop. But Craig and I trusted the direction we were going in and we trusted the musicians.

“The first day was exhausting, as everyone was trying to understand how this would work. The world of jazz musicians functions very differently from the world of classical musicians. In Jazz, the bass section is King; in Opera the voice is Queen.  But we needed to find a common vision. Within a very short time it became clear that the unifying language was the music and the feel of each unique piece. As we each threw ourselves into the mix, our own sound and approach emerged and took us each by surprise.”

Craig Terry takes up the story: “Working on this album was incredible. I don’t think any of us knew quite what to expect These wonderful musicians came to collaborate with Joyce and me, bringing their completely different experiences, training, and their amazing imagination. It was inspiring to hear everyone’s ideas and put it all together to make something that is better than any of us are by ourselves.”

Chuck Israels, who helped assemble the team of jazz musicians for the album, says that: “The title Songplay is now attached in my mind to Joyce and this project. She is being playful – and not irresponsibly playful, but engagingly and creatively playful with music that people have heard in a particular context and in a particular style. She has taken those pieces and demonstrated how they are living things. To me there is a deep value in that. It’s been joyful to do this. It’s indescribable, the deep acceptance and appreciation of each other as musicians. It's really a joy to know Joyce: not a diva bone in her body – she is a great person.”

The Gramophone Awards 2018 – regarded as the ‘Oscars of classical music’ – reflected the robust health of the classical recording industry and the huge wealth of performing talent.

Live performances included Erato’s Marianne Crebassa performing Duparc’s Au pays où se fait la guerre from her Solo Vocal winning recording ‘Secrets’.

The prestigious Recording of the Year was bestowed upon the winner of this year’s Opera category, John Nelson’s recording of Berlioz’s Les Troyens on the Erato label. Praised for its stellar international cast – featuring Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres and Marie-Nicole Lemieux - Gramophone stated this recording represented ‘a thrilling new benchmark for this epic opera’.

James Jolly, Gramophone’s Editor-in-Chief, said at the Awards: ‘Classical music is a sector that has been performing well in the UK when compared with other kinds of music. In the first six months of this year classical CDs, downloads and streaming have all outperformed the market.  Classical streams were up by 45 per cent against total market growth of 37 per cent. Let’s hope that this evening’s focus on classical music plays its part in producing more figures like that.’

Joyce DiDonato greets you with a song in her heart and twinkle in her eye. The American mezzo-soprano’s album Songplay unites extraordinary musicians from the varied worlds of opera, jazz and tango in the pure pleasure of improvisation, experimentation and exchange. Together they create their own musical language, surprising listeners with timeless melodies transformed and universal stories retold over centuries; songs in English, in Italian and – naturally – in the universal language of music.

‘I had one of the most exhilarating musical weeks of my life recording the album Songplay with a world-class band. Trust me: you’re going to remember each one of these guys! It’s an incredible family of musicians – bass, piano, trumpet, drums and bandoneon. We have essentially created our own sound-world, fusing together music from the Baroque era and classics from the jazz world – with a few other surprises tossed in,’ explains Joyce. ‘We’ve all let down our guard (some of us have even let down our hair) and we’ve each expanded the musical traditions that we have come from to create our own style for this album. It’s joyful, it’s exuberant, it celebrates great music, and it shines a spotlight on the timeless nature of a great song. I hope you'll want to hear this album over and over, and will grow to appreciate the value of playing with a song!’

On Songplay, along with her hand-picked band led by pianist and arranger Craig Terry, Joyce draws inspiration from Cavalli and Chet Baker in equal measure. The languishing heart in Giordani’s Car mio ben is as emotionally charged as Jerry Bock’s hopeful Will he like me? Perhaps the most compelling reminder of how the music of Songplay breaks down barriers is from DiDonato’s experience leading vocal and composition workshops in the New York prison Sing Sing, where one of the men who is incarcerated was particularly moved upon hearing her rendition of Car mio ben: ‘I feel like I've known this song my whole life.’

Joyce DiDonato’s stellar credentials in Baroque and Italian arias didn’t stop her from exploring her beloved American Songbook alongside Haydn and Rossini for the GRAMMY Award-winning album Joyce & Tony: Live from Wigmore Hall. With In War and Peace, she demonstrated the healing power of music that brings people together on the path towards peace. This album picks up from that place of peace and leaps into the realm of joy: it is an all-encompassing celebration of song – one in which there are no boundaries or rules. Let’s play.   

Joyce DiDonato, voice
Craig Terry, keys
Chuck Israels, double bass  
Jimmy Madison, drums  
Lautaro Greco, bandoneon   
Charlie Porter, trumpet   

Songplay on tour:
18 February 2019, Taper Auditorium - Seattle
20 February 2019, Zellerbach Hall - Berkeley
25 February 2019, Ordway Music Theatre - St Paul
27 February 2019 Oberlin Conservatory
1 March 2019 NEC's Jordan Hall – Boston
10 March 2019, Richardson Auditorium - Princeton

The BBC Proms has revealed its 2018 programme, with several French classical stars making their Proms debut.

On 5 September, Joyce DiDonato reprises the role of Dido in highlights from Berlioz's Les Troyens, this time with John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The American mezzo's recent recording with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and maestro John Nelson won the BBC Music Magazine Award for Best Opera Album earlier this month.

French coloratura soprano Sabine Devieilhe will take to the Royal Albert Hall stage for the first time on 26 July in Debussy's sensual cantata La Damoiselle élue, marking the centenary of the French composer's death. She sings Debussy on her latest album of French arias and songs, Mirages.

In another important French debut, Romantic pianist extraordinaire Bertrand Chamayou plays Mendelssohn's First Concerto on 20 July, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

At Cadogan Hall, on 23 July, Jean Rondeau: another Frenchman in another Proms debut, this time an all-French harpsichord recital including music by Royer (from his album Vertigo), François Couperin and a world-premiere by Eve Risser.

Violinist Renaud Capuçon was in London recently for the launch of his Bartók concertos album with the London Symphony Orchestra. He returns 19 August with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande as soloist in an orchestration of the Ravel Violin Sonata in G Major.

Soprano Diana Damrau sings her heartland repertory, songs by Richard Strauss, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko.

A conductor very much familiar to London audiences, Sir Antonio Pappano, brings his Italian Orchestra dell'Accadamia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia to town for Bernstein's Symphony No.1 marking the centenary of the American composer's birth in August. Pappano has recorded the complete Bernstein Symphonies and The Age of Anxiety with the same orchestra and pianist Beatrice Rana for release later this year.

Discover the complete 2018 BBC Proms line-up here.

At the sixth International Opera Awards ceremony at London's Coliseum last night, Warner Classics' 4CD Berlioz extravaganza Les Troyens was named Recording of the Year (Complete Opera).

Conductor John Nelson, a veteran pioneer of this epic work, said in a statement: 'It is with enormous gratitude that I accept this award on behalf of the extraordinary musicians who surrounded me. This is truly a stunning achievement by French artists interpreting the greatest French opera. Vive la France and Vive Berlioz!'

Hailed the opera event of the year, this critically acclaimed Les Troyens was recorded last year in Strasbourg with a cast of more than 250 singers and instrumentalists led by mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as Dido, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Cassandra and heroic tenor Michael Spyres as Aeneas. It is already widely acknowledged as the benchmark recording for this Mount Everest of French opera.

See all the winners of the International Opera Awards here.

The BBC Music Magazine Awards took place today in a ceremony at Kings Place in London.

In the Opera category, the winner is Berlioz's Les Troyens: the milestone 4CD opera recording on Warner Classics with an all-star cast headed by Joyce DiDonato, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Michael Spyres and Marianne Crebassa, with the Orchestre Philharmonic de Strasbourg and maestro John Nelson.

The Chamber Music Album of the Year award went to the critically-acclaimed Debussy Chamber Music album on Erato, featuring pianist Bertrand Chamayou, violinist Renaud Capuçon, cellist Edgar Moreau, Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Gérard Caussé (viola) and Marie-Pierre Langlamet (harp). Bertrand Chamayou accepted the trophy on behalf of his colleagues, and played Clair de lune solo at the ceremony to celebrate the Debussy centenary year.

Congratulations to all this year's winners, who can be found in the May issue of BBC Music Magazine.

The shortlists for the 13th annual BBC Music Magazine Awards, the only classical music awards in which the main categories are voted for by the public, have been announced. A jury of expert critics selected this year’s 21 nominees across seven categories from over 200 longlisted recordings reviewed in 2017 by BBC Music Magazine, the world’s best-selling classical music monthly. The public vote is now open at the magazine’s website.

The many distinguished and varied nominees include, in the Opera category, the epic recording of Les Troyens, hailed the new reference recording and topping many Best of 2017 lists including The New York Times, The Guardian and the Chicago Tribune, thanks to its impressive orchestral and choral forces and an all-star cast headed by Joyce DiDonato, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Michael Spyres and Marianne Crebassa.

'[Conductor John] Nelson drives the drama with unforced tempos but ample theatrical vitality. Spyres...sings with lyrical grace and spirit...Joyce DiDonato sings Dido with characteristic security and expressiveness,' opined BBC Music Magazine in its five-star review.

Flying the French flag in the Chamber category is the sensational team featuring Renaud Capuçon (violin), Edgar Moreau (cello), Emmanuel Pahud (flute) and Bertrand Chamayou (piano) in these mercurial Debussy sonatas - charming one moment, sensual the next. The French critics called the six players a 'supergroup', while BBC Music Magazine noted that 'a sense of joy in collegial music-making pervades these performances. Unlike many, violinist Renaud Capuçon and pianist Bertrand Chamayou and their colleagues do not avoid the vein of sensual passion that glows beneath Debussy's perfectionism...Perhaps the finest all is the beautiful balance of elegiac tone that thins out of the Sonata for Flute Viola and Harp.'

The Concerto category also features French harpsichord firebrand Jean Rondeau on the album Dynastie, with intensely intimate, energised performances of concertos by Bach and sons. 'His spirited and eloquently ornamented playing serves the music of JS Bach and three of his sons uncommonly well,' declared BBC Music Magazine.

There are seven categories open to the public vote: Orchestral, Concerto, Opera, Choral, Vocal, Chamber and Instrumental. Audio excerpts are available on the voting site, and all UK voters will be entered into a draw to win copies of the nominations.

The winners of the Awards will be announced at a ceremony on 5 April at Kings Place, London. In addition to the public awards, there are four jury awards: Premiere Recording, Newcomer of the Year, DVD of the Year and Recording of the Year.

See all the nominees and have your say now!

The tour and album have captivated audiences across the United States and Europe including the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York and London’s Barbican Centre.

DiDonato is joined by conductor Maxim Emelyanychev and instrumental ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro who perform familiar and rediscovered arias which takes listeners on a journey in search of peace.

Joyce DiDonato is an opera singer who certainly does not live in an ivory tower. She had been planning a concert and album programme with an emphasis on rare arias when terror attacks struck in Paris in November 2015. The tragic events caused her to rethink her approach. In War and Peace: Harmony through Music comprises baroque arias by composers such as Handel, Purcell, Monteverdi and lesser-known figures such as Leonardo Leo and Niccolò Jommelli. It is a programme that engages powerfully with listeners, calling on them to find peace in an often chaotic world.