CD, стоящие на полке рядом : Classics Vocal (Woman Vocal)      

with London Symphony Orchestra

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Journalists who write about the American soprano Cheryl Studer inevitably emphasize her versatility and the breadth of her repertoire. They nearly always compare her to the great German soprano Lilli Lehmann (1848-1929), for one must go back to Lehmann to find another singer who, after distinguishing herself in the works of Richard Wagner, still retained the ability to sing the French and Italian lyric and coloratura roles. Like Lilli Lehmann, Miss Studer is also an accomplished lieder singer, and this recording of sacred arias reveals yet another facet of her versatility. A great many prominent American singers, such as Arleen Auger, Marilyn Home, Sherrill Milnes, Jessye Norman and Samuel Ramey, for example, report that they had their first exposure to music in a religious setting or that their first opportunity to sing took place in church. Cheryl Studer cites the recordings of Maria Callas as a major influence on her decision to seek a singing career. "But before I discovered Callas," she says, "classical music played no essential role in my childhood or our family life. We didn't have subscription tickets to the symphony or even to the theatre. Our musical life was centered around lighter music - semi-classical, semi-pop - and around church music. I can remember my mother sitting at the piano and playing through a hymn book, and I would sing along. And we did that not only on Sundays!"

Born in Midland, Michigan, Cheryl Studer grew up there and in other small cities of the American Midwest. As early as the age of five or six she began singing in church choirs, but even then her voice was so strong that she soon found herself singing with older children. She began voice lessons when she was twelve and went on to study at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, the Oberlin College Conservatory in Ohio, and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Particularly fruitful was her work with the soprano Phyllis Curtin at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, Massachusetts, where she was awarded scholarships to study for three consecutive summers.

Miss Studer completed her training as a student of Hans Hotter at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna. She then spent the early 1980s as a resident artist with the opera companies of Munich, Darmstadt and Berlin.

Since her sensational success as Elisabeth in Tamnhduser at the Bayreuth Festival in 1985, Miss Studer has appeared at the world's most important opera houses, including Vienna, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, London, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. There she has dazzled the public and critics by singing leading roles in widely varying operas by Mozart, Rossini, Strauss, Verdi and Wagner. This album of sacred music shows Cheryl Studer's range in other ways. Here she sings in four languages - Latin. English. French and German - and in a variety of styles covering nearly three centuries. The Baroque era is represented with selections by Bach and Handel, and the Viennese Classical period by Mozart. Schubert and Mendelssohn were dominant figures in the early Romantic period, while Gounod and Faure represent a later Romantic style. Her most modern selection is, fittingly enough, an excerpt from Mass by Leonard Bernstein, who recognized Miss Studers talent early; and it was he who awarded her the scholarships to study at Tanglewood.

In addition to the selections on this recording, Cheryl Studers concert repertoire includes some seldom performed compositions like the Donizetti Requiem along with such towering works as Bach's B minor Mass and the Brahms German Requiem. She has sung the Verdi Requiem at La Scala with Claudio Abbado and at Covent Garden with Carlo Maria Giulini conducting. At the Salzburg Festival she has sung and recorded Beethoven's Missa Solemnis conducted by James Levine. "This is where my real love lies," she says. "I can get almost as excited about a performance of the Missa Solemnis as about Traviata or Salome. It is my favourite piece of music, and I have sung it many times as a chorister and as a soloist. Opera is wonderfully exciting, and it can be moving in an outward, theatrical way. But between operas I love going back to these pieces which move you intimately. I think they touch you more deeply as a human being."

- William Livingstone

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Ion Marin was born in Rumania in 1960 and studied in Bucharest and at the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and the Academic Internationale in Nice. From 1987 to 1991 he was a resident conductor of the Vienna State Opera, with a repertoire ranging from Mozart to Berg, and since then has conducted leading orchestras in Europe and North America. During 1992, he made his American debut at the Dallas Opera in January (L'elisir d'amore), his Paris debut at the Bastille Opera in April (a new production of Les Comes d 'Hoffmann directed by Roman Polanski), his San Francisco Opera debut in June {The Barber of Seville) and his Metropolitan Opera debut in October (Rossini's Semiramide). Further appearances in 1992/93 include concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra and debuts with the English Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome and the Houston Grand Opera. Ion Marin's other projects for Deutsche Grammophon include Lucia di Lammermoor and Semiramide, both featuring Cheryl Studer, Rossini's Il Signor Bruschino and a recording of flute concertos played by Patrick Gallois.