The selections on this album of Mozart works are not hits, although sopranos have mined them from time to time for entr'actes in orchestral vocal recitals. Some are "insertion arias," a common enough genre in Mozart's day but afterward almost entirely forgotten; they were written to be implanted into an existing opera, often because the star was dissatisfied with his or her material. Others are freestanding arias, but even these were composed for Mozart's girlfriend Aloysia Weber or other operatic sopranos in Mozart's life, ...
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The selections on this album of Mozart works are not hits, although sopranos have mined them from time to time for entr'actes in orchestral vocal recitals. Some are "insertion arias," a common enough genre in Mozart's day but afterward almost entirely forgotten; they were written to be implanted into an existing opera, often because the star was dissatisfied with his or her material. Others are freestanding arias, but even these were composed for Mozart's girlfriend Aloysia Weber or other operatic sopranos in Mozart's life, and they have strong dramatic aspects. All this plays to the strengths of Lisette Oropesa, quite a hot soprano when this album appeared in 2021. She is a meaty-voiced singer with a strong gift for characterization, as can be heard in the aria Ah, lo previdi, K. 272, written not for Weber but another soprano Mozart furnished with good material, Josepha Duschek. This piece has recitative woven through it in an unusual way, and Oropesa makes the most of its conversational aspects. The...
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