Emma Kirkby sounds as lithe and radiant as ever, superbly able to negotiate Amodei's melismatic writing and imbue it with subtle but effective rhetoric.

The groundbreaking Roman composer Alessandro Stradella’s unjustly neglected oratorio ESTER, LIBERATRICE DEL POPOLO EBREO shines forth in a sparkling new release from Navona Records. Exploring themes of courage, self acceptance, ambition, justice, and power, this piece tells the story of Esther, a timid girl, secret Jew, and Persian Queen, who summons the bravery to save her people from annihilation. While the oratorio derives its narrative from the old testament’s The Book of Esther, this compelling story of a lone woman challenging an oppressive tyrant is sure to strike a chord, resonating powerfully for modern listeners as it recalls many ongoing conflicts in our world today.

Aigul Akhmetshina is the fiery young mezzo taking the opera world by storm. Her story is one of determination and perseverance against the odds, starting in a rural village in the mountains of Bashkortostan. She left home aged 14 to pursue her singing career. Despite facing rejection from a conservatory in Moscow, where she was told she lacked the right voice and appearance, at the age of 27 Aigul has already etched her name in history. She has become the youngest artist ever to take on the title role of Bizet’s Carmen at both the Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera, both of whom have created new productions around her. Performing the role all over the world, Aigul feels an affinity with the character. "I cannot be put in a cage. Like the character of Carmen, I always fight for my freedom."

Christina Pluhar leads her ensemble L’Arpeggiata in the multi-faceted Wonder Women. The culture-crossing album pays special homage to Italian female composers of the 17th century (notably Barbara Strozzi und Francesca Caccini), but also to women of character as portrayed in the traditional music of Italy and Latin America: heroines, saints, witches, supernatural figures and mere mortals. Joining Pluhar and the instrumentalists of L’Arpeggiata are four guest singers – soprano Céline Scheen, mezzo-sopranos Luciana Mancini and Benedetta Mazzucato, and alto Vincenzo Capezzuto.

Over the course of a long but ultimately frustrated career as a late-Romantic lyric composer, Francesco Cilea ascribed to one credo above all: ‘Be Italian’. In L’Arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur, above all, he created masterpieces of the new style of verismo which kept sung drama in Italian at the centre of wider notions of what opera means. Everything he wrote, from large-scale stage works, to chamber pieces to the salon songs and miniatures gathered here, expressed his quintessentially Italian voice and aesthetic philosophy.

Le nozze di Figaro has been Glyndebourne’s signature opera since the company was founded in 1934 and Glyndebourne is responsible for bringing Mozart back into the currency of English musical life. An obvious choice with which to launch Glyndebourne’s own label in 2008. This 1962 recording features a vintage cast with Heinz Blankenburg in the title role, Mirella Freni as Susanna, who had made her international breakthrough at Glyndebourne in the summer of 1961.

The Boston Early Music Festival has recorded George Frideric Handel’s very first opera, Almira, Queen of Castile, with a superlatively sumptuous ensemble. For its previous recordings of Baroque operas this successful ensemble has won prizes such as the Grammy, the German Record Critics Annual Prize, and the Echo Klassik. The Hungarian soprano Emõke Baráth sings the role of Almira with a choice ensemble of singers, all of whom have performed in the world’s most renowned concert halls and opera houses. Handel’s Almira is based on a freely invented plot featuring fine entertainment in the form of love and marriage schemes among the nobility, infidelity and mistaken identities, and a happy ending brought about by a court servant’s negotiations. This work was presented at the Hamburg Opera House in 1705 about twenty times and with great success.

Founded in 1998 by harpsichordist and conductor Matthew Dirst, Ars Lyrica Houston offers world-class performances of music from the 17th and 18th centuries on period instruments. This CD follows their previous release on Sono Luminus, Marc’ Antonio e Cleopatra (DSL92115) which was hailed by Early Music America as “a thrilling performance that glows in its quieter moments and sparkles with vitality,” and was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera 2011.

With more than 260 recordings to his credit and an intensive career as singer, conductor, scholar and teacher, René Jacobs has achieved an eminent position in the field of Baroque and Classical vocal music.