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 SUSAN GRAHAM - THE GRAMOPHONE'S JUNE COVER SUBJECT - WILL SING THE ROLE OF CECILIO IN MOZART'S LUCIO SILLA WITH SANTA FE OPERA THIS SUMMER GRAHAM'S NEWEST CD, POÈMES DE L'AMOUR, IS A GRAMOPHONE EDITOR'S CHOICE FOR JUNE, AS WELL AS CD OF THE MONTH  Susan Graham has been called "America's favorite mezzo" by the world's most influential classical music magazine, The Gramophone. The singer, at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico when she's not on the road, will have a unique opportunity this summer to live at home and sing with one of the great opera companies of the world when she undertakes the key role of Cecilio in Mozart's Lucio Silla for five performances at the Santa Fe Opera, beginning on July 16, 2005. Cecilio is a part Ms. Graham has immortalized with a recording of "Il tenero momento," a single aria from the opera and also the title of one of her many solo recordings. In the ten-minute tour-de-force, Cecilio (sung originally by a male castrato) muses on an imminent "tender moment," when he will see his fiancée again. ClassicsToday wrote of the CD: "[Susan Graham] puts her warm, flexible voice to the service of a program of arias dealing with love in its various guises from operas by Gluck and Mozart, a happy pairing that admirably suits her talents... 'The Tender Moment' is from Mozart's Lucio Silla and ends the program with Graham's luscious voice wrapped around [Cecilio's] anticipation of meeting with his fiancée."Mozart wrote Lucio Silla on commission for Milan's Teatro Regio Ducale in 1772 - his second opera for Milan, after Mitridate. Silla's plotline is about the enlightenment of a tyrannical Roman dictator who eventually renounces his throne and frees his people, including two pairs of lovers reunited through his benevolence. The teenaged Mozart's music and Giovanni de Gamerra's libretto are full of energy and passion for this antique-style "opera seria," with its long, linked series of scenes and arias. In fact, the opera opens with a scene for Cecilio, a proscribed Roman senator, who has returned to the city in secret, and learned that his beloved, Giunia, has been betrothed to his enemy, the [real-life] dictator Lucius Sulla. The opera's story is not unlike Mozart's much later opera seria, La clemenza di Tito. Contemplating the resumption of this role, Susan Graham says, "Lucio Silla is a piece which helped start my career in Europe, at the Salzburg Festival. I did it in the early '90s and the day after the opening, lots of telephones were ringing with offers of future European engagements! It's fascinating to realize that Mozart was only 15 or 16 when he wrote this piece. There is some amazing music in it: everything from fiery declarations with high-flying coloratura to tender love duets, murder plots and finales of forgiveness. All in a day's work.Ms. Graham's extensive discography of solo recordings has just been enriched by the addition of Poèmes de l'amour, an April Warner Classics release featuring works by Chausson, Ravel and Debussy. It has already been selected as an "Editor's Choice" and named "CD of the month" in the June issue of The Gramophone. The Gramophone's review of the recording reads, in part: "This is a gorgeous disc of two favourites and a clutch of delicious novelties. Chausson's 'Poème de l'amour' is one of those overwhelmingly romantic outpourings that is seldom heard in the concert hall and not frequently enough on record. But with a version of such sumptuous colour... Chausson's work receives a performance that some of us have only dreamed of."The cast of Santa Fe Opera's production of Lucio Silla includes tenor Gregory Kunde in the title role. He portrayed Aeneas stunningly opposite Ms. Graham's Dido in the Paris Châtelet production of Berlioz's Les Troyens, preserved on DVD by Opus Arte. Susan Graham's performance was singled out for praise by BBC Music: "Susan Graham is an eloquently expressive, beautifully modulated Dido." Mozart: Lucio Silla Santa Fe Opera Susan Graham, Cecilio Bernard Labadie, conductor July 16, 20, 29, August 4, 10 |
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