Opéra Magazine's operatic 'pick of the month' ('coup de coeur') for September and October 2024.

Back from my summer holidays, I found two issues of Opéra Magazine waiting in the post. Their 'pick-of-the-month' recording for September is Huw Montague Rendall's recital, Contemplation, to which they award one of their 'Diamond' accolades. They say it's a 'coup de maître' of a kind rarely encountered on disc. 'How long is it since we heard such an extraordinarily successful first recital?'

It includes works by Thomas, Gounod, Korngold, Mahler, Britten, Duparc and more, and also involves soprano Elisabeth Boudreault and three boy trebles when required. The whole album is available on YT.

They also give one of their 'Diamonds' to bass Luigi De Donato's Polifemo recital, with Polyphemus-related works by Händel, Aliberti, Porpora and others. Again, The whole album is available on YT.

In October, their favourite, again with a 'Diamond', is György Vashegyi's new recording of the eighty-year-old Rameau's last masterpiece, Les Boréades, headed up by Sabine Devieilhe and Reinould Van Mechelen. This is, they say, a 'worthy successor' to Gardiner's version. It is also online on YT as a playlist.

But they also award October 'Diamonds' to the Bayreuth Parsifal with Schager and Garanca, on DG, Zemlinsky's Eine florentinische Tragödie, under Marc Albrecht, and Konstantin Krimmel's Mythos.