Four su­perb so­loists – Anna Net­reb­ko, Mari­anna Pizzo­lato, Mat­thew Polen­zani and Ildebrando d’Ar­can­gelo – trans­form Rossini’s ‘Stabat ma­ter’ in­to a feast of ‘italian­ità’, unit­ing their voices in a warm, mel­low whole.

After sev­er­al suc­cess­ful per­form­ances of this rarely played sac­red work in vari­ous cit­ies, the Chor­us and Or­ches­tra of the Ac­ca­demia di Santa Cecil­ia of Rome wind up their Rossini pro­ject with a per­form­ance at the Salzburg Fest­iv­al, their first-ever guest ap­pear­ance there. Anna Net­reb­ko, whose aria ‘In­flam­matus’ was for many the con­cert’s ‘un­spoken high point’ (Die Presse), suc­ceeded in ‘blend­ing her voice beau­ti­fully in­to the so­loist en­semble – one voice among equals in an ex­cel­lent, well-bal­anced quar­tet’ (Salzbur­ger Na­chricht­en).

Also on the pro­gram is Josef Haydn’s last “Lon­don” Sym­phony No. 104, in which Pap­pano proved him­self a con­nois­seur of Vi­en­nese clas­si­cism and ‘in which the or­ches­tra demon­strated its high stand­ing in a vi­tal in­ter­pret­a­tion’, wrote Die Presse.

Joseph Haydn
Sym­phony in D, Hob. I:104 – "Lon­don" Sym­phony

Gioachino Rossini
Stabat Ma­ter for Four Solo Voices, Choir and Or­ches­tra

Anna Net­reb­ko, sop­rano
Mari­anna Pizzo­lato, mezzo-sop­rano
Mat­thew Polen­zani, ten­or
Ildebrando D'Ar­can­gelo, bass

Coro dell’Ac­ca­demia Nazionale di Santa Cecil­ia
Ciro Visco, chor­us mas­ter
Or­ches­tra dell’Ac­ca­demia Nazionale di Santa Cecil­ia
Ant­o­nio Pap­pano, con­duct­or