Deutsche Grammophon Releases “Stabat Mater: A Tribute to Pergolesi” Featuring Anna Netrebko – Available April 26, 2011

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The famed soprano is joined by mezzo Marianna Pizzolato and conductor Antonio Pappano for Stabat Mater and other works by the Italian composer

Opera superstar Anna Netrebko, who has recorded numerous chart-topping albums for Deutsche Grammophon, now turns her attention to sacred music for the first time on the Yellow Label with works by the Italian composer Giovanni Pergolesi including his famous Stabat Mater. Netrebko is joined by mezzo-soprano Marianna Pizzolato and maestro Antonio Pappano who conducts the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Deutsche Grammophon will release the album in the US on April 26, 2011.

Anna Netrebko has built a career singing in operas and on concert stages with unbridled enthusiasm and a rich voice on unusual beauty and color. Her roles have included both the comic and the tragic, and she fearlessly commands the stage in Russian, Italian and French repertoire. For her concerts in Baden-Baden in July, 2010, Netrebko decided not to perform Russian repertoire (her Iolanta in 2009 received dazzling reviews) or a recital of opera arias but instead a program devoted to a period with which she is not associated – the Baroque. She decided to concentrate on Giovanni Battista Pergolesi whose tercentenary was being celebrated in 2010.

For a singer who has been so closely identified with the heroines of Bellini, Donizetti, Puccini and Verdi the choice of Baroque music could seem audacious. Netrebko eschews the pallor that can sometimes diminish the impact of Baroque sacred music and instead brings a historically informed but modern approach to these works. Her passionate and full-bodied performance brings Pergolesi’s music to life in a manner that is rarely heard as of late.

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