Sondra Radvanovsky and Dmitri Hvorostovsky Release Verdi Opera Scenes Disc This February

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Any other startling secrets you’d like to share?
Sondra Radvanovsky: We are both goofballs. Every show of Trovatore, he’s done something to me onstage.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky: Anything, you know, to make her laugh in front of the audience.
S.R.: He blacked out a tooth. He painted a devil the size of a fist on his chest—and right when I’m singing to him, he pulls his shirt open and shows it. I lost it.
D.H.: Eyeballs!
S.R.: Oh, yes, he drew eyeballs on his eyelids. I mean, seriously.

"True Verdi soprano" (Opera News) Sondra Radvanovsky and Dmitri Hvorostovsky--"the Verdi baritone of our time" (Los Angeles Times)--will release an album of Verdi Scenes with encores digitally on February 1, 2011 and physically on February 22, 2011. Fresh from their respective solo disc triumphs, Radvanovsky and Hvorostovsky are thrilled to come together for this project.

Verdi Scenes will be available before its official release at the Metropolitan Opera gift shop during a signing with the two singers on January 27, 2011 at 2 p.m.. Both artists' solo albums will also be available for purchase during this signing as well.

"It's hard to keep up the lament about the dearth of great, or even just interesting, opera singers today when you encounter American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky," wrote Tim Smith of The Baltimore Sun. The electricity between the two is palpable in the fervent duet scenes from Verdi's Il Trovatore, Un Ballo in Maschera and Simon Boccanegra presented on this disc. The album also includes a set of encores performed on their joint tour last season: Hvorostovsky sings a favorite among his signature arias, “O Carlo, ascolta,” from Don Carlo and Radvanovsky performs a memorable glimpse of her Tosca in “Vissi d’arte.” The disc was recorded with the Philharmonia of Russia under the baton of Constantine Orbelian and will be released by Delos.

Radvanovsky and Hvorostovsky will sing Il Trovatore together at the Metropolitan Opera, complete with HD telecast, in April 2011. This month, Radvanovsky currently stars in Tosca and Hvorostovsky in Simon Boccanegra at the Met.

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