Joyce DiDonato to Release 'IN WAR AND PEACE' Album This November

The multiple GRAMMY-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is widely recognized as one of the world's great opera singers. The New Yorker has proclaimed her "perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation," and The New York Times has described her as "the perfect 21st-century diva-an effortless combination of glamour, charisma, intelligence, grace and remarkable talent."

She is known not only for her extraordinary virtuosity, but also for her impassioned social engagement. Perhaps more than any project in her career to date, DiDonato's new album, In War and Peace: Harmony through Music, epitomizes this combination of qualities. The collection of Baroque arias arose from her pondering the question, in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris and Brussels, "In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?"

DiDonato hopes the album, out November 4 on Erato / Warner Classics, and concert presentation, with which she will tour 12 countries between November 2016 and June 2017, will help listeners answer the same question. Please see below for an itinerary of live performances.

DiDonato says her aim is to "steer conversation and discourse, to help all of us find peace in our lives in a dynamic way." She adds, "As I have tried to convey in this selection of music, the power to bravely tip the scales towards peace lies firmly within every single one of us."

DiDonato recorded In War and Peace: Harmony through Music with Il Pomo d'Oro under its principal conductor, Maxim Emelyanychev. The album comprises 15 arias divided into two sections: War and Peace. Both contain music by Purcell and Handel, including, to close War, Dido's dignified but searing lament from Dido and Aeneas and Almirena's haunting and heartbreaking "Lascia ch'io pianga," from Rinaldo. DiDonato includes an excerpt from Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Peace, which concludes with Cleopatra's spirited and defiantly optimistic "Da tempeste il legno infranto," from Giulio Cesare. A further aria from Giulio Cesare is the bonus track for the album; it is Sesto's touching apostrophe to hope, "Cara speme," that Joyce DiDonato sings on a floating whisper of breath.

In her search for peace and harmony, DiDonato did not entirely desert her rare-arias musicological quest. The album includes three world premiere recordings: a War aria from Andromaca, by the Neapolitan composer Leonardo Leo (1694-1744), and two Peace arias, from the operas Attila and Attilio Regolo, by another Neapolitan, Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774).

When Baroque opera was at its height, the English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson famously described the highly stylized art form as "an exotic and irrational entertainment which has always been combated, and always has prevailed." It has been nearly three centuries since he made that judgement, but opera has continued to prevail by impassioning performers and thrilling and moving audiences. Nothing rivals its capacity for giving intense, compelling expression to matters of life, love and death. Over recent decades, opera of the Baroque era has gained a new and vigorous life, with frequent revivals of works by such masters as Handel, Monteverdi, Vivaldi and Purcell, and the rediscovery of operas by composers who had fallen into obscurity.

Fuelled by these arias, DiDonato is fervently committed to the cause of engaging the hearts and minds of music-lovers around the world. She invites people everywhere to participate in the dialogue about finding peace and harmony. Members of the public may use the hashtag #TalkPeace on social media to contribute their thoughts. DiDonato has already received responses to the project's central question ("In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?") from prisoners, refugees, veterans, homeless people, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actors David Hyde Pierce, F. Murray Abraham, Sir Patrick Stewart and Dame Judi Dench, designer Vivienne Westwood, and many more.

DiDonato's fall 2016 schedule includes a characteristically broad spectrum of activities, such as her film debut, in The Florence Foster Jenkins Story, whose first international festival screening will take place at the Raindance Film Festival in London on October 1; a one-night performance-the first by an opera singer-in the acclaimed Off-Broadway theater production White Rabbit Red Rabbit, on October 3; a workshop at Sing Sing Prison, on October 8; and Master Classes at Carnegie Hall, October 29-31.

In War and Peace: Harmony through Music Performances:

November 17, 2016 Brussels, Belgium Bozar

November 19, 2016 Amsterdam, The Netherlands Het Concertgebouw

November 22, 2016 London, England Barbican Centre

November 24, 2016 Vienna, Austria Wiener Konzerthaus

November 26, 2016 Helsinki, Finland Helsinki Music Centre

November 30, 2016 Vancouver, BC Vancouver Recital Society

December 2, 2016 Stanford, CA Stanford University - Bing Concert Hall

December 4, 2016 Berkeley, CA Cal Performances

December 7, 2016 Kansas City, MO Harriman-Jewell Series

December 9, 2016 Chicago, IL Harris Theater

December 12, 2016 Rochester, NY Eastman Theatre

December 15, 2016 New York, NY Carnegie Hall

May 24, 2017 Paris, France Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

May 27, 2017 Essen, Germany Philharmonie Essen

May 30, 2017 Berlin, Germany Philharmonie Berlin

June 2, 2017 Madrid, Spain Teatro Real

June 4, 2017 Barcelona, Spain Gran Teatre del Liceu

June 6, 2017 Oviedo, Spain Teatro Campoamor

June 8, 2017 Dublin, Ireland The National Concert Hall
June 10, 2017 Prague, Czech Republic Smetana Hall

Kansas City-born mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato has soared to the top of her industry both as a performer and a fierce advocate for the arts, gaining international prominence in operas by Handel and Mozart, as well as in the bel canto roles of Rossini and Donizetti. The Financial Times raved that her recent performance as Elena in La donna del Lago was "simply the best singing I've heard in years," and the London Times has described her voice as "nothing less than 24-carat gold." Her wide-ranging discography has also garnered international acclaim and multiple GRAMMY Awards, including the 2016 honor for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album and the 2012 award for Best Classical Vocal Solo.

Much in demand on the concert and recital circuit, DiDonato has recently held residencies at Carnegie Hall and at London's Barbican Centre, has toured extensively in South America, Europe and Asia, and has appeared as guest soloist at the BBC's Last Night of the Proms. Recent highlights include the title role in Maria Stuarda at the Metropolitan Opera, for The Royal Opera and at the Liceu in Barcelona; the title role in Alcina on tour with the English Concert and Harry Bicket; and Marguerite in La damnation de Faust with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. In 2015-16 she performed as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with The Royal Opera, made her debut as Charlotte in Werther for The Royal Opera, held the role of Arden Scott in the world premiere of Jake Heggie's Great Scott at the Dallas Opera, and returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Elena in La donna del lago.

DiDonato records exclusively for Erato/Warner Classics. Her recording Tony & Joyce Live at Wigmore Hall was selected as "le choix de France Musique" in addition to winning a 2016 GRAMMY Award. Other recordings include Stella di Napoli, a sumptuous bel canto banquet including little-known gems alongside music by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti. Her GRAMMY-winning recording Diva Divo comprises arias by male and female characters, celebrating the rich dramatic world of the mezzo-soprano. Her project Drama Queens was exceptionally well received, both on disc and on several international tours. She released a retrospective of her first ten years of recordings, ReJoyce!, in 2013.

Other honors include the Gramophone Artist of the Year and Recital of the Year awards, three German Echo Klassik Awards as Female Singer of the Year, and induction into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.

To post a comment, you must register and login.