Mono & Stereo © 2023: JARMILA NOVOTNÁ / Opera recital

New unreleased

MONO AND STEREO HIGH-END AUDIO MAGAZINE

Do you remember Jarmila Novotná czech star of Metropolitan Opera New York? Supraphon Classics will release special commemorative album containing previously unreleased recordings on 21st February. Find out more about this beautiful record...

JARMILA NOVOTNÁ / Opera recital

Jarmila Novotná - a Met star in unique recordings of world-famous arias!

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SU 4158-2

Release date: February 2014

Contains recordings previously unavailable on CD

Historical recordings from 1930-1956

Selected soprano arias from operas by W. A. Mozart (Die Zauberflöte, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni), Jacques Offenbach (Les contes d’Hoffmann), Giuseppe Verdi (La traviata), Giacomo Puccini (La bohème, Tosca), Bedřich Smetana (The Bartered Bride, The Kiss) and Antonín Dvořák (Rusalka)

Jarmila Novotná – soprano

Ezio Pinza, Martial Singher – baritone, Alexander Kipnis – bass, Raoul Jobin – tenor, Jan Peerce, James Melton – tenor, Gibner King – piano

Wiener Philharmoniker / Arturo Toscanini, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra / Bruno Walter, Sir Thomas Beecham, Paul Breisach, Victor Orchestra / Dr. Frieder Weissmann, and others

Jarmila Novotná in a nutshell? The answer is simple: a Czech star of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. From the very beginning, great artists accompanied her meteoric rise (Destinnová, Tenaglia, Malatesta and Piccoli as teachers, and the conductors Toscanini, Klemperer, Zemlinsky, Kleiber, Walter, Blech, Széll...). She appeared to great acclaim on all the most prestigious operas stages worldwide. A beautiful stage presence, natural dramatic performance, utmost certainty of vocal technique and genuine sensitivity predetermined her attaining global celebrity. Her life, however, was affected by the dark events in Europe and her homeland. She fled the Nazis at “five minutes to midnight”, from Berlin, Vienna and Prague. Her ship reached the New World on 15 March 1939, the very day the Germans entered the Czech capital. With the cachet of a Met star, during World War II she participated in dozens of charity concerts and radio programmes for occupied Czechoslovakia. Yet the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in February 1948 prevented her from returning to her beloved homeland. The war and other historical events thus paradoxically “sentenced” her to pursuing a career at the Metropolitan Opera, whose audiences she dazzled for 16 years.

The CD comprises unique remastered recordings of Jarmila Novotná’s singular take on selected world-famous arias.