Arensky: Raffaello (and other selections).(audio)(Sound Recording Review)

ARENSKY: Raffaello (and other selections)

Domashenko, Pavlovskaya; Grivnov, Vinogradov; Dhilharmonia of Russia, Orbelian. Texts and transliterations. Delos 3319

The young Russian mezzo Marina Domashenko is increasingly visible at the Met, with last year's Maddalenas and Fenenas giving way to several capable Carmens this fall. A highly attractive, solidly gifted but not especially individual artist with a pleasingly dark, middleweight instrument, she has already issued the kind of "calling card" standard aria CD (Delos 3285) that seems mainly designed as an audition for top regional companies (and a souvenir for their patrons).

This new Delos issue presents Domashenko's talents in something more interesting: a tripartite exploration of the little-known vocal works of Anton Areasky (1861-1906). This Rimsky-Korsakov student is probably known best to today's concert audiences for his two lively piano trios; his compositions offer skillful craft and a fluent melodic facility, if no special stamp of personality. Domashenko sounds quite luscious in the travesti title role of Raffaello. This readily enjoyable one-act (formally termed "musical scenes") was the second of Arensky's four operas, given its premiere on May 18, 1894 at the same Moscow Conservatory where Eugene Onegin (formally termed "lyric scenes") had first seen light fifteen years earlier. Fin-de-siecle "Silver Age" Russian culture drew much inspiration from Renaissance Italy; hence this anecdotal tale about Raphael, blending romance (lyric soprano Tatiana Pavlovskaya as the artist's mistress Fornarina) with the creative process. (Scandalously, she's his model for the Madonna.) The Street Singer's ersatz-Italianate offstage serenade has enjoyed some popularity on ...