Prague Philharmonia with Anna Netrebko on her latest CD
The Prague Philharmonia accompanies the famous soprano Anna Netrebko on her latest album Souvenirs being released by the prestigious label Deutsche Grammophon. The CD also includes Dvořák’s "Songs My Mother Taught Me" performed by Anna Netrebko in Czech as a tribute to the orchestra.
Souvenirs contains music by Emmerich Kálmán, Franz Lehár, Jacques Offenbach, Richard Strauss, Edward Grieg, Andrew Lloyd-Weber, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and other composers. According to the album notes, it is the singer's most intimate recording yet, for – as the title suggests – "each of the tracks holds a cherished place in Anna's heart, and many of them come with a special memory."
The album also features several duets, including the famous Barcarolle from Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, sung with her friend, the Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča. There is also the seductive "Im Chambre séparée" from Heuberger's operetta Der Opernball, which she sings with Polish tenor Piotr Beczala.
The CD has been recorded at the magnificent Rudolfinum concert hall in Prague. On recording Antonín Dvořák’s famous Songs My Mother Taught Me in both of its "original" languages, Anna Netrebko found it "quite amazing how the character and the whole expression of the piece changes when you go from German to Czech". At first she was going to do it only in German, but the orchestra loved hearing Anna sing in their mother tongue. As she relates: "The fact that we decided to include the Czech version on this album is a tribute to the musicians. I love the Prague Philharmonia. They're such a wonderful young orchestra, so lively and fresh, so committed and energetic."
Deutsche Grammophon has launched a special website for the Souvenirs album.
