Schubert: Winterreise, DiDonato (CD)

“DiDonato has a voice of rare beauty, but even more heartbreaking than the loveliness of her singing is her endlessly varied dramatic coloring of the text. Incomparable.” — The Sunday Times

World-famous mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and conductor-pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin join forces to take on one of the most brilliant song cycles ever written: Schubert’s Winterreise. DiDonato, however, casts a different light on this beloved cycle of 24 songs in telling their story from the perspective of the woman, the lost love. Nancy Plum of Town Topics writes: “The question of what happened to the woman who sent the narrator on a tortuous journey was not answered in the Wilhelm Müller poetry from which Schubert drew the text, but DiDonato created a scenario onstage of being that woman, reading from the narrator’s journal and responding to the inherent despair.”

Schubert Winterreise, D. 911
Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano
Yannick Nézet-Séguin piano

Discs: 1
Record Label: Erato
Release Date: April 23, 2021