Stefano Secco: Crescendo

Italian tenor Stefano Secco’s first solo album for Delos follows hard on the heels of his previous appearance in our widely acclaimed recording of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Internationally acclaimed for his clarion voice and stylistic sensitivity, Secco – in this well-chosen program of classic Italian and French opera arias –delivers performances infused with dramatic excitement, refinement, emotional intensity, and sheer vocal beauty. Opera fans will take great delight in this thrilling array of mostly familiar and well-loved arias by Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, Halévy, Donizetti, Boito, and Gounod. Stefano demonstrates both his vocal flexibility and interpretive versatility in operatic styles ranging from florid bel canto to meaty verismo. Secco is blessed here with solid and sensitive collaboration from the Kaunas City Symphony and Kaunas State Choir, a first-rate orchestra and chorus from Lithuania, under the deft direction of Constantine Orbelian, Delos’s own resident maestro. The performances are captured in the kind of shimmering and well-balanced recorded sound that music fans have come to expect from Delos.