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On her second solo album Lisette Oropesa has combined two of her greatest loves, the French language and Italian bel canto. This recording with the Dresdner Philharmonie under the baton of Corrado Rovaris showcases the variety of lesser-known and more popular works by Rossini and Donizetti, featuring arias that contain coloratura, lyricism, drama, heightened emotion, and even comedy. Star soprano Lisette Oropesa made her Pentatone debut with Ombra Compagna, Mozart Concert Arias in 2021, and sung the title heroine in a complete recording of Verdi’s La Traviata, also released on the label in 2022. The Dresdner Philharmonie was involved in that same recording, and has also participated in several other recordings released by Pentatone, such as Weber’s Der Freischütz (2019), Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Puccini’s Il Tabarro (both 2020) and Beethoven’s Fidelio (2021). Conductor Corrado Rovaris particularly excels in bel canto and verismo repertoire, and makes his Pentatone debut. “I was in Paris a few years ago singing a marvelous opera by Meyerbeer, and was so inspired by Le grand opéra français and its role in the Italian bel canto composers’ works. Growing up in Louisiana, French was the first foreign language that I studied, so I have a deep appreciation for the way it sounds and the way it feels to sing in French. When I began my vocal studies in college, I worked on a lot of French art songs, and also a few French operatic arias, but the majority of my training was in Italian bel canto and Mozart. After having made a wonderful journey into Mozart’s concert arias for my first recording, I was very excited to find a way to combine two of my greatest loves, the French language and Italian bel canto, into another album. Thus, the idea for recording arias from the French language works of Rossini and Donizetti was born. It has been a joy to explore lesser-known pieces, as well as the more popular ones, for the repertoire that we chose to feature in this album. There is so much out there, and a lot of it gets performed so rarely outside of festivals dedicated to Rossini and Donizetti.” – Lisette Oropesa