MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Jonathan Lemalu: Opera Arias

"Every so often a musician arrives on the scene with a talent so richly endowed that the musical world sits up and takes note."
- Gramophone editor James Jolly

EMI Classics celebrates a breakthrough season for bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu with the release of his first opera arias recording. Jonathan Lemalu Sings Opera features arias from several of the most famous Mozart and Rossini buffo roles in the repertoire, highlighting his gift for comedy and strong characterization. The album, timed for release in the U.S. to Lemalu's Metropolitan Opera debut in late March as Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni, also features arias from weightier roles such as Gremin (Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin) and the Dutchman (Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer).

The 2004-2005 season is an extraordinary one for Lemalu, with high-profile appearances scheduled in Amsterdam, Athens, Atlanta, Baden-Baden, Birmingham, Brussels, Cologne, Montreal, New York, San Francisco, Salzburg, Vancouver, Vienna and Washington. New York Times critic Allan Kozinn was on hand this past December to hear Lemalu solo in the New York Philharmonic's annual presentation of Handel's Messiah and praised his "rich-hued, shapely readings."

Lemalu first came to international attention in 2002 when his debut EMI Classics release, a collection of songs by Brahms Fauré, Finzi and others, won a coveted Gramophone Award. Editor James Jolly reported: "Every so often a musician arrives on the scene with a talent so richly endowed that the musical world sits up and takes note. The New Zealand-born Samoan Jonathan Lemalu is just such an artist. A student of Vera Rosza and a recent graduate of the London Royal Schools Opera Course, Lemalu's name is already appearing on concert bills internationally. … But it was the maturity of his singing and sheer beauty of his voice that propelled his EMI Debut disc to this Award. Richard Fairman, reviewing it in our August issue, wrote that 'his voice defies easy categorisation, combining the depth and authority of a bass with the flexibility and vocal colouring of a baritone. It is not settled yet, sometimes keeping the tone even from note to note, sometimes not, but this is a potentially resplendent sound - resonant, glowing, expressive.'"