Delos Diary

If you are a rising and personable young operatic tenor, surrounded by admiring fans who are quizzing you about roles you have sung or wish to sing, what answer will your admirers expect? Probably Rodolfo, Alfredo, Cavaradossi, Pinkerton, Don José or other familiar tenor opera heroes.
If your name is Daniil Shtoda, the sensational young Russian tenor debuting on Delos International, you could answer… Levko, Alesha, Tsar Berendey, Likov, Vakula, Lyonka, or Vaudémont… all tenor leads in various Russian operas little known outside of Russia but as familiar in Moscow as Verdi or Puccini.
Of course by now most U.S. operagoers recognize Lensky as the tenor who sings two heart-breaking arias in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin," but beyond that, little else. And what treasures we've been missing!
Tchaikovsky, Rimksy-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff, Borodin, Arensky and other Russian masters saved some of their most inspired vocal writing for the tenor leads in their operas, most of them still a vital part of the repertoire in Russia.
Daniil Shtoda's new CD (DE 3348) is not only a feast of beautiful singing but will be a real voyage of discovery for most of us. So much beauty, with such dramatic texts, and we've never heard them before. What a humbling experience!
22 areas from operas by the above-mentioned composers and also Grechaninov, Spadavecchia, Nápravník, Dargomïzhsky, and Khrennikov. Accompanied by Constantine Orbelian conducting the Philharmonia of Russia.