EDEN
NPR“DiDonato’s voice is truly one of nature’s great wonders: luminous, silken, flexible, full of colors and expressive shadings, always supported by the breath so even the finest threads of tone shine. In an aria from Handel’s Theodora, one long-lined phrase offers a radiant example: “Raise our hopes of endless light.” Joyce DiDonato’s Eden may not have all the answers, but it raises the right questions.”
NPR
“An album to focus us on our relationship to nature, delivered with passion by Joyce DiDonato and her colleagues – a powerful example of how music can relate so well to our wider world. I’m brought to tearful wonder by the album’s close. DiDonato’s farewell, ‘Ombra mai fù’ from Handel’s Serse, is a performance so beautiful that it makes your insides ache.”
Gramophone
“Comment la musique pourrait-elle nous amener à redécouvrir l’essentiel au plus profond de nous-mêmes ? Par le mystère qu’elle nous laisse percevoir, avec, par exemple, l’équilibre parfait de la mélodie Ombra mai fu de Haendel, que Joyce DiDonato chante divinement.”
Le Figaro
“Joyce DiDonato’s formidable powers continue to extend far beyond the concert hall… This is a highly commendable recording that commands serious attention for both its music and its message.”
Classical Music Magazine
“Would that every musician could approach their careers with the thoughtfulness and musical excellence Joyce DiDonato brings to hers.”
Arts Fuse
“Diese Frau singt nicht nur virtuos und ausdrucksstark, sie hat auch etwas zu sagen: Die amerikanische Mezzosopranistin Joyce DiDonato ist ein Megastar der Opernwelt, aber ihr Sendungsbewusstsein geht weit über die perfekte Koloratur hinaus: Zentral ist immer ihr persönliches Engagement. Als “kämpferische Optimistin” gibt DiDonato die Hoffnung nicht auf, die Welt durch Musik ein kleines Stück besser machen zu können. Oder eben “grüner” – diese Absicht steht hinter ihrem neuen Album “Eden”: 16 Stücke aus dem paradiesischen Ur-Garten, ein musikalischer Hochgenuss mit aufrüttelnder Botschaft.”
BR Klassik
“Joyce DiDonato’s formidable powers continue to extend far beyond the concert hall… Programmed with depth and imagination, the album explores humankind’s interaction with nature from a range of perspectives, deftly incorporating some four centuries of music… It is perhaps no surprise that the various 18th-century works find DiDonato on especially thrilling form, from the gorgeous tumult she summons in ‘Toglierò le sponde al mare’… Yet DiDonato shines, too, in the more contemporary works.”
BBC Magazine
“The various compositions from often very different periods of time are arranged on ‘Eden’ by Joyce DiDonato in such a way that it seems as if they were composed especially for this purpose.”
Reporters Online
“She’s on top form here, the purity and incisiveness of her lithe instrument giving voice to composers as varied as Ives, Mysliveček, and Wagner, as well as the baroque masters she’s built her career on. The album opens with Ives’ The Unanswered Question, which sees the mezzo in celestial vocalise, singing lines originally composed for the trumpet.”
Limelight Magazine
“Her creamy sound, precise, nuanced diction, and ability to convey intensity through stillness communicate deep sincerity. It’s a beautiful album.”
“The ink is still wet on Rachel Portman’s The First Morning of the World and DiDonato lightens her sound considerably to match the sweeping strings of the song. In the first of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder that she offers, DiDonato blanches her tone to apostrophise the simple beauty of the scent of linden. And for Copland’s I, Nature, the gentlest mother, she sings with purity in such a high tessitura that one would be forgiven for guessing her to be a soprano as she flutes against the intertwined woodwind. Likewise, ‘As with rosy steps the morn’ from Handel’s Theodora, where she provides a hushed reverence of line and decorates the second verse with a sense of purpose, cleverly maintaining the simplicity of the aria.”