Golden Age Erin Morley, Lawrence Brownlee, Munich Radio Orchestra & Ivan Repusic

• Gaetano Donizetti (1797 - 1848): La Fille du Régiment:
• 1 Donizetti: La Fille du Régiment: Quoi! Vous m'aimez? … De cet aveu si tendre 06:55
• Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868): Le comte Ory:
• 2 Rossini: Le comte Ory: Ah, quel respect … Ce téméraire qui croit nous plaire 09:59
• Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875): Les pêcheurs de perles:
• 3 Bizet: Les pêcheurs de perles: À cette voix quel trouble … Je crois entendre encore 05:20
• La Jolie Fille De Perth:
• 4 Bizet: La Jolie Fille De Perth: Ils verront si je mens! 07:00
• Léo Delibes (1836 - 1891): Lakmé:
• 5 Delibes: Lakmé: D'où viens-tu? … C'est le Dieu de la jeunesse 07:01
• 6 Delibes: Lakmé: Où va la jeune Indoue "L'Air des clochettes" 07:58
• Gaetano Donizetti: Marino Faliero:
• 7 Donizetti: Marino Faliero: Di mia patria o bel soggiorno 09:08
• Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901): Rigoletto:
• 8 Verdi: Rigoletto: Gualtier Maldè! … Caro nome 06:45
• Gaetano Donizetti: Don Pasquale:
• 9 Donizetti: Don Pasquale: Tornami a dir che m'ami 03:01
• Total Runtime 01:03:07

Info zu Golden Age

Diese fesselnde Neuerscheinung von PENTATONE feiert die schillernde Welt der Oper des 19. Jahrhunderts und die zeitlose Schönheit des goldenen Zeitalters des Belcanto. Mit Musik von Gaetano Donizetti, Gioacchino Rossini, Georges Bizet, Léo Delibes und Giuseppe Verdi präsentiert das Album die Sopranistin Erin Morley und den Tenor Lawrence Brownlee – zwei der aufregendsten Stimmen unserer Zeit –, begleitet vom Münchner Rundfunkorchester unter der Leitung von Ivan Repušić. Gemeinsam verleihen sie dem französischen und italienischen Repertoire neuen Glanz mit Darbietungen, die stimmliche Beweglichkeit, lyrische Finesse und emotionale Kraft in Einklang bringen.

Diese sorgfältig zusammengestellte Sammlung von Opernjuwelen präsentiert ikonische Duette und Arien, die mit ihrer Leidenschaft, Schönheit und ihrem dramatischen Flair auch heute noch beim Publikum Anklang finden. Es ist ein aufregendes Debüt für Lawrence Brownlee und Ivan Repušić bei PENTATONE. Erin Morley kehrt nach ihrem gefeierten Auftritt bei Händels Alcina (2024) zurück. Auch das Münchner Rundfunkorchester ist wieder mit von der Partie, nachdem es bereits bei der Veröffentlichung von Gordon Gettys Plump Jack (2012) bei PENTATONE mitgewirkt hatte.

Erin Morley, Sopran
Lawrence Brownlee, Tenor
Münchner Rundfunkorchester
Ivan Repusic, Dirigent

Erin Morley
is one of today’s most in-demand coloratura sopranos. Her performances have garnered huge critical acclaim as she regularly appears on the great opera stages of the world.

Erin Morley has been praised as “the personification of bel canto” (Opera News), and is “in a class of her own among coloratura sopranos, singing even the most dazzlingly difficult material with beauty and musical sense” (New York Classical Review). A recipient of the Beverly Sills Award, Morley’s performances have garnered huge critical acclaim worldwide as she regularly appears on the greatest opera stages, including the Vienna State Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Bavarian State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Staatsoper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Teatro La Fenice, Arena di Verona, Glyndebourne Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Opera and Metropolitan Opera, where she has now sung more than 140 performances and has been featured in eight “Live in HD” broadcasts.

For the 2025-26 season, Morley makes her long-awaited role debut as Marie in La Fille du Régiment at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as returning to Pamina in The Magic Flute. She also returns to the Wiener Staatsoper as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, and makes a company and role debut as Zdenka in Arabella at Opernhaus Zürich. A highlight of the season will be Pentatone’s release of Morley’s duet album “Golden Age” with superstar tenor Lawrence Brownlee and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester led by Ivan Repušić. Brownlee and Morley will tour this program at Vocal Arts DC, University of Wisconsin, Berlin’s Konzerthaus with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Opera Carolina, and New York City’s 92nd St Y. Elsewhere on the concert platform, Morley will solo with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, delivers a solo recital at Dallas Opera, and returns to the Chicago Symphony for Poulenc’s Gloria.

In the 2024-25 season, Morley returned to the Metropolitan Opera with a double appearance: as Olympia in The Tales of Hoffman and Gilda in Rigoletto. Further highlights included Gilda and a special performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana at the Arena di Verona and Cunegonde in concert performances of Candide at Semperoper Dresden. Elsewhere on the concert platform, Morley toured in Berlin and Vienna as soloist with Maestro Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Berlin with a program of Strauss Orchesterlieder, as well as appearing as soloist with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Proms in London, and appearances with Boston Baroque and Boston Symphony Orchestra. In recital, she presented Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch together with Huw Montague Rendall and Malcolm Martineau at London’s Wigmore Hall and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw; and presented her “Rose in Bloom” program at Park Avenue Armory, Yale School of Music, Friends of Chamber Music, and the BRAVO! Series at Brigham Young University.

The 2023-24 season saw Morley making her highly anticipated company debuts at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Gilda in Rigoletto, and at Teatro la Fenice in Venice as Zerbinetta in a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos. On the concert platform further highlights included her debut at the Arena di Verona in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and Morgana in Alcina with Les Musiciens du Louvre under the baton of Marc Minkowski at Teatro alla Scala to mark the release of a new recording of the opera on Pentatone. Further concert engagements included the soprano soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Orchestre de Paris under the baton of Andrés Orozco Estrada; a gala concert with Washington Concert Opera; Poulenc Gloria with Houston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Juraj Valčuha; Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem with the Orchestra of St Luke’s at Carnegie Hall conducted by Xian Zhang; and recitals in Berkeley and at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC, to mark the release of her solo recital album, “Rose in Bloom.”

Recent operatic highlights include: Pamina in a new production of Die Zauberflöte, the title role in Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier and Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, all at the Metropolitan Opera; her Teatro alla Scala debut as Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos; Gilda in a new production of Rigoletto, Tytania in a new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Zerbinetta, and Sophie, all at the Wiener Staatsoper; Norina in Don Pasqualeand Zerbinetta both at Glyndebourne Festival; a critically acclaimed debut in one of the most iconic coloratura title roles in Lakmé with Washington Concert Opera; Gilda at Staatsoper Berlin; Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Sophie at Opéra de Paris; Fiakermilli in Arabella and Gilda at Bayerische Staatsoper; the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor in Nancy; Tytania, Roxana in Krol Roger, Mme Silberklang in Der Schauspieldirektor and the title role in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, all at Santa Fe Opera. Cunegonde in Candide is another role that Morley has made her own and has performed in stellar company at LA Opera with James Conlon, Kelsey Grammer and Christine Ebersole; with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Philadelphia Orchestra with Alek Shrader, Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan; at the Carnegie Hall Centenary with John Lithgow; and at the Semperoper Dresden with David Butt Philip and Jan Josef Liefers.

Equally at home on the concert platform, Morley has performed with leading orchestras such as Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Recent successes include Beethoven Missa Solemnis with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Riccardo Muti; Carmina Burana with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood Festival conducted by Andris Nelsons; Mozart’s Mass in C Minor for the Mostly Mozart Festival at the Lincoln Center, conducted by Louis Langrée, a tour with Harry Bicket and The English Concert, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Met Chamber Ensemble in Carnegie’s Zankel Hall; and Poulenc Gloria with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lorenzo Viotti at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Vienna’s Musikverein. Morley also appeared in the famous televised New Year’s Eve concerts with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann. She has collaborated with the Staatskapelle Dresden on tour as well, again with Maestro Thielemann, in a program of Strauss Orchesterlieder, including a world premiere of Thomas Hennig’s “Nacht.” A dedicated recitalist, Morley’s appearances include collaborations with pianists Vlad Iftinca, Ken Noda, Gerald Martin Moore, and Malcolm Martineau.

Morley’s debut recital disc with Gerald Martin Moore, “Rose in Bloom,” released in 2024 and was named a Top Ten Classical Music Album of 2024 by The New York Times. Morley’s many recordings include Morgana in a complete recording of Handel’s Alcina for the Pentatone label, Eurydice in the Met’s GRAMMY-nominated recording of Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, Princesse Isabelle in Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable with Opéra National de Bordeaux for Palazzetto Bru Zane, Sister Constance in the Met’s GRAMMY-nominated Les Dialogues des Carmélites, as well as Sophie in the Met’s GRAMMY-nominated Der Rosenkavalier on DVD/Blu-Ray for the Decca label; Mater Gloriosa in the LA Phil’s GRAMMY-winning Mahler Symphony No. 8 with Gustavo Dudamel for Deutsche Grammophon; Princess Mi in the Staatskapelle Dresden’s Das Land des Lächelns with Christian Thielemann for Unitel; Sandrina La Finta Giardiniera with Emmanuelle Haïm in Opéra de Lille’s production for the Erato label; Woglinde Götterdämmerung in the Metropolitan Opera’s GRAMMY-winning Lepage Ring Cycle for Deutsche Grammophon; Marguerite de Valois in Les Huguenots, live from Bard SummerScape for the American Symphony Orchestra; Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 “Espansiva” with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic for Da Capo Records; and Sylvie in Gounod’s opéra-comique La Colombe with Sir Mark Elder and The Hallé Orchestra for the Opera Rara label.

An experienced teacher, Morley has given master classes to voice students at The Juilliard School, Yale School of Music, Harvard University, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Tanglewood Institute of Learning, Boston Conservatory with Boston Singers Resource, and BYU School of Music.

Morley spent her early years studying violin and piano, and frequently collaborated with her mother, violinist Elizabeth Palmer. An undergraduate of the Eastman School of Music, she went on to earn her Master of Music voice degree from The Juilliard School and her Artist Diploma from the Juilliard Opera Center in 2007, where she received the Florence & Paul DeRosa Prize. Morley also trained at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis as a Gerdine Young Artist, the Ravinia Festival Steans Institute, the Wolf Trap Opera Company as a Filene Young Artist, and the Metropolitan Opera as a Lindemann Young Artist. She won 1st Prize in the Jessie Kneisel Lieder Competition in 2002, and 1st Place in the Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation Competition in 2006. She also received the Richard Tucker Career Grant in 2013, the Beverly Sills Award in 2021, the Opera News Award in 2023, the Eastman School of Music Centennial Award in 2023, and the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government in 2024.

Lawrence Brownlee
Named 2017 “Male Singer of the Year” by both the International Opera Awards and Bachtrack, American-born tenor LAWRENCE BROWNLEE has been hailed by The Guardian as “one of the world’s leading bel canto stars.” Brownlee captivates audiences and critics around the world, and his voice has been praised by NPR as “an instrument of great beauty and expression … perfectly suited to the early nineteenth century operas of Rossini and Donizetti,” ushering in “a new golden age in high male voices” (The New York Times). Brownlee also serves as Artistic Advisor at Opera Philadelphia, helping the company to expand their repertoire, diversity efforts and community initiatives.

The 2018/19 season starts with two evenings of duets with bass-baritone Eric Owens at the Van Cliburn Foundation, followed by a night of arias at Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw. Operatic engagements this season include two role debuts in North American houses, singing Nadir in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers with Houston Grand Opera and Ilo in Rossini’s Zelmira with Washington Concert Opera, as well as returns to several international opera houses, performing in La Cenerentola at Opéra National de Paris, La sonnambula at Opernhaus Zürich and Deutsche Oper Berlin, and I Puritani at Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège. His season also features a 17-stop U.S. tour with bass-baritone Eric Owens performing at the Seattle Symphony, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and other venues, as well as a performance at Carnegie Hall in March 2019 with Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran as part of “Migrations: The Making of America – A Citywide Festival.”

Highlights from last season included returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, to Opernhaus Zürich, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Opéra National de Paris, as well as the world premiere and recital tour of a new song cycle, Cycles of My Being. The cycle centers on what it means to be an African American man living in America today, touching on the recent series of tragic deaths and the Black Lives Matter movement, and was composed by Tyshawn Sorey, with lyrics by Terrance Hayes, both of whom are MacArthur “genius” grant winners. Co-commissioned by Opera Philadelphia, Carnegie Hall, and Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Lyric Unlimited, Cycles of My Being had its world premiere in Philadelphia before moving on to Chicago, San Francisco, Carnegie Hall, and other venues. The piece was hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a work of both anguish and optimism, at once accusatory and stirring ... whose traversal feels like a descent into a maelstrom followed by the emergence out the other side,” while the Chicago Tribune praised how “Sorey’s music allows Brownlee to do what he does best – to soar effortlessly into the vocal stratosphere, nail perfectly placed high notes, and invest them with expressive meaning.”

One of the most in-demand singers around the world, Brownlee has performed with nearly every leading international opera house and festival, as well as major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra.

Brownlee has appeared on the stages of the top opera companies around the globe, including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Bavarian State Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zürich, the Berlin State Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, and the festivals of Salzburg and Baden Baden. Broadcasts of his operas and concerts – including his 2014 Bastille Day performance in Paris, attended by the French President and Prime Minister – have been enjoyed by millions.

Brownlee’s latest album, Allegro Io Son, received a Critic’s Choice from Opera News, among numerous other accolades, and followed his previous Grammy-nominated release on Delos Records, Virtuoso Rossini Arias, which prompted The New Yorker critic Alex Ross to ask, “is there a finer Rossini tenor than Lawrence Brownlee?” The rest of his critically acclaimed discography and videography is a testament to his broad impact across the classical music scene. His opera and concert recordings include Il Barbiere di Siviglia with the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, Armida at the Metropolitan Opera, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with Accademia di Santa Cecilia, and Carmina Burana with the Berlin Philharmonic. He also released a disc of African-American spirituals entitled Spiritual Sketches with pianist Damien Sneed, which the pair performed at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, and which NPR praised as an album of “soulful singing” that “sounds like it’s coming straight from his heart to yours.”

Brownlee is the fourth of six children and first discovered music when he learned to play bass, drums, and piano at his family’s church in Youngstown, Ohio. He earned a Master of Music degree at Indiana University and went onto win a Grand Prize in the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. Alongside his singing career, Brownlee is an avid salsa dancer and an accomplished photographer, specializing in artist portraits of his on-stage colleagues. A die-hard Pittsburgh Steelers and Ohio State football fan, Brownlee has sung the National Anthem at numerous NFL games. He is a champion for autism awareness through the organization Autism Speaks, and he is a lifetime member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc., a historically Black fraternity committed to social action and empowerment.

Ivan Repušić
(1978), chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Weimar and the first permanent guest conductor of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, is one of the most important and successful Croatian conductors of younger generation.

He started his professional career in German cultural institutions as the first Kapellmeister of the Lower Saxony State Opera in Hannover (2010–2013). He had his début performance in Deutsche Oper in Berlin with Puccini’s La bohème (2011). Thereafter, he was named Kapellmeister of the renowned opera house (from the 2012/2013 season); since 2014, he has held the new role of the first permanent guest conductor. To date, he has led numerous successful opera performances, including Macbeth, Tosca, Turandot, La bohème, Eugene Onegin, Nabucco, Un ballo in mascera, La traviata, Carmen, The Magic Flute, Lucia di Lammermoor, Tannhäuser, La Gioconda, Falstaff, Don Carlos, Francesca da Rimini, The Flying Dutchman, etc. From 2016 until 2019, he served as the general music director of the Hannover State Opera. During his tenure, he conducted many opera premieres (Salome, The Damnation of Faust, The Flying Dutchman, Manon Lescaut, Aida, etc.) and symphonic concerts. Since assuming the role of chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra (MRO) in 2017, he has conducted a number of concertante performances of operas (Luisa Miller, The Two Foscari, Attila, The Swallow, Ero the Joker, Ernani…) and orchestral music. He has recorded a number of albums in collaboration with eminent international soloists, the Munich Radio Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Choir, which were released by leading European labels BR-Klassik, Warner Classics, and CPO. Among them are works by Croatian composers Jakov Gotovac, Igor Kuljerić, Dejan Lazić, Natko Devčić, Ivan Matetić Ronjgov. Many of these recordings won awards such as ICMA, Opus Klassik, Diapason d’Or, Porin. He made his debut as chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Wiemar in August of this year.

He has conducted numerous renowned orchestras in Europe and around the world: Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Bavarian State Orchestra, North German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Hannover, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra of Milan, Mannheim National Theatre Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Norwegian National Opera Orchestra in Oslo, Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovenian, Pannonian and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestras, the Croatian Radiotelevision Symphony Orchestra, etc. He is a regular guest at European festivals and prestigious venues, such as the Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; Musikverein in Vienna; Konzerthaus in Berlin; Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden; Gasteig, Herkulessaal, and Prinzregententheater in Munich; Smetana Hall in Prague; Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Hall in Luzern; the Verdi Festival in Parma, the Beethovenfest Bonn etc. He regularly performs in various renowned German opera houses, such as the Bavarian State Opera (Un ballo in mascera), Staatsoper in Berlin (Rigoletto, Tosca), Dresden Semperoper (The Magic Flute, La traviata, Simon Boccanegra, Macbeth, Tosca, Don Carlos, Madama Butterfly, Turandot), Hamburg State Opera (L’elisir d’amore, Rigoletto, La bohème, Tosca, Simon Boccanegra), the Leipzig Opera (Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute), the Komische Oper Berlin (Rigoletto, La traviata), the Aalto Musiktheater in Essen (Falstaff), the Opernhaus Zürich (I Vespri Siciliani), etc. He is also a welcome guest on prestigious stages outside Europe such as the New National Theater in Tokyo (La traviata).

Ivan Repušić studied conducting at the Academy of Music of the University of Zagreb under Igor Gjadrov and Vjekoslav Šutej. He continued developing his skills with renowned conductors, such as Jorma Panula, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Kazushi Ono, and Donald Runnicles. He started his professional career at the Croatian National Theatre in Split (2002) where he was chief conductor and director of the Opera (2006–2009). He conducted numerous performances of the Italian, French, Russian and Croatian operatic repertoire during that period (G. Verdi: Don Carlos, Aida, Simon Boccanegra, The Troubadour, Nabucco; G. Puccini: Sister Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, Manon Lescaut, La bohème; P. I. Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin; Ch. Gounod: Faust; G. Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor, The Elixir of Love; G. Rossini: Barber of Seville; R. Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci; J. Gotovac: Ero the Joker; J. Hatze: The Return, etc). He was active as director of music programmes at two renowned Croatian music festivals: Split Summer Festival (2006–2009) and Dubrovnik Summer Festival (2010–2012). He has been collaborating with the Zadar Chamber Orchestra as chief conductor since 2005. He also dedicated his time to teaching at the Arts Academy of the University of Split (2004–2016) where he gained the title of associate professor. He has received numerous Croatian awards for his artistic accomplishments, such as Vladimir Nazor Award, Vatroslav Lisinski Award, Milka Trnina Award, Orlando Award, the City of Zadar Award, Order of the Croatian Star with Effigy of Marko Marulić for exceptional achievements in culture and the promotion of Croatian culture at home and abroad, etc. The Zadar University awarded an honorary doctorate to Maestro Repušić for his extraordinary contribution in the field of culture and art (2021).

From the 2024/2025 season, he takes over the position of chief music director of the Leipzig Opera.

Booklet für Golden Age