MUSIC DIRECTOR EMMANUEL VILLAUME OFF TO A BRILLIANT START IN 2016
French Conductor Earning Rave Reviews For Award-Winning Commercial Recordings, Recent Appearances in London and Chicago
DALLAS, MARCH 1, 2016 –The Dallas Opera is very pleased and proud to call attention to the recent successes and professional accolades bestowed upon internationally acclaimed Mrs. Eugene McDermott Music Director Emmanuel Villaume, who returns to the company stage this spring to conduct our first “Great American Musical”: Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat (April 15 through May 1, 2016 in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas).
Maestro Villaume’s year began on a celebratory note with the announcement from Opera News magazine in New York that two of his commercial recordings had made their “Top Ten Lists” for the Best of 2015.
Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, a Deutsche Grammophon release recorded with the one-and-only Anna Netrebko, Sergei Skorokhodov, the Slovenian Chamber Choir and the Slovenian Philharmonic earned the number three spot on the magazine’s list of “Top Ten Opera Recordings.”
Edward Seckerson, reviewing the CD for Gramophone (U.K.) wrote: “How shrewd to add a French sensibility into the mix (Villaume) just as Tchaikovsky invoked medieval France through Russian sensibilities…The refinement of Villaume’s conducting is a constant source of delight: it nuances and tempers even the most wholehearted flights of fancy.”
Villaume’s conducting of French grand opera arias performed by American tenor Bryan Hymel, the Prague Philharmonia and the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno was recognized by Opera News in the magazine’s January 2016 list of “Top Ten Recital Recordings” from the previous year.
“Bryan Hymel: Héroïque” for Warner Classics was an “Editor’s Choice” for the magazine last May. Critic Judith Malafronte drew particular attention to “Emmanuel Villaume’s stunning work with the Prague Philharmonia throughout.”
~~~~