Justina Gringyte and Robert Trevino Record First Collaboration with VERDI Album

Ondine Records has released a new album bringing together mezzo-soprano Justina Gringyte and conductor Robert Trevino for their first recorded collaboration, featuring the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI. The album, titled Verdi: Mezzo-soprano Arias and Overtures, was released on 6th November.

Gringyte revives the art of the Verdi mezzo-soprano arias album with a gallery of the composer's most vivid characters, following the award-winning singer's previous album for Ondine, Bizet Songs. Trevino, Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, conducts the orchestra; their last recording together was also Italian repertoire, Respighi's Sinfonia Drammatica.

Award-winning mezzo-soprano Justina Gringyte is swiftly building her reputation as one of the most compelling dramatic singing-actresses of her generation. Following her first solo recording for Ondine — Bizet's complete 20 Mélodies — and contributions to Gramophone Award-nominated recordings of music by Raminta Šerkšnytė (Deutsche Grammophon) and Rachmaninoff and Medtner (Delphian Classics), her new album turns to the composer whose music increasingly anchors her stage career: Giuseppe Verdi.

Recorded in Turin with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI under its Principal Guest Conductor Robert Trevino, Verdi: Mezzo-soprano Arias and Overtures traverses more than three decades of Verdi's theatrical output. The 80-minute programme spans less-frequently heard arias from early works — Oberto and Un giorno di regno — through the dark ferocity of Azucena (Il trovatore) and Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera), to the monumental passions of Princess Eboli (Don Carlo) and Amneris (Aida), where she is joined by tenor Gaston Rivero. Interwoven throughout are the volcanic orchestral overtures to Nabucco, La forza del destino, and I vespri siciliani under the baton of Maestro Trevino.

'There are few composers who created such a gallery of vivid roles for mezzo sopranos as Verdi,' says Gringyte, 'In some ways he was actually inventing a voice type, just as he was indelibly creating these incredibly dramatic characterisations — women for whom there are no half-measures, who have profound worlds of emotion within them.

'And the range of that dramatic expression is astounding. Pain, vengefulness, mysticism, stubborn joy in the face of war, love, jealousy. As a singer these are all-consuming, yet deeply rewarding. I have been working up to this album for years, singing almost all of these roles on stage, and learning how to bring the technique, and the breadth of interpretation that they demand.

'Robert Trevino and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI were perfect collaborators. You can only truly inhabit these characters when their world is created around you, and Robert and the Rai, who have this music in their blood, brought that world.'

'Verdi's music has been at the heart of my professional conducting life, from Don Carlo at the Bolshoi, which turned out to be my career breakthrough, until today,' says Robert Trevino, 'His music symbolizes the most profound expressions of drama, composed and developed in honest and truthful understanding of the human condition, without superficiality. A music which helps us to aspire to great causes and noble principles — and to love.

'Making this recording with Justina has been a deeply personal collaboration of enormous significance for she and I, and also I believe expresses a shared musical vision, between both of us and my long time colleagues of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI, with whom I've shared almost a decade of collaboration. In short, this project is a true dream come true for me.'

A natural Verdian hailed for her 'rich, dark-grained tone and fiery stage temperament' (The Times), 'thrilling dramatic intensity' (Opera Today), and previous turns praised as 'magnetic' (The Spectator) and 'hotly phrased, superbly controlled' (The Guardian), Gringyte brings deep stage pedigree to the recording. Coinciding with the release, audiences in her native Lithuania can currently see her live on stage in one of the album's centrepiece roles, as Amneris in Aida at the Lithuanian National Opera — a portrayal that previously earned her a prestigious Golden Stage Cross nomination, Lithuania's highest stage award.

Robert Trevino has been much admired in Verdi. His breakthrough Don Carlo at the Bolshoi Opera won him a 2015 nomination for Russia's Golden Mask Award for Best Conductor In Opera; one reviewer wrote, 'there has not been an American success of this magnitude in Moscow since Van Cliburn.' Of his Verdi Requiem last year at the Festival Verdi at the Teatro Regio di Parma, meanwhile, Connessi all'Opera wrote, 'Trevino succeeded on the one hand in bringing out the extraordinary richness of Verdi's writing, and on the other in tautening the narrative arc so as to maintain constant theatrical tension...an expansive dynamic palette ranging from whispered pianissimos to fortissimos that were vigorous but never overblown....supple phrasing brought to the fore the heartfelt cantabilità of many passages alongside the severity of others.'

Justina Gringyte

The award-winning Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Justina Gringyte has received high praise for her 'knockout technique' (The Times) and 'thunderously powerful voice' (Daily Telegraph). Awarded Young Singer of the Year at the International Opera Awards, and a graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden — where among other things she performed at the Olympic Committee's Opening Ceremony for the London Olympic Games alongside Renée Fleming, Bryn Terfel and Plácido Domingo — Justina is considered one of the foremost rising stars on the opera scene.

An acclaimed Carmen, her hugely-praised performance with English National Opera was screened live into cinemas. Her remarkable range stretches from French opera to Mahler, and to the great Verdi mezzo roles, which she now sings around the world. She has collaborated with conductors including Sir Antonio Pappano, Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Tugan Sokhiev, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Ludovic Morlot, Susanna Malkki, Evelino Pidò, Kazushi Ono, Robert Trevino, Daniele Rustioni, Carlo Rizzi, Xian Zhang, Tarmo Peltokoski, Sesto Quatrini, Giacomo Sagripanti, Markus Poschner, Roberto Fores Veses and Edward Gardner.

She has appeared at L'Opéra National de Paris, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Madrid's Teatro Real, Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro Massimo Palermo, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, the Bolshoi Opera, Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Israeli Opera, Latvian National Opera, Korean National Opera and Lithuanian National Opera. Concert engagements have brought her to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Zurich, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, and Orchestra della Svizzeria Italiana, among others.

Robert Trevino

Robert Trevino is regularly to be seen on the podiums of the world's leading orchestras, from the London Symphony Orchestra to the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig to the Baltimore Symphony. He has been named the incoming Principal Conductor of the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, and he is Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.

Other regular collaborators include the Münchner Philharmoniker, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Dresdner Philharmonie, SWR Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, NDR Hannover, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Bamberger Symphoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Helsinki Philharmonic, São Paulo Symphony, NHK Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic, China Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra and St Petersburg Philharmonic. He has also conducted a wide variety of orchestras in North America – also among them the symphony orchestras of Cleveland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Utah, Toronto and Detroit.

He has conducted at many leading festivals, including the Mahler Festival Leipzig, Milan Mahler Festival, MITO Festival, Puccini Festival and Enescu Festival. Trevino's opera work has included productions at Opernhaus Zurich, La Fenice, Washington National Opera and the Bolshoi Theater. He was for eight years Music Director of the Basque National Orchestra, a period hailed as transformational in the orchestra's history. He was also Chief Conductor of the Malmo Symphony Orchestra. He has taken many orchestras on prestigious international tours, including to Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Romania, Azerbaijan and South America.

Trevino's recording contract with Ondine has resulted in a widely-praised complete Beethoven symphonies cycle, two much-acclaimed Ravel albums, a Rautavaara album, Respighi's Roman Trilogy and Sinfonia Drammatica, 'Americascapes' – a survey of little-known American masterpieces, that won 'Best Recording of 2021' from Presto Music and was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award, 'Americascapes 2 – American Opus' and now 'Verdi.' A cycle of Bruch symphonies with the Bamberger Symphoniker was released by CPO, now considered the modern reference recording. Between them, Robert Trevino's recordings have garnered more than 16 accolades from respected reviews publications around the world.

Gaston Rivero

Recognized for his dynamic stage presence, dark timbre and wide range of flexibility, Gaston Rivero has been honored with an array of awards. During the 2002-2003 season he joined the ensemble of the Baz Luhrmann's production of Puccini's La Boheme on Broadway in New York City. Credits include the roles of Otello, Don Carlo, Radames in Aida, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut, Manrico in Il Trovatore, Calaf in Turandot, Dick Johnson in La Fanciulla del West.

He has appeared at the Staatsoper Berlin, Opéra National de Paris, Arena di Verona, Opernhaus Zürich, Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie Bruxelles, The Royal Opera House Muscat, Opera de Monte Carlo, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Teatro Regio Torino, Oper Leipzig, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Oper Köln, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Hungarian State Opera Budapest, New National Theater Tokyo, Grand Theatre Warsaw, Opéra national du Rhin and Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. Mr. Rivero is also frequently a guest artist on domestic and international concert stages including Carnegie Hall, the National Music Auditorium Madrid, Israel Philharmonic and The National Philharmonic in Warsaw. His Manrico was released on DVD and Blu Ray by Deutsche Grammophon.

Photo Credit: Robert Trevino and the Rai - Sergio Berta; all others, Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

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