Recording of the Year
Opera Award ● Vocal Award ● DVD Award
Verdi’s Aida conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano has won Recording of the Year at the 2016 BBC Music Magazine Awards.
Conductor Antonio Pappano won the BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Year Award with Verdi’s Aida, released on Warner Classics. Voted for by the public and an expert jury of critics, Pappano’s Aida represents the very best of more than 1,500 recordings reviewed by BBC Music Magazine.
With an all-star cast, including Anja Harteros in the title role and Jonas Kaufmann as Radamès, this superlative Warner Classics recording was made in the studio in Rome with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia – just when the days of large-scale opera studio recordings were believed to be a thing of the past.
It was, says Pappano, a case of ‘right place, right time, right singers, right conductor, right orchestra and chorus, right hall’.
Baritone Ludovic Tézier, who sang Amonasro, and Stephen Johns, record producer, accepted the coveted award at a packed ceremony in Kings Place, London, hosted by BBC Music Magazine editor Oliver Condy and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster James Naughtie. Pappano’s recording of Verdi’s Aida also won the Opera Award.
In the Vocal category, star countertenor Philippe Jaroussky wowed the jury and readers alike with Green, his inventively programmed record of music based on the poems of Paul Verlaine on Erato. The award was announced exclusively live on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune programme.
The DVD Award went to Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites in a stylish production from Paris on Erato. The opera singer Rosalind Plowright collected the award on behalf of the cast and the creative team. “The visionary who decided to mount Poulenc’s opera was Michel Franck, who, four years before secured the services of the four best French opera stars with the dream to have them all on one stage at one time in a French opera in Paris. Olivier Py’s outstanding production deserves this recognition”
Click here to download our media package including photos and videos.
The winners of the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2016 were announced at an exclusive Awards ceremony at Kings Place, London. The Awards were hosted by Oliver Condy and BBC Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie, and attended by artists and representatives from across the classical music industry, as well as BBC Music Magazine readers.
The winners of the 2016 Awards will be announced in the May issue of BBC Music Magazine, on sale today. The winning albums are available now on iTunes in the Mastered for iTunes format and a special BBC Music Magazine curator playlist is available at Apple Music.
More information at awards.classical-music.com
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE AWARDS 2016
WARNER CLASSICS & ERATO WINNERS
RECORDING OF THE YEAR/OPERA
Anja Harteros, Jonas Kaufmann, Erwin Schrott, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Ludovic Tézier; Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Sir Antonio Pappano
Verdi: Aida (Warner Classics)
VOCAL
Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor), Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto), Jerôme Ducros (piano), Quatuor Ebène
‘Green’ – Mélodies françaises sur les poems de Verlaine (Erato)
DVD
Petibon, Koch, Gens, Piau, Plowright et al; Choeur du Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Philharmonia Orchestra/Jérémie Rhorer; dir. Olivier Py
Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites (Erato)
