Wagner/ Gleich/ Bollon - Traume

Träume is the debut solo album from rising-star dramatic soprano Jenufa Gleich of arias and songs by Richard Wagner. It features famous arias from characters such as Brünnhilde (The Ring Cycle), Senta (The Flying Dutchman) and Elisabeth (Tannhäuser) as well as an aria from his less well-known early opera Die Feen. It concludes with the exquisite Wesendonck Lieder. The disc explores the bel canto aspect of Wagner's often-heroic music, taking it's cue from Wagner's desire for his works to be a German form of this Italian style. The florid writing in Die Feen is reminiscent of a Bellini or Donizetti mad scene, and Jenufa Gleich and conductor Fabrice Bollon continue throughout this dramatic programme to bring out the lyrical, making Wagner's overwhelmingly powerful music also sensitive, seductive and personal. This leads perfectly into the Wesendonck Lieder: settings of the erotic and poetic writings from his love interest Mathilde Wesendonck, expressing loneliness, longing, love, life and death. Jenufa Gleich is an acclaimed dramatic soprano, having sung in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Ring Cycle under Jaap van Zweden. She is renowned for her powerful, laser-like voice, with a capacity that encompasses dramatic and highly expressive, lyrical singing.