Puccini=Passion CD

14/01/2008
Howard Smith
Music and Vision (UK)

...Ms Barker has achieved a stellar reputation in major roles with several of the world’s finest opera companies...

Now we can savour Cheryl Barker’s true verismo art, with a variety of arias from the best-loved as well as lesser-known Puccini operas...

…there’s more than sufficient within the Passion selection to recommend unstintingly...

As always, Bonynge is intent in bringing a vivid sense of theatre to his recordings and there’s nothing of the ‘cut and paste’ approach to be found lurking in his Puccini:Passion. Soloist Cheryl Barker’s increasingly close identification with Puccini roles demonstrates her firmly etched lyrical finesse and her evident affinity with Mr Bonynge’s Puccinian style...