With his magnificent voice and magnetic stage personality, the Swedish baritone Peter Mattei delights audiences at the Metropolitan in New York, La Scala in Milan, and Covent Garden in London, performing roles such as the Count in The Marriage of Figaro and the title roles in Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin and The Barber of Seville. He made his first recording for BIS in 1991, while still a student at the Stockholm University College of Opera, and this was soon followed by further projects, often with Mattei as a soloist with various choirs. The present disc is an anthology of highlights from fifteen years’ of recordings, taking in classic Swedish and international Christmas carols as well as Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. A colourful and kaleidoscopic mixture of sacred and profane, new and old, vivid comedy and the most profound solemnity – all performed by a singer who has been described as ‘so fine an actor that one hardly notices how brilliantly he is singing’.
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