Classical Opera - Apollo et Hyacinthus - Opera Now

This release marks the commencement of an ambitious plan by Ian Page and his Classical Opera Company to record a new cycle of Mozart's operas on disc.  Apollo and Hyacinthus was the first of them, composed when he was just 11 years old and initially performed by the students of the grammar school attached to the University of Salzburg in 1767.  That performance used boy trebles, though Page's features an all-adult cast, with Klara Ek in the female role of Melia and Sophie Bevan as her brother, Hyacinthus.  (The role of Melia was added to the myth, in which Apollo's amorous interest is in the youth himself, presumably to make it more respectable!) Mozart at 11 was already an immensely skilled composer, though his later works dwarf his achievement here; yet there are some memorable numbers, and Page and his forces do very well by them.  Ek and Bevan lead an outstanding cast that also includes Lawrence Zazzo as Apollo and Andrew Kennedy as Oebalus.

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