TCHAIKOVSKY AND VERDI ARIAS: Dmitri Hvorostovsky, baritone,...

TCHAIKOVSKY AND VERDI ARIAS: Dmitri Hvorostovsky, baritone, Rotterdam Philharmonic conducted by Valery Gergiev. Philips 426740-2. Hvorostovsky made his stunning Los Angeles debut in April, 1989, at an ill-managed Wilshire Ebell concert organized by Irina Arkhipova of the Bolshoi to introduce a group of young Soviet singers to the States. His last name was spelled K horostovsky then. The event attracted no more than 200 listeners.

That won’t happen when he returns to California (a San Diego recital is planned next season, a San Francisco Opera appearance in “War and Peace” next year). Virtually overnight, the 28-year-old Siberian baritone has become a major attraction on the international circuit. His first recording shows why.

This is a once-in-a-generation voice: big, lush, warm, even-textured, wide-ranging. Hvorostovsky uses it with passion as well as finesse (with time, one hopes, he will explore the inherent mezza-voce possibilities more extensively). He really savors the much-abused art of legato phrasing. He brings rare lyrical expansion to Verdi, brooding intensity to Tchaikovsky. He never strains, and he even seems to care about the words.

Gergiev and the Rotterdam orchestra provide idiomatic accompaniment. This is an essential recording.