Samuel Mariño: La Sopranista

“Sopranista” is the name of the debut album by the sensational Venezuelan soprano singer Samuel Mariño. Arias by Gluck and Mozart, which were only sung by female voices in the last centuries, can be heard here for the first time by a male soprano voice. Mariño’s unique voice and authentic personality open up a world of possibilities to reinterpret well-known repertoire, but also to bring the unknown to light – so Mariño presents world premiere recordings of arias from Joseph Bologna’s “L’Amant Anonyme” and Domenico Cimarosa’s “Oreste”, among others, on his album. “If I want to sing a role and I can, then I sing it. It’s not about whether it’s a man or a woman or a castrato,” says the young soprano singer, who has signed an exclusive contract with Decca Classics. He recorded his debut album with the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra Basel conducted by Andrea Marcon

Press commentary

… This also applies to the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra Basel and Andrea Marcon. It would be carrying owls to Athens to praise them again for their musical and stylistic expertise. But I am happy to carry owls to Athens again: one rarely hears so much sound imagination and instrumental richness of colour.

Musik und Theater, October 2022, Werner Pfister

You’ve never heard Cherubino like this before…

Whoever hears Marino sing has an inkling of why there was such a hype about castrato singers in the baroque era, … then it already borders on magic. … This complexity of sensations makes Mariño’s interpretation with the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra a real highlight.

SWR 2, 30. May 2022, Thilo Braun

Album of the week: Mariño’s programme of operatic arias by Mozart, Saint-Georges, Cimarosa and Gluck centres on repertoire which was originally written for the great soprano castrati of the late eighteenth century (a snapshot of Mozart’s Cherubino, conceived as a trouser-role, being an audacious exception), and there’s a peculiar magic in hearing a male voice shine so brightly in repertoire that’s been almost exclusively assigned to female singers in modern times. … And the orchestral playing throughout is scintillating.

PrestoMusic, 27 May 2022, Katherine Cooper

Andrea Marcon and the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra Basel act historically informed and offer the singer a highly professional and agile instrumental framework. With the overture to “L’Amant anonyme” by Joseph Bologne, La Cetra can once again let the stupendous level of the extraordinary Swiss baroque orchestra speak for itself.

OnlineMerker, 5. August 2022, Dr. Ingobert Waltenberger