Anhelo: Argentinian Songs
So often, operatic crossover discs seem to be devised according to marketing surveys, with the star swooping into the recording studio between engagements with minimum thought or care. Jose Cura's first crossover disc,Anhelo, is quite the exception. The tenor not only sings but has orchestrated and conducted several numbers as well, which is only the most tangible evidence of the thought and feeling he's put into this. The emphasis is on ballads--which is only fitting for an album whose title means intense, suffocating desire--though there are also folk-like songs and instrumental cuts, one of which Cura composed himself in a neo-Puccinian style. Some of the songs have orchestrations, but the instrumentation is mostly spare: often acoustic guitar or piano and, in one cut, only solo voice. Cura may not have the most flexible instrument, yet he scales it down extremely well here.  Clearly, this disc didn't just arise out of a career strategy but as a sincere desire to communicate. And it does.--David Patrick Stearns