Calling yourself the ‘Rat Pack of Opera‘ is quite a grand statement, and one you only make if you can back it up. Lord Richard Attenborough certainly thinks they can, calling them “fantastic…a unique and wonderfully entertaining act”. Sting simply says: “Bravi!”. Well, hard to argue with that.
The Trio, Scott Ciscon, Jem Sharples and baritone Paul Martin, who formed in 2002, have made their new album Viva La Vita an album of greatly requested numbers from their live show with two original songs thrown in for good measure; Viva La Vita – the title track, and Fall in Love. These songs were written by the band themselves.
This album is a triumph, it take much loved classics and gives them a fresh, operatic twist. It helps that they also have a few of my favourite songs like ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ and ‘Summertime’.
By including non-operatic songs in the album the band could have been called opera-lite, but they manage to by-pass this. Their voices are divine, their take on the songs sublime. It is a beautiful album. The original songs are good and so is their take on the classics. I thoroughly enjoyed this album. I definitely recommend it. It is rousing music. A good mix of the popular and the grand.
