A legend is revived. A legend as outrageous as it is unsubstantiated. The dispute between two opera divas who were to leave a lasting mark on music history: On 6th June 1727, primadonnas Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni hurled insults at one another on the stage of London's King's Theatre – or so legend has it. Did the scene really take place as numerous sources say? Did this scandal really happen? Or was it just the first recorded result of a theatre scandal provoked by the precursors of today's mass media? Simone Kermes and Vivica Genaux try to get to the bottom of the myth with their new album "Rival Queens", featuring hitherto unrecorded arias and duets by Handel, Hasse, Giacomelli, Sarro and many other contemporaries who may have witnessed the fight between the two primadonnas – if, that is, it actually happened.

  Cuzzoni and Brodoni were certainly rivals, there's no doubt about it. And as the two present-day sopranos say: of course the dispute took place – and we're supplying the musical document to go with it! Rivalry is transformed here into a creative force. Two charismatic sopranos with different types of voice recall the two opera divas without whom many of the arias and duets that appear here on disc for the first time might never have been written, let alone preserved for posterity. Simone Kermes and Vivica Genaux depict Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, and the Cappella Gabetta provide the instrumental accompaniment for this unique portrait, which is a clear vote in favour of the marvellous but tricky task of rediscovering and restoring unknown operas by Baroque masters so that they can be enjoyed by a wider public again.