Recently in Recordings
13 Feb 2009
The CEO of the Ravenna Festival, one Cristina Mazzavillano Muti, understandably takes top billing at the top of this DVD booklet's three - count 'em, 3! - pages of credits for the Festival, not counting the single page of credits for the production of Donizetti's Don Pasquale itself. »
08 Feb 2009
Entering the Linbury Studio for this production of The Beggar’s Opera, one might have been forgiven for thinking that one had wandered into the main house by mistake. »
08 Feb 2009
The emergence of a standardized western liturgy with a uniform chant repertory, while to a significant degree realized, neither completely silenced regional liturgies nor extinguished the additions to liturgical practice that comprise much medieval creativity. »
27 Jan 2009
A sticker on the cover of the Decca DVD Jessye Norman a portrait describes the contents as "An intimate new film portrait of the great soprano." »
26 Jan 2009
I am an ardent fan of Stephanie Blythe, and if you revel in sheer sound, she will delight you, too. »
26 Jan 2009
The first solo operatic recital from the great German bass René Pape bears a title that serves as an homage to an esteemed predecessor, George London. »
26 Jan 2009
A traditional production of Mozart and Schikaneder's singspiel Die Zauberflöte can go for charm, fantasy, and enjoyable camp. It can also turn trite and cloying. »
26 Jan 2009
The title of Anna Netrebko's most recent recital disc apparently springs from the musical selections' ability to prompt memories in the singer. »
26 Jan 2009
On this 1955 recording of Dvořák's folk-tale based comic romp Kate and the Devil, conductor Zdenĕk Chalaba offers a lighter, faster approach than that heard on the modern studio version Supraphon released in 1981, under conductor Jiří Pinkas. »
14 Jan 2009
More than just three letters distinguishes "rarity" from "oddity." In opera, a rarity would be an admired work seldom performed. »
14 Jan 2009
“Mary Lewis, the golden haired soprano” — does that name mean much to today’s lovers of singing and good music? »
14 Jan 2009
Some of the more ingenious opera productions of the twentieth century are the work of Walter Felsenstein, who renowned internationally for his efforts in the genre. »
14 Jan 2009
Unjustly neglected, Dvorák’s Lieder are among his most engaging works, and this selection of some of his most important contributions to the genre demonstrate the range of emotions and the breadth of expression the composer used in these works. »
07 Jan 2009
This performance of Le Nozze di Figaro, recorded live at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in June 2004, prompts much admiration for René Jacobs, its conductor. »
22 Dec 2008
Dynamic offers devotees of classical era opera a rare and quite rewarding opportunity to hear I Giuochi d'Agrigento, a little-known opera by Giovanni Paisiello, best known as the man who composed a popular Barbiere di Siviglia before Rossini came along and eclipsed his predecessor. »
22 Dec 2008
An annual event televised around the world, the Vienna Philharmonic's Neujahrskonzert has become a classical music institution, and as such is impervious to criticism. But not beyond it. »
22 Dec 2008
Ondine provides a treasure of a booklet for Fever, Karita Mattila's traversal of some standards from the so-called "Great American Songbook," plus two Brazilian numbers. »
18 Dec 2008
It almost seems as if every composer was entitled to have at least one unfinished work. »
05 Dec 2008
Released to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the three multi-disc sets of recordings makes available recordings that document the triumphs of the ensemble since its founding in 1932 by Sir Thomas Beecham. »
01 Dec 2008
Can this truly be the production of Verdi's Aida that earned world-wide headlines in December 2007? »
01 Dec 2008
Alberto Cantù's booklet essay for the Dynamic release of Umberto Giordano's rare one-act opera Marcella quotes a review from the day after the 1907 premiere, which indicates that the premiere's audience's expectations of "greater originality of melodic invention" went unmet. »
21 Nov 2008
This 2001 Zürich performance of Rossini's masterpiece Il Barbiere di Siviglia boasts one of the final performances of the great bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, who passed away in 2004. »
20 Nov 2008
Naxos, in conjunction with SWR, has been releasing recordings from the Rossini in Wildbad Festival, which focuses not just on the titular composer but also on his contemporaries. »
16 Nov 2008
The "2" in this disc's title indicates that this is the second Chandos recital for Sir Thomas Allen. »
13 Nov 2008
At a time when it is the fashion for stage direction, sets, and costumes to have little, if anything to do with the ouvre presented on stage, this production of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Persée (1682) is candy for the eyes and ears, with adherence to what is known of the French Baroque operatic standards.1 »
09 Nov 2008
EMI owns this recording, so if pride dictates they repackage it in the "Great Recordings of the Century" series, a dissenter shouldn't moralize. »
09 Nov 2008
Both these performances come from mid-2005. Teatro Regio di Parma presented the Ernani in May of that year; August saw I Capuletti e I Montecchi on stage at the Festival della Valle d'Itria di Martina Franca. »
09 Nov 2008
Countless must be the number of true opera fans who have heard well-meaning acquaintances say, "Oh I just love opera! Especially Phantom of the Opera." »
02 Nov 2008
A few years ago EMI released a recording of Wagner duets with Placido Domingo and Deborah Voigt. »
30 Oct 2008
While the tributes and retrospectives continue to appear for the late Luciano Pavarotti, his sometime-colleague (if not rival) Plácido Domingo maintains a top-rank career, even including a contract with Deutsche Grammophon for new studio work. »
30 Oct 2008
Gala may be a budget label, but more opera sets of vintage live performances deserve a booklet essay as concise yet comprehensive, critically honest and yet fair, as Andrew Palmer's for this set, which preserves a 1980 performance of Richard Strauss and Joseph Grigor's Die Liebe der Danae. »
24 Oct 2008
Bach’s monumental Mass in b minor exists in an abundant quantity of period performances to the point where one might ponder the wisdom of adding yet another to the shelf. »
20 Oct 2008
There is much to admire in Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach performances with the Bach Collegium Japan, and this recording of excerpts from the St. Matthew Passion will remind the listener of the diverse ways in which this is so. »
20 Oct 2008
Among the recent releases on DVD of Rolf Liebermann's productions of operas from the Hamburg Opera conceived for television in the late 1960s, Beethoven's Fidelio is impressive for the use of the medium of film to bring out the personal aspects of this intensive opera. »
06 Oct 2008
Presented in its fine line of “Originals,” Decca’s reissue of Solti’s famous 1967 recording of Verdi’s Requiem is actually offered with another fine recording, the same conductor’s 1977/78 performance of the Quattro pezzi sacri. »
06 Oct 2008
In recent years, Emmanuelle Haïm has achieved prominence at the helm of several baroque operas, including Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Handel’s Rodelinda and Giulio Cesare. »
22 Sep 2008
Although Jacobus Vaet, Antonius Galli and Pieter Maessens are little-known composers today, this impressive recording featuring their music, the debut recording by the ensemble Cinquecento, may serve as a cautionary reminder that modern familiarity is often the fruit of circumstance and not necessarily a reliable measure of artistic achievement. »
19 Sep 2008
Last year saw Cecilia Bartoli’s recording dedicated to the memory, and repertoire, of the early 19th century singer Maria Malibran, “Maria.” »
14 Sep 2008
There may be no name more famous in the world of film music than that of Bernard Herrmann. William Perry, however, is a name unlikely to set off many bells. »
14 Sep 2008
Of these three productions staged for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the beautifully dressed Entführung and refined Tancredi present the company as a theater for tasteful, stylish productions, just a tad on the dull side. »
07 Sep 2008
I’ve rarely seen a performance of Tristan und Isolde where I was quite so conscious of the singers’ teeth. »
17 Aug 2008
The lyricism characteristic of the instrumental music of Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is at the core of his songs, and the two collections found on this recording represent his vocal music well. »
17 Aug 2008
The 100th anniversary of his birth inevitably produces a flood of releases from the catalog of conductor Herbert von Karajan. »
17 Aug 2008
Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) is, perhaps known best for his opera The Bartered Bride (1863, rev. 1870), a touchstone of comic opera fused with eastern-European nationalism and, as much as that work has much to offer, his other efforts deserve attention. »
17 Aug 2008
Premiered in 1938 in Zurich, Mathis der Maler was then the most recent of Paul Hindemith’s provocative operas. »
17 Aug 2008
The festal days of Christmas, New Year’s, St. Stephen and St. Thomas Becket are rich in musical celebration, and this recording from the Orlando Consort brings together a wide range of organa, motets, chansons, and carols to remind us of that fact. »
29 Jul 2008
Dynamic now offers most of its product in CD and DVD formats, the latter in High Definition, no less. »
29 Jul 2008
With these three CDs of highlights from three Verdi operas - Nabucco, Il Trovatore, and Aida — Classics for Pleasure gives a snapshot of the arc of his career. »
20 Jul 2008
The opera world, always ravenous for talented, charismatic tenors, felt desperate hunger pains last summer, when Rolando Villazón canceled dates with an explanation that a health crisis necessitated a sabbatical from singing. »
20 Jul 2008
With a composer as widely beloved as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for an opera to be all but forgotten suggests the work has problems beyond redemption. »
