Part of the fun of visiting the many companies that specialize in unearthing forgotten operas lies precisely in not knowing what you’re going to get.
Year: 2007
Norma returns to the Met
The bel canto era, insofar as the contemporary public considers it at all, is usually thought of as the golden age of vocal beauty for its own sake.
Pascoe comes to grips with the Don
Mozart made it easy for the Philistines. They see Don Giovanni thrown into the flaming jaws of Hell and hiss: “Two thousand women seduced and abandoned! “
BRUCKNER: Symphonie no. 7
Released as part of Orfeoís series entitled Festspiel Dokumente, this recording makes available on CD the concert performance at the Salzburg Festival of Anton Brucknerís Seventh Symphony by the Vienna Philharmonic that Hans Knappertsbusch conducted on 30 August 1949.
Jan Neckers on Recently Released Reissues and Historicals
The first opera performance I consciously attended while being definitely hooked to the genre due to records, was Guillaume Tell more than 40 years ago.
Bryn Terfel: Tutto Mozart!
Released in celebration of the recent Mozart year, Tutto Mozart! is a collection of nineteen arias, duets and other ensembles from the composerís operas that feature the baritone Bryn Terfel.
The Oxford Psalms
Founded in Oxford in the early 1990ís, the ensemble Charivari AgrÈable looks to seventeenth-century composers with Oxford connections as the basis for their recent recording, ìThe Oxford Psalms.î
Karlsruheës Don Gets Down
The Badisches Staatstheater seems to have borrowed with a vengeance the catch-phrase from John Watersí recent ìA Dirty Shame,î namely: ìLetís go sexiní!î I canít recall ever seeing a ìDon Giovanniî
with more lip-locks, grinding torsos, leg-wraps, and groping embraces.