A Decca recording artist for most of his career, Luciano Pavarotti did do a very few items with EMI, probably as part of those “artist-swapping” arrangements recording labels sometime arrange.
Author: James Sohre
Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Los Angeles Opera
There is some slim irony to an opera company pursuing the complicated business of staging Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the current economy — it entails the very sort of dubious compromises that get Wotan and crew into such hot water (if one assumes the cataclysmic fire at the end of Gˆtterd‰mmerung heated the Rhine).
Siegfried Wagner: Rainulf und Adelasia
A medieval tale of ill-starred love, in three very long acts, with questions of loyalty to a king and one title character urging another to drink from a cup of poison…
Leh·r’s Die Lustige Witwe from Semperoper Dresden
JÈrÙme Savary, director of this December 2007 Semperoper Dresden production of Leh·r’s Die Lustige Witwe, expresses a view in the booklet essay that many others will probably share: “What I like most of all about The Merry Widow is its music, which is literally bursting with colours, gyrating movements and sensuality…”
Massenet’s Don Quichotte at San Diego Opera
Ferrucio Furlanetto apparently loves the temperate climes of San Diego in California’s equivalent of late winter.
Kurt Weill’s Der Kuhhandel at Volks Oper Wien
The Kurt Weill-composed operetta Arms and the Cow premiered in 1935 under the title A Kingdom for a Cow, according to Erwin Berger’s booklet essay for this DVD of a 2007 VolksOper Vien staging of David Pountney’s production.
Fritz Wunderlich — The Legend
Some opera aficionados who take a look at the contents of this two-CD Fritz Wunderlich collection from Profil might shake their heads in bemused wonder: the German lyric tenor as Turridu, let alone Pinkerton and Rodolfo?
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale from the Ravenna Festival
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.
Jessye Norman — A Portrait
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.”
RenÈ Pape: Gods, Kings & Demons
The first solo operatic recital from the great German bass RenÈ Pape bears a title that serves as an homage to an esteemed predecessor, George London.