Author: James Sohre

This 2001 Z¸rich 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.

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.

The “2” in this disc’s title indicates that this is the second Chandos recital for Sir Thomas Allen.

EMI owns this recording, so if pride dictates they repackage it in the “Great Recordings of the Century” series, a dissenter shouldn’t moralize.

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.

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.”

A few years ago EMI released a recording of Wagner duets with Placido Domingo and Deborah Voigt.

While the tributes and retrospectives continue to appear for the late Luciano Pavarotti, his sometime-colleague (if not rival) Pl·cido Domingo maintains a top-rank career, even including a contract with Deutsche Grammophon for new studio work.

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.