The artsong in the twentieth century benefits from the efforts of national composers, like Bohuslav Martin? (1890ñ1959), who stimulated the genre by incorporating regional folk elements into their music.
Category: Reviews
PUCCINI: Tosca
Decca loves to repackage this set. Your reviewer first acquired it as a low-price “Double Decca” release, with no libretto. Just a couple years ago saw another incarnation, with a great cover pic of Price and Karajan locked in an embrace – Karajan as Scarpia? Or Cavaradossi – take one’s pick.
WAGNER: Siegfried
The cover art for the Opus Arts DVD of Wagner’s Siegfried, from the Nederlandse Opera in 1999, features Mime, as impersonated by Graham Clark, in amazing make-up and costume: a bald, bulging head almost split down the middle by a furrow of anxiety, and clad in a ghastly green insect-like carapace, including wire-like hair and a bobbing tail-sack.
NIELSEN: Complete Symphonies
Notable among recent releases, the set of the Complete Symphonies by Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) on DVD makes available some fine performances of the composerís important contributions to the genre.
VERDI: Aida
A luminous blue backdrop, sliding columns, a solitary iconic prop (an over-sized falcon head in the opening scene, for example), singers frozen in stiff, awkward poses ó yes, it’s a Robert Wilson spectacular!
MOZART: The Glyndebourne Collection
What kind of opera lovers will appreciate this big DVD box the most?
MUSSORGSKY: Boris Godunov
One of the best opera DVDs released in 2006 was the Salzburg La Traviata, with Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko able to make full use of their vocal charisma and acting skills in Willy Decker’s sharp, sexy production.
BARBATO: O Cientista (The Scientist)
Rio de Janeiro, as the capital of the Empire and later the Republic of Brazil, had an extensive history of opera during the 19th century, well-documented by newspapers and magazines of the day, which included the conducting debut of Arturo Toscanini in a local performance of Aida in 1888, described in the memoirs of Brazilian composer and entrepreneur Artur Napole„o.
ROSSINI: Il barbeire di Siviglia
Rossini’s comic masterpiece premiered in 1816, which means a big anniversary lies just a few years ahead.
VIVALDI: Dixit Dominus, RV 807
GALUPPI: Laetatus Sum; Nisi Domine; Lauda Jerusalem
This disc presents the first recording of a work newly ascribed to the Red Priest (by musicologist Janice Stockigt), the Dixit Dominus held at the State Library of Saxony in Dresden, where it was ascribed to Vivaldi’s
younger Venetian colleague, Baldassare Galuppi (who is experiencing a renaissance of late, with various new discs of operas and sacred works).