Category: Reviews

Some interesting repertory choices and the participation of some of today’s most attractive singers make this particular “gala” evening of “walk on-sing-walk off” entertainment more consistently enjoyable than these affairs often are.

The ever-busy Brian Large directed the 1989 filming (for TV) of a Wolfgang Wagner Tannh‰user production which had debuted at Bayreuth in 1985.

Recording a Shostakovich cycle has become de rigueur in recent years ó a conductorís mandatory right of passage, like recording a Beethoven or a Mahler cycle.

ìEra la notteî presents four highly emotional, seventeenth-century Italian works, sung with commanding theatricality by Anna Caterina Antonacci.

Most heroes in costume drama movies speak lines directly from our own time. Iíve yet to see a cinematic Roman general, being a serious hero, look at an animalís liver and says: ì this smells bad; no battle todayî.

The recording date is given as November the 12th 1994. Since recording sessions usually last more than one day, and as a radio orchestra is playing, we may safely assume this CD to be derived from a public broadcasted concert by the ë4 sopranosí capitalizing on the concept made popular by Domingo, Carreras, and Pavarotti.

The booklet essay by Gottfried Kraus (translated from the German by Stewart Spencer) for this TDK release of the 1983 Salzburg CosÏ fan tutte presents an intriguing history of the opera, with the Austrian festival taking in a central role in the work’s return to the standard repertory.

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.

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.