Category: Recordings

As long as one keeps in mind that historical value is not the same as aesthetic quality, this DVD of early 1960’s live German TV performances of two short Gian Carlo Menotti operas makes for fascinating viewing.

Love and Death is the name of one of Woody Allen’s earlier films, one built around parodies of Tolstoy and other Russian 19th century literary giants.

What better way for the long-reigning director of the Vienna State Opera, Ioan Holender, to celebrate the end of his time in the post than with a lengthy gala featuring such stars as Gergely NÈmeti, Roxana Constantinescu, Krassimira Stoyanova, and Keith Ikaia-Purdy?

Among recent recordings of Britten’s opera Billy Budd, the recent
release conducted by Daniel Harding has much to offer in terms of performance
quality, interpretation, and also the quality of recording.

Frederick Delius counts among those many composers whose reputations rely on their orchestral efforts, but who dearly wanted to make a lasting contribution to the opera repertory.

As a rule the celebrated incomplete operas of the repertory eluded completion due to the untimely death of the composer.

Recorded on 31 October 2007 in the Grofler Musikvereinssaal, Vienna, this performance of the Cleveland Orchestra offers a compelling interpretation of the three completed movements of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.

Opera companies around the world — though relatively few in the United States — cannot resist the temptation to stage Sergei Prokofiev’s first major opera.

Dialogues des CarmÈlites is a magnificently anti-operatic opera.

When the opera opens, a chorus of Trojan is rejoicing that the Greeks have abandoned the war and gone home.