Category: Recordings

For many, the fine recordings of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan by the late Karl Bˆhm seem to have emerged full-spring from the baton of Karl Bˆhm and the playing of the various orchestras he led.

Throughout his relatively long and decidedly successful career, Giacomo Puccini returned to those operas of his that had not, immediately or eventually, secured an important place in the standard repertory.

Michael Hampe seems to have been the director of choice in the 1980s for tastefully traditional Rossini productions.

The Times used to have a music critic who seemed to feel that singing,
especially in costume, didn’t count as serious music, though he reviewed
opera anyway.

We all wish Henry Purcell had written a few more operas like Dido and
Aeneas — simple to cast, simple to stage, offering endless
possibilities for either reserved or outrageous treatment, attractive to every
sort of audience.

While Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) is best known to modern audiences for his colorful programmatic works associated with Italian locations, his vocal music is also engaging.

Are you sitting comfortably?

This disc faces a marketplace already crowded with similar compilations from major companies who can raid their archives to offer competitive interpretations at bargain prices.

Emma Matthews is an English born soprano currently resident in Australia where she has sung with the state based opera companies as well as the national company Opera Australia where she is currently a soloist.

In the mid-1980s (just before the Riccardo Muti era began), Lorin Maazel often ruled the conductor’s roost at La Scala.