Category: Recordings

Although this DVD comes on the Naxos label, an earlier CD version of the same performance went under the Dynamic label, specialists in rare repertory.

Dear non-German speaking Opera Today reader — what’s your first guess as to the meaning of the biggest word in the title of this obscure Johann Strauss operetta?

Will the 22nd century still see the opera-loving world as fascinated by the ongoing saga of the Wagner family as the 20th did and the 21st does?

The only thing truly operatic in this work is the use of the word “opera” in the title.

Besotted admirers of certain lesser-known operas of debatable merit sometimes include conductors, singers and opera house managers with the power to get their cherished rarity on stage.

While the cover of this Decca two-DVD set mirrors that of Cecilia Bartoli’s 2007 CD, Maria, the contents are not identical.

Reading the articles in the booklet for this set, it becomes clear that librettist Colin Graham was the driving force behind this opera’s creation.

The legacy of the late conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli includes a number of fine recordings of Mahler’s music, and among them is his Deutsche Grammophon recording of the composer’s Fourth Symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the soprano Edita Gruberova.

If, dear reader, a desire has ever swept over you (a desire such as a pregnant woman’s craving for vanilla ice cream with pickles) to hear music reminiscent of both Messiah and the Fingal’s Cave overture, CPO is just the musical ice cream parlor/deli for you.

The true opera fan devotes almost as much time, if not more, to the “what might have been” careers as to those of the superstars.