Category: Recordings

Some of the more ingenious opera productions of the twentieth century are the work of Walter Felsenstein, who renowned internationally for his efforts in the genre.

Unjustly neglected, Dvor·k’s Lieder are among his most engaging works, and this selection of some of his most important contributions to the genre demonstrate the range of emotions and the breadth of expression the composer used in these works.

This performance of Le Nozze di Figaro, recorded live at the ThÈ‚tre des Champs-…lysÈes in June 2004, prompts much admiration for RenÈ Jacobs, its conductor.

Dynamic offers devotees of classical era opera a rare and quite rewarding opportunity to hear I Giuochi d’Agrigento, a little-known opera by Giovanni Paisiello, best known as the man who composed a popular Barbiere di Siviglia before Rossini came along and eclipsed his predecessor.

An annual event televised around the world, the Vienna Philharmonic’s Neujahrskonzert has become a classical music institution, and as such is impervious to criticism. But not beyond it.

Ondine provides a treasure of a booklet for Fever, Karita Mattila’s traversal of some standards from the so-called “Great American Songbook,” plus two Brazilian numbers.

It almost seems as if every composer was entitled to have at least one unfinished work.

Released to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the three multi-disc sets of recordings makes available recordings that document the triumphs of the ensemble since its founding in 1932 by Sir Thomas Beecham.

Can this truly be the production of Verdi’s Aida that earned world-wide headlines in December 2007?

Alberto Cant˘’s booklet essay for the Dynamic release of Umberto Giordano’s rare one-act opera Marcella quotes a review from the day after the 1907 premiere, which indicates that the premiere’s audience’s expectations of “greater originality of melodic invention” went unmet.