Category: Recordings

A frequent complaint about contemporary operas — or most any after Puccini’s Turandot — is the lack of that memorable lyricism found in the standard repertory.

From a relatively obscure label — Osteria — comes this 1962 live recording of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, featuring a relatively obscure soprano, GrÈ Brouwenstijn.

This an intriguing two-disc DVD set. The primary disc is the opera itself, while the other disc is a film called ìAdieu Mozartî that tells us about the unique relationship Mozart had with the City of Prague.

The Spanish comical lyric genre of the zarzuela has long been considered the stepchild of opera.

The BBC Proms webcasts all of its performances, and many are available for extended periods through BBC Radio’s archives.

As evidence of Deutsche Grammophon’s proud status as a classical record label of the “old school,” there appears this CD document of a typical opera gala affair, from July of 2007 in Baden-Baden.

While a number of fine recordings of Gustav Mahlerís Eighth Symphony have been released in recent years, the prospect of a performance conducted by Pierre Boulez is attractive for many reasons.

The large number of recordings of Bachís Mass in B minor predispose one to look for distinctions between them.

A typical film soundtrack today might not fill the length of a CD, while being padded with any pop music hits for which the producers would cough up the money…