Category: Recordings

Between the efforts of recording companies Naxos and Opera Rara, Rossini-philes have been living in a golden age.

Philips decided some time ago that it no longer needed to be the audio representative for two fine contemporary singers of Russian origin, mezzo Olga Borodina and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

As its name suggests, the selections on this wonderful new CD are all excerpted from five different versions of the tale of the beautiful enchantress ìArmida.î

Recorded on 29 January 1978, this performance preserves a classic production of Beethovenís Fidelio, which involved a gifted cast.

When performances remain in the aural memory of the audience long after the final wave of applause, the event merits attention.

The two short films about the composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), The Early Years and Maturity & Silence comprise a video biography of Finnish artist.

For the final HD moviecast of the 2007-08 season, the Metropolitan Opera will present two stars in a production that has already earned rave reviews at Covent Garden: Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez starring in Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment.

Among the signal operas of the twentieth century, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934) by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) is a powerful transformation of Shakespeareís tragedy Macbeth, based on the 1865 short story by Nicolai Leskov.

I doubt many admirers of Leontyne Price will be tempted to buy this issue.

The Roman composer Mazzocchi is one of those figures known only to musicologists, and it is a pity, for this disc contains first-rate music.