A career-making smash for Donizetti at its 1830 premiere, Anna Bolena eventually faded from the standard repertory.
Category: Recordings
BRUCKNER: Symphony no. 5
Recorded live at the Stiftsbasilika, St. Florian (Austrian) on 12 and 13 September 2006, this DVD offers a special performance of the famous Cleveland Orchestra outside its home at Severance Hall.
BERG: Wozzeck
Among the available DVDs of Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck, the recent release of the production Rolf Liebermann made into a film i the late 1960s stands out for various reasons.
Faustina Bordoni: Faces of a prima donna
Opera singers today have become almost as famous and publicly worshipped as movie-stars; yet this has always been the case in operatic history.
Carlos Cogul: Introduction
Carlos Cogul is a London vocal coach and an appreciated baritone giving many a recital ÖÖin the London Tube while commuters hastily pass by to catch their trains. Judging from the photo on this CD he is not a young man any more.
ROSSINI: Bianca e Falliero
The choice between this recording made at the Pesaro Festival in August 2005 and the Opera Rara recording of 2000 will partly be made for non-musical reasons.
DONIZETTI: Don Pasquale
An ingenious and handsome staging, in the proper period and full of delicious color, fashion and furnishings, a production that honors the compatibility of tradition with good fun, and four singers who look their parts, play the farce, and are as easy on the ears as on the eyes ó what more could you want from a Don Pasquale?
SZYMANOWSKI: Songs of a Fairy-tale Princess; Harnasie; Love Songs of Hafiz
The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is one of more engaging composers of the early twentieth century.
DONIZETTI: Dom SÈbastien, roi de Portugal
When hearing the final work of a composer whose life was cut short, one can not help but wonder, ìWhat if?î
Jan Neckers on Recently Reissued Historicals
Almost thirty years ago a century old tradition ended with the last performance of I Maestri Cantatori.