Opera Today

National styles of music in the seventeenth century were often distinctive, and in the case of French and Italian music, famously so.

With its recent release of Mahlerís symphonies conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, EMI Classics makes available in a single place an outstanding contribution to the composerís discography.

This DVD records and commemorates a 1981 production of Parsifal in its Bayreuth lair, and the singers of 1981 are as fine as recollection might paint them.

Once the custom of the world’s opera houses was to translate great operas into the language of each respective country.

Repackaging older recordings having become the primary focus of a classical recording company’s business, Deutsche Grammophon budgeted some funds for art direction for its budget series called “Opera House” (although that appellation only appears in a link found on the back inside cover of the sets’ booklets).

Of Rosenkavaliers on DVD, the classics tend to be lovingly detailed productions, going back to the film of Herbert von Karajan leading an exemplary cast, with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf’s iconic Marschallin.

Despite an unsurprising degree of conservatism in liturgical music, devotional life in Rome often found ways of taking advantage of modern musical style.