As an audio-recording, Supraphon’s set of Bedrich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride conducted by Zden?k Koöler deserves the highest recommendation.
JAN¡?EK: Katja Kabanowa
A series of historic recordings comes from Profil/Edition: G¸nter H‰nssler, and from those a subset of Staatskapelle Dresden performances brings opera fans a remarkable document.
Teresa Berganza Live in Concert
Here’s another in a series of televised recitals from Lugano, Switzerland to have appeared on DVD.
Kiri Sings Karl: Songs of Mystery & Enchantment
Alban Berg’s Wozzeck takes almost two hours to induce a sense of soul-crushing nausea and despondency. Kiri Sings Karl achieved that for your reviewer in a couple minutes, and then went on with terrifying, torturous efficiency for almost another hour.
VERDI: Otello
Director Willy Decker’s outstanding Traviata from Salzburg, with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, is one of the great contemporary opera DVDs.
Aspen premieres forgotten Cavalli work
A husky baritone in Speedos on a motor scooter and a buxom, purple-wigged Dame Edna drag clone ó the Aspen Opera Theater Companyís staging of Francesco Cavalliís 1667 ìEliogabaloî was off to a start that promised to equal the programís over-the-top staging of the composerís 1649 ìGiasoneî two summers ago. (AOTC director Edward Berkeley raised the curtain on that Baroque potboiler to a biker Amor on a Harley.)
STRAUSS: Elektra
Among the available videos of Richard Straussís Elektra, the recently released DVD of the live broadcast from 16 February 1980 stands out for capturing the exciting of an all-star international cast that included the famous Birgit Nilsson in the title role.
Street Scenes: Opera on a Brooklyn Sidewalk
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