Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé stars as a ravishingly rich-voiced Violetta, alongside consummately stylish Italian tenor Carlo Bergonzi and ever-thrilling US baritone Sherrill Milnes as Germont fils et père, plus an absolutely complete musical text, in a 1967 set that the Penguin Guide still calls “consistently satisfying”.

-----

REVIEW:

All three singers are excellent. Caballé is dramatically involved and vocally brilliant. Bergonzi is an ideal Alfredo, and Milnes is excellent. Some critics have not liked Prêtre’s conducting, but he supports the singers well. The minor roles are not particularly well sung, some just barely competent.

– Fanfare

• The inaugural broadcast of the Peabody and Emmy®-award winning series The Met Live in HD.
• The Magic Flute has delighted audiences of all ages for centuries. Julie Taymor’s dazzling English-language production brings one of Mozart’s greatest works to life as never before.
• James Levine leads a cast that includes Ying Huang as Pamina in her Met debut, Nathan Gunn, Matthew Polenzani, Erika Miklosa and Rene Papa.
• Taken from the December 30, 2006 live performance.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

• Robert Merrill, Roberta Peters and Richard Tucker – three American singers whose remarkable and enduring careers are inseparable from the history of the Metropolitan Opera are reunited in this gripping performance of Rigoletto.
• With the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by Fausto Cleva, the cast also includes Mignon Dunn and Bonaldo Giaiotti.
• 2 CDs taken from the February 22, 1964 broadcast.

A thrilling performance by a first-rate cast recorded in mono sound so good that one forgets it’s almost “historical”.

Even allowing for the cuts so often made during this era at the Metropolitan Opera, this is one of the swiftest of the live four Act versions. The sound is really very good for a mono radio broadcast. Consequently it gives you a compelling sense of the excitement of the occasion under the experienced baton of Kurt Adler, who had conducted a similarly distinguished cast in this opera in 1955. The cuts – the whole of the Fontainebleau Act, this being the four Act version, plus excisions in the Third Act auto-da fé and the final sublime duet – are all the more regrettable considering that Corelli never made a studio recording of “Don Carlo”. We must be grateful for what we have. It was a favourite opera that saw Corelli through the seventies until he had virtually retired; he clearly identified with the haunted, neurotic Carlos.

The cast features five established Met stalwarts in Corelli, Leonie Rysanek, Irene Dalis, Giorgio Tozzi and Hermann Uhde; in addition, the distinguished Romanian baritone Nicolae Herlea was making his Met debut in the role of Posa.

Many consider this to be the best of the available live performances of Corelli as Don Carlo, although the 1970 Vienna recording also has much to recommend it in that it has a superlative cast and gives little sign of Corelli’s supposed vocal deterioration by this date. Here in 1964, the famous bronze squillo in the tone and the expressive diminuendo are both much in evidence, as is Corelli’s artistic licence - which some call sloppiness. There is also his pronounced lisp, which on the evidence of the duet from”Aida” he made around the same time with Callas seemed particularly pronounced that year.

Apart from the expected pre-eminence of Corelli in the eponymous leading role, the special pleasure for me in this performance is Herlea’s vibrant, Italianate baritone as Posa. He was evidently determined not to be over-awed either by the occasion or his temperamental tenor colleague. He matches Corelli in volume and intensity, sustaining a nobility of line and brilliance of tone which is well nigh perfect for this heroic baritone role. He has splendid top notes and even a good trill. Corelli seems to fear that he is in danger of being eclipsed by his stage-mate and consequently throws in a slightly precarious and not very musical high C to conclude their duet in Act 1, “Dio che nell’alma infondere”.

Irene Dalis, despite not having the largest or most refulgent of mezzo-sopranos is clearly a very intelligent and able singer who has the resources to manage both the “Veil Song” and “O don fatale” – not always the case with this role. She has a vibrant, smoky, seductive timbre which is ideal and handles the coloratura in a way that is adept and agile. She is also a good vocal actress who sounds both vindictive then truly remorseful without resorting to over-emoting.

Giorgi Tozzi, who died last May (2011) at 88, was originally a baritone. Occasionally that shows in a lack of sonorousness in his low notes, such as on the low F at the end of his monologue and some loss of resonance in his soft singing. He is more impressive in louder passages when his steady, imposing tone cuts through the surrounding textures. I find his characterisation of the weary king a little applied and blustery. He too often sounds angry rather than melancholy and thus lacks the massive inwardness found in the Philip of Christoff, Siepi and Ghiaurov. He also has a tendency to drift sharp in the soliloquy but his confrontations with Il Grande Inquisitore and Rodrigo are both stirring and dramatic, if not very subtle. Uhde is black and menacing of voice but struggles with his top E and F.

Justino Diaz is noble, steady and implacable as the Friar/Carlo Quinto. It’s a part which although brief must not be under-cast if the opening and ending of the opera are to make the required impact.

In my survey of the singers thus far, you will note that I have left Leonie Rysanek till last. This is because I cannot quite decide what I think about her Elisabetta. I am used to the fact that in live performance she usually took a while to warm up and that the strange, hoarse croon in the lower ranges of the voice would ease off as the opera progressed. I continue to be delighted by her shining top notes and the amplitude of the sound she makes but equally irritated by her habitual swoop and scoop in to phrases. The dark colouring and occasional hoarseness in her tone is in many ways redolent of the unrelenting sorrow and suffering undergone by Elisabetta, that most doleful of Verdi heroines. She rises to her last great aria, floating notes exquisitely on “Francia” and “Fontainebleau” and delivers superb top Bs and B flats which sound almost disjointed from the main body of her voice. She certainly creates a rounded character and always delivers the text convincingly but listening is not always comfortable when she is “wallowing” into a note. She was always a favourite with the Met audience which responds enthusiastically to all the artists here.

The standard of instrumental playing is variable; neither of the introductions to Acts 3 and 4 constitutes the orchestra’s finest hour and intonation can waver alarmingly. By and large though Adler directs a tight ship.

This, alongside the 1968 “Die Walküre”, is probably the most desirable issue so far in this Sony Metropolitan series. It certainly represents the best of Corelli in this particular opera but is more than that. It enshrines a thrilling performance by a first-rate cast recorded in mono sound so good that one forgets it’s almost “historical”. There are many good recordings of this opera but none encompasses all its demands. Most serious collectors will want several versions of both the four and five Act versions in Italian and the French recording conducted by Pappano. In that context, there is certainly room for this slim and very affordable issue on your shelves.

There is a synopsis and cues but obviously no libretto, this being a budget set.

-- Ralph Moore, MusicWeb International

Félicien David was already famous through his ‘ode-symphonie’ Le Désert (1844) when his opera Herculanum was first staged at the Paris Opéra in 1859. This ambitious work, later to gain him entrance to the Opéra-Comique and the Institut de France, also played a part in earning him the Légion d’Honneur. Leaving behind the Middle Eastern inflections of his earlier scores, Herculanum is a remarkably strong composition (vast, intensely dramatic scenes), impressive in the diversity of its style (including Verdian influences) and its vocal variety (including the rare coloratura contralto voice often used by Rossini). There is also a fantastic vein, as made popular by Boieldieu (La Dame blanche, 1825) and Meyerbeer (Robert le Diable, 1831); but the supernatural is used here to serve an openly stated mysticism: the eruption of Vesuvius brings a spectacular, cataclysmic ending, signifying the decadence of the ancient world and the triumph of Christianity.

REVIEW:

Anyone interested in this period of operatic history will find the release fascinating. There’s much to enjoy, too, from the singers, who by and large make as eloquent a case for the piece as one could reasonably imagine. Véronique Gens is in fine, classy form as Lilia, and is well matched by Edgaras Montvidas as Hélios. Karine Deshayes is terrific as Olympia, too, although might perhaps have offered more in the way of imperious hauteur. The lower-voiced men are perhaps a touch disappointing, with Nicolas Courjal a rather too avuncular Satan. Hervé Niquet conducts with spirit, and the orchestra and chorus sing and play with commitment.

-- Gramophone

She Stoops to Conquer, Oliver Goldsmith's classic comedy of manners, tells the clever schemes and comic ruses that unfold one night at a country house. An ambitious step-mother, impassioned sweethearts, a pragmatic father and a pair of star-crossed suitors are sent spinning through a hilarious comedy of errors by one of the great characters of the stage, Tony Lumpkin. In it's day, this eighteenth century masterpiece was considered so "low" that it might never have reached the stage. When it was finally produced, it enjoyed immediate and lasting success, breaking the mold with it's satirical swipe at polite society. Goldsmith made comedy funnier and more natural than the "sentimental" stuff of his contemporaries - yet his characters burst with warmth as well as great wit. Max Stafford-Clark, director, sets the story of the ultimate dysfunctional family in the hinterland of Lichfield. His triumphant production played to great acclaim at the National Theater and on tour.

A subtle alchemy and a powerful performance.

The association of Robert Craft with The Rake’s Progress spans the 45 years between this recording and his first meeting with Stravinsky in 1948 on the same day that W.H. Auden delivered the completed libretto to the composer. Craft subsequently became involved in what he describes as “the first step” in the composition of the opera, especially in helping Stravinsky master the pronunciation, vocabulary and rhythms of the English text. This involvement is described in an extract from Robert Craft’s memoirs in the booklet. Craft’s recordings of Stravinsky and others, in this case originally on the MusicMasters label, have seen a recent revival from Naxos with their ‘Robert Craft Collection’, and very excellent they are too.

With the label’s bargain pricing position, it seems fairest to compare like with more-or-less like in that department. My main reference has been Stravinsky’s own 1964 recording, now hiding discreetly as discs 16 and 17 in Sony’s bargain 22 CD box Works of Igor Stravinsky . This set is a must-have for any Stravinsky collector, but the recording in this set is not to be confused with the mono 1953 Metropolitan Opera recording, now available on Naxos Historical.

As you would expect, the more recent Craft recording wins in terms of sound quality, but aside from the usual leathery-sounding oboes and some tape hiss Stravinsky’s recording still comes up sounding pretty good. The same goes for the orchestral playing, with Craft more slick, and often more adventurous and energetic in terms of tempi. Stravinsky comes in at just under 141 minutes for the whole opera to Craft’s 128. If I have a minor criticism of both, it is the level at which the harpsichord is set, especially in the Craft recording. Even listening on best-possible hi-fi, the level is arguably too low to hear much of what is being played, and in the recitatives and important card game scene it is easily covered by the voices. This is a tricky aspect of such a recording and may be a fairly accurate representation of what you would hear in a live performance, but it is a shame that detail and harmonic content is missed in some of these recitatives, and I found my ears straining somewhat. By the way, Stravinsky’s recording has some useful riffle sound effects which help the ‘cards’ imagery in that long recitative Duet scene with Tom and Shadow which are absent with Craft. The timps are also a bit boomy in the Naxos recording, such as at the end of Act 3 scene 1, but this is another minor caveat.

While we are dealing with negatives, there is an aspect of the singing which bothered me just a little throughout. Jayne West is a star as Anne Trulove, and I have no complaints about her gorgeously innocent performance. Her gently simple final Lullaby is guaranteed to raise a tear. I am also greatly in admiration of just about everyone else, but for me the principal male characters Tom Rakewell and Nick Shadow, and Father Trulove for that matter, lack vocal variety and therefore remain rather two-dimensional as characters. Tom and Nick both have a hard-edged projection to their voices which softens little, even when the pair of them are supposedly in the hushed atmosphere of the dark and mysterious graveyard. John Cheek as Nick Shadow gives pretty much 110 % of his rich and powerful bass at all times, and comes across as more of an irresistible force than menacing presence. To be fair, Jon Garrison does give us some admirable restraint once he has been struck mad by Nick, and in any case this whole subject might in fact be less of a problem that you might imagine. I don’t wish to put anyone off with these comments - we’re talking bargain purchase territory after all. It is in the nature of Stravinsky’s vocal writing that there is almost always a certain amount of ‘distance’ between what might be expected to develop as a fully rounded theatrical character and the intentional neo-classical or even neo-baroque purity of the music. The Rake’s Progress is a wonderful score, ranging from Broadway musical corn very much to the heights of human expressiveness. There is always more than enough going on to keep us from worrying if this or that line might have been given marginally more colour or inflection. What I really do like about all of the solo vocalists is how clearly they articulate the all-important text, and while there is no libretto in the booklet for this release, you shouldn’t really need it.

With an American cast, you might also wonder if the accents of the singers might intrude to scandalise European sensibilities. This is not often the case, though there are one or two ‘The Waltons’ moments, such as when Trulove calls Anne, Anne! at the end of the Quietly, night aria, Act 1 Scene 3. The choir does very well and are stylishly punchy, but the satellite characters do leap out somewhat, and this is a mixed blessing on occasion. Shirley Love is very wobbly as Mother Goose, though this could easily be intentional. Wendy White begins imperious and perfectly and appropriately unsympathetic as the spoiled Baba the Turk, but mellows nicely for the You love him, seek to set him right scene. I was also glad to hear the smashing of crockery in her tiff with Tom in Act 2 is every bit as juicy as in Stravinsky’s 1964 version. Melvin Lowery’s Sellem is an energetic NYC auctioneer. The brief Keeper’s solo is alas unmemorable, but the part was never likely to steal the show.

There are numerous recordings of The Rake’s Progress around these days, and I still have an affection for the Decca recording with the London Sinfonietta conducted by Ricardo Chailly, though Cathryn Pope’s Anne Trulove leaves a bit of a beige gap in an otherwise strong team of soloists. If it’s the best of the best of modern recording you are looking for at any price, then the critics seem fairly universal in praise of Kent Nagano’s 1995 Lyons Opera recording on Erato, though I don’t have this to hand for comparison. As far as the Sony Box/Naxos competition goes you can easily accommodate both - Stravinsky having a bit more unruly bite and grit, Craft winning in terms of refinement but at the same time losing out in terms of pithy character. What Craft does manage is to bring out the sheer wit in several little moments of Stravinsky’s score - more so than the composer himself did. I laughed out loud in a few places which might not have been intentional, but you simply must find fun in all those corners and cadences - vocal and tonal - which Stravinsky throws in to disarm us and allow us up for air in this most human and intense of dramas.

The Rake’s Progress holds a fascination for us in the 21st century, in the first place as a ‘classic’ and iconic work from one of the last century’s greatest composers, but also as one in possession of the magical tensions one of music’s turning points. In the late 1940s and early 1950s there was a wind of change, many of the protagonists of which both held Stravinsky as a respected statesman of contemporary music making, but who also already knew his style and idiom, and were more than prepared to see the new opera as rather old hat. The opera stands at the cusp of this transition in Stravinsky’s work, between the development or recycling of old formulae, and the decision whether or not to break new ground in order to compete with the new generation of composers. In the end, the intangible alchemy which was Stravinsky’s gift for creating remarkable music, combined in The Rake’s Progress with a penetrating insight into human nature and frailty, created a masterpiece which transcended and survived all of those internal and external musical revolutions. That we have such a direct link to Stravinsky’s living thoughts and intentions in Robert Craft and such a powerful performance makes this recording - even with its imperfections - as much a ‘must have’ as the composer’s own.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

This historic broadcast recording was always counted as one of the best recordings of this opera. With the best singers of the Frankfurt opera after WW II like Heinrich Bensing, there was always a demand for a release of this recording. Thanks to a collector who made a direct master copy of the original broadcast tape in the early 50's, Walhall is able to release it in great sound.

The great hit at Venice's San Moise theatre in the autumn season of 1810 was Pietro Generali's Adelina. This 'melodramma sentimentale' was the latest work by an important contemporary of Rossini, who enjoyed a vogue in early nineteenth-century Italy. The plot concerns the trials of a girl who is seduced and abandoned by her lover, Erneville, has a child out of wedlock, and is rejected by her father who, thanks to the intervention of a kindly friend, then forgives her after she marries Erneville. Brimming with vivacious writing, Adelina reflects powerful cultural attitudes in vogue in early nineteenth-century Italy.

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore, a staple of the operatic repertoire and long a popular success with operagoers and lovers of Italian opera, received the casting it rightfully deserves in this 1961 live performance from Berlin, 1961. The all-Italian, all-star lineup of singers includes Ettore Bastianini as Count di Luna, Fedora Barbieri as Azucena, Franco Corelli as Manrico and Mirella Parutto as Leonora. This recording has been called the best live version of the opera on record. The fiery conductor Oliviero de Fabritiis leads the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro dell' Opera di Roma.

What if there hadn't been a Mozart? Although this is an intriguing question for classical music lovers to debate and scholars to ponder, the fact is we'd be paying far more serious--and deserved--attention to Haydn, and beyond that we'd be stuck with the mediocre, very much of-its-time work of composers such as Antonio Salieri. Given all the discussion, much of it sheer nonsense, regarding the Mozart/Salieri rivalry, just a brief listen to any of these 12 overtures tells you what you already know: the monster talent/genius of Mozart had not a whit to fear from the competent Italian technician who was most widely respected for his pedagogical skills (Beethoven, Czerny, Schubert). Of course, the reality of the time and place dictated certain conditions of privilege and position, conferred by circumstances more political than artistically meritorious. Salieri undoubtedly was highly regarded and enjoyed a prominent position in Viennese musical circles, and he was talented, especially in the creation of a certain style of opera that audiences of the time literally ate up. Indeed, in the works on this program Salieri shows a certain dramatic flair, as in the opening of La Grotta di Trofonio--but with a few strokes of the pen, à la Don Giovanni, Mozart wiped out Salieri's best efforts in this genre. This takes nothing away from the very steady and polished musicians of the Slovak Radio Symphony, nor from Michael Dittrich's committed direction. Together they make the most of the music's considerable rhythmic energy, pleasant melodies, and frequent mood shifts typical of the style.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

The stature and recognized genius of Mozart’s late operas, including Don Giovanni has forever transcended the considerable changes in performance traditions and audience tastes. Appreciation for a previous generation’s approach to this work can be heard on this live 1952 performance from Aix-en-Provence starring a fine, if not wholly well-remembered singing cast that includes Leonie Rysanek, Léopold Simoneau, Heinz Ruhfuss, Marcello Cortis and Carla Martinis. Hans Rosbaud, a conductor who has undergone some critical reassessment in the last few years, conducts.

Since they were founded in 1979 Harry Christophers and The Sixteen have recorded over 100 discs of choral music spanning 600 years. On this collection, CORO presents a selection of their most celebrated recordings of music by British composers. From Tallis's monumental Spem in Alium and Sheppard's Media Vita in morte sumus to the delights of Purcell's The Fairy Queen and MacMillan's powerfully emotive A Child's Prayer written in memory of the Dunblane tragedy, this disc provides a superb collection of works from some of Britain's most eminent composers. Sixteen tracks, eleven composers, and a feast of British choral music that will delight fans of The Sixteen as well as those new to the ensemble.

Also available on standard CD

Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday, CSO Resound releases its second recording with Maestro Riccardo Muti featuring Verdi’s second-to-last opera, Otello. Recorded live in concert at Symphony Center in 2011, this album will stand for years to come as a unique benchmark in Verdi performance and interpretation by one of today’s finest conductors. Maestro Muti and the CSO’s first recording together was a lauded album of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, which won two Grammy Awards.