Appearing here in her début solo album, Italian lyric soprano Maria Luigia Borsi has been acclaimed for her ‘grace, beauty, animation and variety’ (The Sunday Times). Her Willow Song from Verdi’s Otello has been described as ‘gorgeously sung’ (Opera News) and her rôle in Puccini’s Turandot as demonstrating ‘extraordinary communicative skills’ (Opera Magazine). This program includes some of the most moving and dramatic arias from Italian opera, including the tragic heartbreak of Madama Butterfly and the shimmering beauty of Catalani’s Ebben? Ne andrò lontana from La Wally.

Performance of works from the age of Henry Purcell have changed considerably since this 1960 live recording from Aix en Provence given the exponential growth in all things historically-informed, but there is still enormous pleasure to be gotten from listening to great singers sing the great stage works of any age, even if they fall on today's ears as at least somewhat dated in style. Conductor Pierre Dervaux leads a cast featuring Teresa Berganza as Dido, Hanny Steffek and the great Gerard Souzay as Aeneas in Purcell's Dido & Aeneas, in good sound, 24bit/96kHz remastered.

Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957) was known primarily for his art songs and song cycles. His one-act opera Penthesilea is his most well-known opera. The work was inspired by Heinrich von Kleist’s tragic play of the same name. Schoeck also wrote the libretto for the work. This production was recorded in Stuttgart in 1957, and features Martha Modl in the title role.

The Italian composer Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) isn’t much remembered today, though a not inconsiderable number of recordings are making known his instrumental, vocal and, most significantly, his operatic works that, historically, carry the most weight and are his most significant contribution to music. Long before re-discovery however, came this 1960 Elisa, a two-act opéra comique that had its premiere in Paris in 1794, a time of much turmoil in that city. An all-Italian cast, conductor, orchestra and locale feature here, with Gabriela Tucci and Gianni Raimondi assuming the lead roles.

In early 2012, the Frankfurt Opera completed its cycle of the “Ring des Nibelungen” with Götterdämmerung. OehmsClassics is proud to now be releasing Siegfried from October 2011; Götterdämmerung will follow in June 2012. Both the audience and press were thoroughly impressed by the outstanding musical performance of the orchestra and singers under conductor Sebastian Weigle. This box set includes extensive texts by the Frankfurt dramatic advisors as well as the complete libretto in German and English.

REVIEWS:

The highlight of the drama is Susan Bullock’s Brünnhilde. The immolation scene is superb…[and she] sings with great assurance, control, and emotional power.

-- Classical Net

Sebastian Weigle’s sensitive grasp of the mammoth score’s multivalent moods ensures that the performance retains a powerful grip on the listener and the vividly characterised orchestral playing is well recorded in a restricted but not excessively dry acoustic. In addition, the tirelessly heroic Ryan is well complemented by the other singers, perhaps most strikingly Jochen Schmeckenbecher, whose Alberich initially sounds more like the soulful Wolfram in Tannhaüser than one of Wagner’s more malevolent villains. Schmeckenbecher proves far from lightweight in the role, however, and his vivid encounters with Wotan (Terje Stensvold) and Mime—the excellent Peter Marsh—show the Frankfurt ensemble working at its best.

-- Gramophone (Arnold Whittall)

Production values for the product itself are…of the first order, including full libretto and English translation, plus synopsis, interesting commentary…and the strangest, most wonderful genogram I have ever seen…

The set begins as it means to go on: purposefully. The opening is fast, but Weigle maintains tension, thanks to the orchestra’s tremendous rhythmic spring. That is not to imply he is relentless, though. He relaxes well into Siegfried’s “Vieles lehrtest du, Mime”…for example, and he sets up the dark atmosphere at the outset of the second act well. The recording ensures there is much to delight the ear. The lower strings at Mime’s “Mein Kind das lehrt dich kennen” are truly gorgeous…Weigle’s identification of the variety of textures available in Siegfried and his musical invocation of them is one of the set’s triumphs. Try his handling of the sparse scoring at the critical structural juncture of Mime’s recounting of Siegfried’s mother’s “death” (where Peter Marsh is himself excellent), or the way he delineates the different scorings for Mime and Wotan in their exchanges. He ensures proper dramatic thrust through the Wanderer/Siegfried scene of the final act. The result: gripping Wagner.

Peter Marsh has a typical Mime voice, and is blessed with great diction. When he opens out his voice, he reveals what a powerful singer he really is. Lance Ryan sounds like a proper Helden-Siegfried right from the start.

The Alberich of Jochen Schmeckenbecher is superb…The Brünnhilde is fresh and sounds young…Kateryna Kasper is a superbly light Woodbird. There is so much to enjoy here…Recommended.

-- Fanfare

"His technique is superb, and the lyric quality of his voice is so beautiful!" Praise from Placido Domingo for Albanian lyric tenor Saimir Pirgu, who’s continued winning plaudits on operatic stages the world over. Recorded with one of the world’s finest orchestras, this recital goes from strength to strength showcasing his affinity for the Verdi roles and the "silken touch" (New York Times) he brings to both the verismo repertoire and the French and Italian bel canto.

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players, and not compatible with standard DVD players

Also available on standard DVD

Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese
Booklet: English, German, French
No. of Discs: 1
Run time: 190 minutes
Disc Format: Blu-ray 50
Picture: 16:9, HD
Audio: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1
Bonus Material: Introduction to La forza del destino
Subtitles Bonus: Italian, English
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)

Of all Hamburg Ring Cycle premieres, the third waystation, Siegfried, has received the most applause until now. Audience members were exuberant not only about the singers and orchestra under the direction of Simone Young, but about the production as well. The transparency of the orchestra allowed the singers to really sing, in contrast to many Wagner productions in which they are often in a pure struggle against waves of instrumental force. Director Claus Guth’s finely wrought protagonists were brilliantly brought to life on stage by the excellent cast of soloists. This Ring is lucid and transparent, even when only heard in the living room. The singers, who include experienced Wagner singers like Christian Franz, Falk Struckmann and Wolfgang Koch, guarantee first-class musical standards.

REVIEW:

We can always find room for another good Ring in the recorded archives. This is shaping up so far to be a fine example. The singing cast is altogether satisfactory, if not star-studded. Every member offers a reasonably forceful and vivid impersonation of his assigned role.

Christian Franz offers a fine Siegfried, the forging scenes in I going well, with vigorous singing and the metallic sound effects as good as they come. Did you know that Siegfried’s actions follow standard metallurgical procedures for forging, annealing, heat-treating and quenching, needed to produce a good weapon? It is true! Wagner wasn’t a metallurgist, but he knew what was needed to keep the action true to life. Falk Struckmann’s Wotan- Wanderer is also forceful and gives a fine rendering of the critical scene with Erda in III. His smooth, dark voice is most effective not only here but also as the Wanderer in I and the opening scenes of II.

I wish I could be as positive about Deborah Humble’s Erda, but to me she sounds wobbly and unsteady. I suppose she’s about par for the part by current standards, which isn’t saying much. Catherine Foster, on the other hand is a good, strong Brünnhilde, not quite in the class of Flagstad or Nilsson, but surely as fine as they come at present. Alberich, Mime, and Fafner are conventionally well performed, also. Finally, Ha Young Lee was a complete newcomer to me, but she sings the forest bird’s songs more clearly, sweetly, and convincingly than anyone I’ve ever heard. Something tells me that this is not the last we shall hear from her.

The Hamburg Philharmonic is absolutely perfect, flawless, indeed thrilling. Its tone is colorful, its ensemble flawless. Simone Young leads an unhurried performance that lasts over four hours. This is usually a recipe for dullness, but she somehow manages to conduct with gorgeous tone and unfailing presentation of detail, as well as flawless presentation of larger issues. I think this must be what Wagner had in mind when he employed the word gesamtkunstwerk. Moreover, Oehms offers sound that is totally realistic without undue intrusion of gimmicks like the ones in Solti’s Decca Rheingold. Finally, there is a 145 page booklet, giving full German texts with their English translations. The introductory notes are outstanding, exploring and explaining every action in detail and the motivations of everyone concerned, including the composer. It is original and thought-provoking—one of the best essays of this genre I’ve ever encountered.

In this booklet also, there are numerous illustrations of the stagecraft, which I would suggest you not even look at, if you can resist the temptation, for they depict the cheapest, most dreary, most totally irrelevant collection of garage-sale paraphernalia you could imagine—dirty, unkempt, randomly scattered about the stage. This isn’t staging; it is a treasonous, subversive, cheap refutation of everything Wagner stood for!

But of course, that is the advantage the CD has over DVD—there’s no temptation to look at it—indeed, there’s no way of doing so. But this little rant is irrelevant to the main point that, for an audio Siegfried, this is about as good as it gets.

-- American Record Guide