• 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

Led by a loyal and accomplished Rossinian in Ricciarelli and an exceptionally sure Ramey, this Gazza Ladra is the one to which listeners will inevitably turn for the foreseeable future.

According to an irate correspondent (February, page 1432) my "hatred of live recordings with all their inevitable characteristics" had "poisoned" my review of Philips's La Scala recording of the Italian version of Rossini's Guglielmo Tell. Given such an assumption, what chance has this new recording of La gazza ladra—"The thieving magpie"—recorded live during performances at last year's Rossini Festival in Pesaro? In the event, every chance. In the first place, the opera is being sung in the right language. Secondly, it would seem that the Teatro Rossini in Pesaro—rebuilt in 1816-18 and reopened, as it happens, with a production of La gazza ladra supervised by Rossini himself—is an excellent place in which to record. Like Glyndebourne, it is perhaps rather dry acoustically, but is a beautifully scaled theatre with a stage that is easier to cover than La Scala's. The theatre is, in fact, a kind of miniature La Scala, as handsome to look at as its big brother in Milan (where La gazza ladra had its prima in 1817) but with the intimacy of Glyndebourne or, say, the glorious Theatre Royal in Bristol. It would also seem that Michael Hampe's production was a relatively straightforward affair. There is a certain amount of coming and going in the secco recitatives (not by Rossini and musically unremarkable) but in the big scenes the principals are logically placed and unfussily directed, making for a recording that is cleanly miked, pleasantly immediate, and well arranged right across the stereophonic spectrum.

If there is an element of disappointment about this live theatre performance, it is some occasional lack of theatre atmosphere. The audience, whose responses are briefly registered and then faded out at the end of all the key movements, were clearly much taken with Samuel Ramey's remarkably fierce and Machiavellian portrait of the lecherous Mayor. But there is a slightly antiseptic feel about a good deal of the First Act and the start of the Second, where the prison scenes should really stir the emotions. They certainly did that at Wexford in 1959 with Marietta Adani as Ninetta and the young Janet Baker as the affectionate young peasant boy, Pippo; though in those days all the publisher Ricordi could come up with was La gazza ladra in the heavily re-ordered and reorchestrated version completed by Zandonai in 1942. In the present recording of the famous prison duet "E ben per mia memoria", Katia Ricciarelli and Bernadette Manca di Nissa are using no tear-jerking, sub-Puccinian revision, but the Urtext in Alberto Zedda's exemplary realization. So we must expect it to be a degree or so cooler.

That said, Act 2, which by Rossini's usual standards is unusually long and powerful, grows magnificently in this performance, culminating in the great Trial scene, Ninetta's march to the scaffold, and her deeply touching Andantino, "Deh tu reggi in tal momenta". Ricciarelli, the Ninetta, is a loyal and accomplished Rossinian and a regular visitor to Pesaro. Her vocal portrait of this wronged country girl may strike some as being too sophisticated. I recall an old 78rpm recording of Ninetta's cavatina sung by Lina Pagliughi that seemed to strike exactly the right note of unaffected artlessness. No need to count the spoons after this girl had left for town. Ricciarelli, by contrast, rather cossets the music and occasionally elaborates it, attempting in the process perhaps to suggest a degree of vocal ease that she does not now quite possess. As an old man, Rossini wrote variants and cadenzas for this cavatina for the soprano Giuseppina Vitali (see Appendix I/C of Ricordi's Italian-English vocal score of the Zedda edition; Milan, 1989: £24.95) but Ricciarelli appears to be using her own ornaments.

The rest of the ensemble is a good one, as is usually the case in Pesaro, surely led by an exceptionally confident Samuel Ramey playing the Mayor not as some meddling buffoon but as an extremely unpleasant rural Scarpia. William Matteuzzi, Ninetta's lover fresh from the wars, is splendidly ardent, Manca di Nissa is a rich-toned Pippo, sensitively played, and Ferruccio Furlanetto makes a strong impression as Ninetta's father, the soldier on the run from a corrupt regime and yet one more of those Rossinian father-figures trying to live out his life in politically troubled times. Still, Furlanetto doesn't get the extra aria, a newly adapted entrance aria, which Rossini provided for the singer Remorini for the 1818 Pesaro revival. Lucia, by contrast, keeps her Act 2 aria, though it was rarely performed after the Milanese prima. In this Pesaro production it has been moved forward so that it comes before the great Trial scene. This tucks it neatly away, allowing Lucia's doubts about Ninetta's guilt to register as a kind of aria del sorbetto before the onset of the chorus, quintet, and second finale.

The text, then, is close to that of the Milanese prima and is more or less complete, some understandably small and frequent cuts in the recitatives notwithstanding. The orchestral playing under Gianluigi Gelmetti is spruce and the accompaniments are generally prompt and businesslike, though Ricciarelli is occasionally indulged.

This is not the first commercial recording of La gazza ladra. Zedda's own account of the opera appeared on Fonit Cetra's Italia label some years ago (nla). But this Sony Classical version is the one to which Rossinians will inevitably turn for the foreseeable future.

-- Gramophone [10/1990]

'With flute obbligato': it used to be a regular feature of concerts and recordings by the great madames of old. If their programmes had been as enterprising as this one, they would not have provoked so readily, if unwittingly, the odious term 'canary-fancier'... The bell-like purity of [Battle's] voice is delightful in itself... Her fluency and evenness, her free production of perfectly steady tone, are all admirable and none too common in the world today (but then, she is generally acknowledged to be one of the leading singers in that world). She is also highly skilled in making effective use of her naturally limited power, as, for instance, when she fills out the tone towards the end of "Sweet Bird" or repeats the words "can you be" in "There's not a swain". The enervated droop of some high sopranos is not for her, and she can turn from mere pleasantness to gaiety, as in some of the Spanish songs...

Among the songs, Roussel's settings of Ronsard for voice and flute without accompaniment make a strong impression: fine two-part writing and perfect for the occasion. Several others are remarkably happy 'finds', including the Bird-song of Michael Head. But musical interest centres on Martinu's Flute Sonata, a marvellous work... Written in a week at Cape Cod in 1945, it has inexhaustible vitality: apparently simple (but never commonplace), and sometimes dizzyingly intricate and diverse in form and reference...

-- Gramophone [9/1994]

The Moravian Duets were the first works of Antonín Dvorák to bring him wide fame. Early in 1875, the composer chose four poems from a collection of Moravian national folk verse and set them to music in the form of duets for soprano and tenor. These were among Dvorák’s earliest attempts to infuse his music with the rising spirit of Czech nationalism, and were so successful that the following year, he composed another duet cycle of fourteen Moravian songs and, in 1877, a third set of four songs, both cycles being conceived for soprano and contralto.

Felix Mendelssohn composed more than seventy songs for solo voice, charming Lieder which often emphasized atmosphere rather than the explicit meaning of the poet’s lines. During the years 1836–1844, Mendelssohn composed his first of three groups of vocal duets with piano, Opus 63, which are recorded here for the first time. Three other duets were published posthumously as Opus 77, and his Drei Volkslieder completes the composer’s brief list of works in this genre.

Pablo Casals Six Songs for Soprano, recorded here for the first time, span a creative period of almost sixty-five years. n 1895, at the age of nineteen, Casals composed his “Cançó Catalana No. 1,” using as his text a poem by Jascinte Verdaguer, the foremost poet of Spain’s Catalan region and a close friend of the composer. “Cançó Catalana No. 2,” composed at about the same time as No. 1, has words by a contemporary of Verdaguer, the poet Apeles Mestres, also a friend of Casals. “De Cara al Mar” dates from 1935 and its text is by the twentieth-century Catalan poet Joan Llongueras. “Ballada de la Nova Solveig” is by another twentieth-century Catalan poet, Ventura Gasol. These poets also were friends of Casals.

Tomas Blanco and Rafael Montañez are Puerto Rican poets who came to know Casals after he took up residence in Puerto Rico in the late ’50’s. Casals’ set- ting of Blanco’s “Tres Estrofas de Amor” dates from 1958 and is dedicated to the composer’s wife Marta. “El Angel Travieso,” a setting of the poem by Rafael Montañez, was completed in 1959.

Founded in 1950 as a chamber-music workshop for professional musicians, the Marlboro Festival has attracted outstanding concert and chamber-music artists who have come to Vermont at their own expense to exchange musical ideas and to play chamber music. Away from the routine pressures of professional activity, they are free to explore the vast literature combining piano, strings, woodwinds, brass and voice, with concern only for the music itself. Weekend Festival concerts have been described by Time magazine as “the most exciting chamber music in the U.S.”

One of the most beloved, widely performed musicals of the last 25 years, Once on This Island introduced Broadway to the songwriting team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime, Seussical). Nominated for eight Tony Awards® including Best Musical and Best Score

"A 90-minute Caribbean fairy tale told in rousing song and dance, this show is a joyous marriage of the slick and the folkloric, of the hard-nosed sophistication of Broadway musical theater and the indigenous culture of a tropical isle." – Frank Rich, The New York Times

I suppose the music lover within takes precedence over the sound freak, but not by much. Delighted as I was at my editor's decision to revive the old "Classical Hall of Fame" slot, I was hard put to decide what to write about first, until it occurred to me, as a fair and sensible thing, to praise those discs I play for pleasure between reviewing stints—the pauses that refresh, as it were.

Agreed, Turangalila's a flawed work—overlong, overblown, overacute, and, like so much of Messiaen's music, self-indulgent as only someone who fancies himself in touch with the Eternal can make it. But what a grand, fantastic-sounding thing it is! Salonen has taken Turangalila's measure most convincingly, and the Philharmonic plays it as well, it seems to me, as an orchestra can. Bud Graham's engineering wants special mention for its detail and clout, and if you've a playback system capable of delivering bodacious SPLs without imploding or crackling the glaze on your front teeth and bric-a-brac, you're dead wrong to ignore this glorious imperfection.

-- Mike Silverton, FANFARE [9/1991]
reviewing the original release, CBS 42271

Deodato's arrangements and Airto's percussion brought Brazilian undercurrents to the smooth, bluesy sound of this 1971 Turrentine gem. His sax is equally sultry on the driving grooves and ethereal pieces: Salt Song; Vera Cruz; Storm; Gibraltar; I Told Jesus, and more!

One of the finest violinists of the second half of the twentieth century, Isaac Stern (1920-2001) left behind a unique legacy that includes not only a great solo career in performance and recording, but also an impeccable reputation as colleague and mentor, and the glorious fact that he inspired the rebirth of one of the world’s greatest concert venues – Carnegie Hall in New York. Fifty years ago, in early 1960, Stern formed a citizen’s committee to protest the planned demolition of Carnegie Hall, sparking a movement that not only saved the building but insured its future as one of music’s great landmarks.

Carnegie Hall and Sony Masterworks have assembled a release that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the rescue of the Hall and the beginning of its renaissance, as well as the 90th anniversary of Isaac Stern’s birth. The accompanying booklet recounts the story of Stern’s efforts to stop the Hall’s demolition and his enduring leadership that re-established Carnegie Hall as America’s greatest concert venue.

In every respect, this is superb. Here is not merely a wonderful souvenir of a special event but a thing of joy forever.

In every respect, this is superb: a 'must'. I recently listened to DG's historic issue of VPO Johann Strauss ((D 435 335-2GWP2), reviewed enthusiastically in February by RO. Here the present needs fear nothing from the past. Indeed Carlos Kleiber combines in one baton, miraculously, every attribute of his predecessors—his father Erich's discipline and élan, Krauss's Schwung, Karajan's elegance, Boskovsky's lift and Krips's insinuating charm. Anyone who saw and heard the concert on television (the video incidentally will be released on Philips) will know just how delightfully Kleiber, with his unorthodox, seemingly effortless methods, achieves his aims and how willingly his complaisant orchestra responds to his peculiar gifts.

If I had to decide between so many winners, I might choose Eine Tausend und eine Nachi for the translucency of its introduction and the champagne elation of its main section, and Spharenklange for ethereal wonder. But then there is the irresistible verve of the Pizzicato Polka where the rubato is perfectly judged, and the tremendous panache of Unter Donner und Blitz. Is there a touch of the mannered just once or twice, as in the opening bars of The Blue Danube? If so, it is usually justified as a means to an entirely convincing end—in this case a familiar piece given with a swooning spontaneity that invites the body to sway with the music.

To crown one's pleasure, the recording is faultless: it has presence, warmth, depth, and captures ideally a sense of the occasion. Here is not merely a wonderful souvenir of a special event but a thing of joy forever. And now if you'll excuse me, I shall go and listen to it again.

-- Gramophone [4/1992]

Distance lends enchantment. This famous mid-century group used to sound ‘big’ in its time, and fortepiano fanciers will wince at the expansive, fruity opening to the Archduke. The rest of us can enjoy a generosity of phrasing that now seems to sing the joy and pain of life itself. To be frank it is a bit sedentary, but the steady pulse allows the interplay of fine musical responses to be taken in at ease. Several degrees lighter in manner and acoustic – and despite a stereo spread that, with headphones, has violin and cello arguing from opposite sides of your head – the Ghost has energy and feeling even if it doesn’t peer over the existential edge.

-- Robert Maycock, BBC Music Magazine

...I ought to mention the various overtures which serve as makeweights—intensely dramatic recreations these, of which The Consecration of the House struck me as particularly fine despite the constricted sonics. It comes with Stern's now classic Beethoven Violin Concerto, a warm, confident, and (on Bernstein's part) sometimes bluff rendition. There is some rapt playing from a soloist then in his prime, an intriguing textual oddity in the coda of the first movement (the familiar 'unauthentic' cello line is similarly absent from Kyung Wha Chung's recent EMI account) and some mildly distracting tape hiss (suppressed during the cadenzas where the image shifts as if Stern has been transported to another studio).

-- Gramophone [11/1992]