Classical Music

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

Classical Music

This Myto release of Gaetano Donizetti’s repertoire staple opera ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ with its famed “mad scene” features, among others, a stellar trio of singers at or near their respective vocal primes in Renata Scotto, Alfredo Kraus and Sesto Bruscantini. + This live recording from July, 1963 finds distinguished conductor Bruno Rigacci, a musician with over 100 operas in his repertoire, directing the proceedings.

GRÉTRY Le magnifique • Ryan Brown, cond; Emiliano Gonzalez Toro ( Octave, Le Magnifique ); Elizabeth Calleo ( Clémentine ); Jeffrey Thompson ( Aldobrandin ); Karim Sulayman ( Fabio ); Marguerite Krull ( Alix ); Douglas Williams ( Laurence ); Opera Lafayette • NAXOS 8.660305 (80:00)


The operas of André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, once wildly popular, are virtually unknown today—this is the world premiere recording of this 1773 work—even though his most famous work, Richard Cœur de Lion of 1784 was still occasionally performed in the late 19th century. In order to fit the whole opera on one CD, conductor Ryan Brown and his forces chose to omit all of the spoken dialogue, which some may see as a demerit and others a plus.


This CD production duplicates the cast that Brown used when he gave the modern world premiere of the opera at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in February 2011, reviewed by Charles T. Downey in Ionarts. Interestingly, the descriptions of the singers in that review virtually matched my own reaction, particularly the description of soprano Elizabeth Calleo as having “some lovely high notes but an overall vocal production that was tight in the jaw…and sounded a little shallow at the top,” but overall this cast is good.


The plot is a typically silly “rescue” opera mixed up with the usual love triangle. Put as simply as possible, the dashing young Octave, known as “Le Magnifique,” has just rescued the wealthy merchant Horace and his servant Laurence from the slave market where they mysteriously appeared. Meanwhile Horace’s daughter, Clémentine, is being wooed towards marriage by her tutor, Aldobrandin, while Alix, Clémentine’s servant and confidante, has rushed into the street having spotted Laurence (who is also her husband) marching with the slaves. Le Magnifique offers his best racing horse as a free gift to Aldobrandin if he is allowed 15 minutes alone with Clémentine, which the latter agrees to. Clémentine tacitly agrees to marry him, and in the course of time, of course, it is revealed that Aldobrandin and his servant Fabio actually kidnapped Horace and Laurence and sold them into slavery nine years ago. Reunions occur, Aldobrandin is dismissed, and Octave/Magnifique gets the girl.


What makes this opera interesting, however, is the music. Stuck stylistically somewhere between the baroque and classical styles, Le Magnifique has some very innovative and interesting moments, such as the slow march of the slaves which acts as the overture, a splendid duet for Clémentine and Aldobrandin, and a wonderful comic aria for Fabio, who sings of the glories of the horse Octave has promised his master. In fact, there ensues a trio for Octave, Fabio, and Aldobrandin—all of whom, incidentally, are tenors—singing for four minutes of how they’re going to go out and have a look at that horse! (All I could think of at that moment was Mr. Ed. ) By and large, Le Magnifique ’s style is that of a comic opera but, as I say, the style is very forward-looking. It much closer resembles Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor than it does Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. I was particularly struck by the musical invention in his extended act II finale, which lasts an astounding 17:22. Not until Mozart wrote the act I finale to Le nozze di Figaro did a composer, particularly in a comic opera, write something even more involved and complex.


All the singers have excellent voices, bright yet full (save Calleo whose voice is not bright on top but constricted). Sulayman has a rather over-bright and somewhat unsteady tenor, but since Fabio is a comic-comprimario role, Sulayman does a good enough job. In fact, his rendering of the “horse aria” is absolutely delightful. Brown conducts with a light, deft hand: He evidently understands the French galante style very well. Despite her slight vocal deficiencies, Calleo is called on to drop an octave into what would be her contralto range in her aria “Quelle contrainte!” Both the first and second acts end with an ensemble for the three tenors (I’m a little surprised that Plácido Domingo never dug this up for his Three Tenors concerts), and here one can discern the tonal difference between their three voices. This recording is an unexpected delight, and I commend both Ryan Brown for his superb musical direction and the foresight of Naxos to record this. Bravo, one and all!


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

TAMERLANO

REVIEW:

Armida brings out the best in Cecilia Bartoli as a performer. Her tone is ravishingly beautiful when it needs to be - you need go no further than her first aria, a gorgeous prayer for Rinaldo, to find evidence of that - but when she is required to turn on the vocal fireworks, as for Armida’s great aria of fury in Act 2, she does so with thrilling precision and passion. She is at her finest in the final act when Armida’s power is on the wane, heartbreaking in the great aria Ah, non ferir, then spitting fury as she goes off to exact her revenge.

Patricia Petibon gives Bartoli a real run for her money as the second lady. The voice is of a very different quality to Bartoli’s - sweeter and more innocent, less knowing - but it is every bit as delicious, from the gently winsome quality of her first aria to the intentionally strident and very impressive hysterics of her aria at the beginning of Act 2. She also makes a most beguiling nymph in the third act.

When Bartoli and Prégardien come together, however, things improve enormously, and their Act 1 duet, when he tries to convince her of his faithfulness, is a real treat, both beautiful in its opening section and then exhilarating in its coloratura. Markus Schäfer gives a very attractive turn as Clotarco and Scot Weir’s Ubaldo is fine. Oliver Widmer’s Idreno is not pleasant, though, sounding disagreeably unfocused in his opening aria with little improvement later.

I’m not normally a fan of Harnoncourt in music of this period - I find his Mozart infuriating - and generally I find Concentus Musicus Wien to be so abrasive as to be devoid of pleasure in much of their playing. However, I actually found their style to be pretty effective here. It is a martial opera, after all, and the harsh edge on the brass, as well as in some of the other orchestral tuttis, helps to evoke the atmosphere of war. The string playing doesn’t always sound thin and pinched, either, and they are the finest thing about the scene in Act 2 where Rinaldo’s indecision is invested with the intensity of a mad scene.

Harnoncourt does occasionally pull the tempo around a bit, as though he can’t quite help himself, but he still shapes the work with conviction, and it’s worth remembering that this was a rather neglected opera when this performance took place, so he probably felt the need to inject a certain something into his interpretation so as to make contemporary audiences sit up and take notice that little bit more. I can turn a blind eye to most of it if it means being reacquainted with Haydn’s music in such a successful way. The corking Trio that ends the second act is completely thrilling, bringing out the finest dramatic instincts of the singers, orchestra and conductor.

Both CDs are ingeniously packaged in a single case and the booklet contains an interesting essay by David Wyn Jones. At a price like this there is no need to hesitate.

– MusicWeb International (Simon Thompson)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Showcasing Metropolitan Opera and GRAMMY® Award-winning mezzo-soprano Cooke, and the Colburn Orchestra led by Gilad. The recording includes Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, the aria ‘Am I in Your Light?’ from Doctor Atomic by John Adams, Chausson’s sweeping Poème de l'amour et de la mer, all with full orchestra, and two Handel arias, ‘Scherza infida’ and ‘Ombra mai fu’ performed with chamber orchestra. The members of the Colburn Orchestra create a distinct orchestral sound (a great one), and Maestro Gilad elicits sensitive and lyrical interpretations of the repertoire. This recording won the Audio Oasis Award even before it was released at THE SHOW in Newport, 2012.

Jussi Björling (1911-60), the great Swedish tenor who was to meet his tragic and untimely end only a year after this performance, is in his usual splendid form – captured in superb sound – on the stage of the Metroploitan Opera in NYC in this performance of Charles Gounod’s Faust in the title role. Joined on stage by soprano Elisabeth Söderström as Maguerite and Cesare Siepi as Mephistopheles, this magical performance is led from the pit by American conductor and Julliard School stalwart, Jean Morel (1903-75).

Conductor Ferdinand Leitner (1912-96), learning his trade from masters like Walter, Busch, Richter and Karl Muck (as rehearsal pianist at Bayreuth), gained the experience that lead to his being dubbed the "singers' conductor" by all who worked with him during a long and lustrous career marked by his tenure as Zurich Opera music director (1969-84) and some 300 commercial recordings. The 1970's-80's Bayreuth stalwart, bass-baritone Franz Mazura as Tamerlano and famed American lyric soprano Helen Donath as Asteria headline this 1966 Leitner-led performance of Handel's Tamerlano.

Classical Music

The conductor Jérémie Rhorer is today regarded as one of the finest interpreters of the music of Mozart in general and his operas in particular. After conducting Die Entfu?hrung aus dem Serail at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2015, he performed it again at a memorable concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in September of that year with his orchestra, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie. It is this exceptional event, captured in a live recording conveying all the dramatic intensity of the opera, that we present today.

‘In Die Entfu?hrung, Mozart presents a completely unprecedented vision of the singspiel, with highly developed ensembles and musical continuity at a time when contemporary spectators were expecting the standard alternation between spoken and sung sections’, says Jérémie Rhorer in the interview that accompanies the discs. That musical dramaturgy lies at the centre of this interpretation, which is served by an outstandingly homogeneous cast.

This recording launches a series of recordings of concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and a collaboration between Alpha Classics and Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, who will continue to place their excellence at the service of the great masterpieces of Mozart.

Handel composed Hercules for his 1744-45 oratorio season as the secular foil to one of his most ambitious sacred dramas, Belshazzar, hoping to repeat the success of the previous season' Samson/Semele pairing.

Lakme, Delibes greatest opera, is performed by Opera Australia in all it's oriental glory. Starring the exquisite coloratura soprano Emma Matthews as the innocent girl priestess Lakme, and superb tenor Aldo Di Toro as the love-struck Gerald, the story tackles religion and cross-cultural love against a backdrop of British rule in India in the mid-19th century. French conductor Emmanuel Joel-Hornak brings out the full depth of the lush, dramatic score, with familiar high points being the beautiful renditions of the well-known Flower Duet and Bell Song. Dominica Matthews adds her rich voice as Mallika and Stephen Bennett is darkly dominating as Brahmin priest Nilakantha, Lakme's father, while Roxane Hislop is a consummate Mistress Bentson.

Includes work(s) by Richard Wagner. Conductor: Leif Segerstam.

Classical Music

Launched by its prologue Das Rheingold (8660374-75), Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) - one of the supreme works in the history of music - continues with Die Walküre. Part II of the tetralogy centres on the young lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde, whose relationship angers Ficka, goddess of marriage, and on the disobedience of the Valkyrie Brünnhilde who is sent to carry out Fricka’s wishes. Performed by an all-star international cast, the work features thrilling set-pieces such as Wotan’s Farewell and the Ride of the Valkyries.

Gifted as both a writer and a musician, Arrigo Boito wrote the libretto to his own opera Mefistofele. Based on Goethe' Faust and the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, Mefistofele is the pinnacle of Boito' compositional achievement.

Mackerras unseated? This magical version from Australia comes close

Chandos certainly has guts, going toe-to-toe with Mackerras’s Gramophone Award-winning set. Hickox’s Australian forces need not fear the comparison. Cheryl Barker may not have the refulgent tones of Renée Fleming on Decca (who has?) but she is even more moving in conveying Rusalka’s desperation. Mackerras is still my must-own, but this runs it close.

-- Gramophone [3/2008]

Composed by the young Gioachino Rossini in eleven days to comply with a contractual commitment, L’occasione fa il ladro (Opportunity Makes A Thief) is a comedy of multiple confusions. Count Alberto, travelling to be wed to a fiancée he has yet to meet, leaves an inn with the wrong suitcase. Don Parmenione audaciously adopts the Count’s identity, determined to take the bride for himself. This single-act burletta is a swift and deftly plotted moral drama, Rossini’s exuberant inspiration poured into interactions both tender and hilariously bewildering.

GETTY Usher House • Lawrence Foster, cond; Christian Elsner ( Poe ); Etienne Dupuis ( Roderick Usher ); Philip Ens ( Dr. Primus ); Lisa Delan ( Madeline Usher ); Gulbenkian O • PENTATONE 5186451(SACD: 67:05 Text and Translation)


I wanted to review this CD because I am enough of a Gordon Getty fan that I like to hear everything he has written, and I knew that this Poe story was famous for its atmosphere and that even Debussy was setting it to music when he died.


Imagine my surprise, then, to open the booklet and discover that Getty rewrote Poe’s story. The unnamed narrator/protagonist who visits Roderick Usher is now Poe himself. Roderick’s painful reaction to light and noise is downplayed. Madeline, who only appears in the hallway as a semi-ghostly apparition in the story, is now an “agent of redemption,” though she only moans and groans and doesn’t have any lines. The evil agent is now Dr. Primus, a character only spoken of (not by name) but never seen or heard in the Poe story.


Just so I could get a handle on this new adaptation, I went online and read Poe’s original story, which I had not seen before. As Getty points out, it is mostly mood: the first five of its 12 pages describe the bleakness and desolation of Usher house, its servants and inhabitants, before anything much ever happens. The original story’s plot is as follows:


The unnamed narrator rides on horseback to visit his old childhood friend Roderick Usher (no trains come near the place). Roderick is emaciated and nervous. Light of any kind annoys him, as well as sounds, with the sole exception of his own guitar playing, to which he accompanies himself with rotten old poems sung to his own made-up melodies. Apparently the House of Usher is somewhat but not entirely inbred, and both Roddy and his sister Madeline (fraternal twins) are the sole surviving heirs. Maddy, too, suffers from the nervous disorder, but not being as strong as Roddy her end seems a bit closer. The narrator only sees Maddy once, walking through the hallway. A few days later, and Roddy announces her demise. He has her placed in a coffin in the basement but doesn’t want to embalm or bury her right away, as he feels the family quack might be able to perform an autopsy and discover the cause of the nervous condition. A few days later, a dark and terrible storm engulfs the house. The narrator/Poe tries to calm Roddy down by reading him a story about a knight named Ethelred who barges into the domain of an old hermit, who appears to be protected by a dragon on his doorstep. Every noise mentioned in the story—the clang of sword on breastplate and the death throes of the dragon—seems to be heard by him from somewhere inside the house. Eventually Roddy tells the narrator that they had accidentally buried Maddy alive, that he has heard her trying to get out of the basement for a few days but that he didn’t have the nerve to go down and let her out. She finally appears at the doorway, bloody and emaciated, and falls on her brother before expiring. The shock makes Roddy expire too. Bye-bye to the House of Usher.


Aside from the plot changes, Usher House is now more than just a place where dusty old people read dusty old books. It has now become a repository of learning, a place where the family has “brought together tracts, monographs, manuscripts of the greatest interest and rarity,” with pride of place belonging “to our mediaeval archives….The whole house is designed for learning.” This is, indeed, a major change from the original story.


Unlike Plump Jack, Getty’s music here can stand on its own as a listening experience without the need to see the action. It is tonal but not “obviously” melodic; as the late Moondog (Louis Hardin) might have said, “I am considered avant-garde in rhythm but old-fashioned in harmony,” but Getty uses neighboring tonalities in a very creative manner, whereas Moondog did not. Moreover, the music morphs and develops in interesting ways.


Elsner, the tenor singing Poe, has a nice timbre but a persistent wobble, and his diction is only intermittently clear. Dupuis, our Usher, has a more solid voice but only slightly clearer diction. Both, however, present their characters well and they are fine musicians. There is a certain strophic character about the sung lines in the first scene, and the orchestration is exceedingly clever, supporting the voices or commenting on the drama in turn. When Roderick suggests having a ball, for instance, the rhythm changes to 3/4 time and a quirky waltz melody arises; when he talks of the landscape around the house as being desolate, the orchestra reflects this in both its melodic and timbral treatment. This sort of thing continues throughout the opera, the sign of an assured composer who understands his art and knows exactly how to morph and change the music, not only in such a way that it supports or echoes the drama but also to keep the listener on the edge of the seat. This is first-class music.


Then comes the first of several major deviations from Poe: Roderick refers to a book called Exon Domesday which is not in the original story. In this book, King Edward the Confessor ordered that Usher House be destroyed “stone from stone, and the stones cast in Usher Tarn.” Roderick’s father bought back the land, drained it, exhumed the stones, and brought them over to America to rebuild the house. (This does, however, seem like a lot of work when you could buy limestone cheaper over here. I doubt if there was any intuitive “learning” in the original stones.) Nevertheless, Getty’s ability to set text to music is indeed remarkable. Absolutely none of the libretto is written in what one would call musical meters, no rhyming or other poetic devices are consciously used, yet the music has a wonderful lilt to it that carries the words with perfect equanimity.


The mood changes of the orchestra continue as Madeline is introduced: a lighter, headier sound, created by a few high percussion instruments such as a glockenspiel. Dr. Primus insists that Madeleine take her medicine, as “She is getting so much better.” Shades of Dr. Miracle from Les Contes d’Hoffmann ! Poe then sings a song that he recalls Roddy having written and Maddy having sung when they were children at school. The song has exactly the kind of odd, quirky sound that one might expect a modern composer to use to re-imagine Renaissance music. (This song is recorded with the tenor at a bit of a distance and in an echo chamber; not too surprisingly, the wobble dissipates somewhat at a distance, and Elsner sings a lovely pianissimo high G that floats beautifully.)


And here is where Getty ties in his fictional doctor with Usher’s fictional “medical archives:” Roderick firmly believes that these ancient books will help the doctor cure her of her illness. (Apparently, no one ever told him how pathetic and ignorant the medical profession was back in the bad old alchemy days.) Yet almost immediately after saying this, he begs Poe to leave the next morning and take Maddy with him to put into a clinic, surrounded by “the best doctors,” which Roddy will pay for. Suddenly, the attendant (a speaking role) introduces the “guests” for the ball, Roderick’s relatives and ancestors. When Maddy enters, the guests shrink from her presence as “vampires from a crucifix.” The music then rises to a loud and rather grotesque dance rhythm for a short bit before settling back into a minuet. This minuet then becomes grotesque as Madeline dances, dazed, and then falls. Dr. Primus indicates that she is dead; Roddy collapses in grief, and Poe comforts him.


The next scene, then, represents a clean break in time and mood from the previous portion of the opera. Maddy is being buried in the family crypt; the coffin is sealed as the mourners leave. Dr. Primus suggests that since the line of Ushers seems to be coming to an end, Poe might wish to join them in the observatory (non-existent in the original story) the following night to discuss who might take the valuable collection of knowledge in the house. Oddly enough, by this point in the recording, Elsner’s voice has become firmer and less wobbly—probably a different day of recording.


The next scene is in the observatory. Philip Ens, the singer performing Dr. Primus, is a well-known bass specializing in modern music who has performed at the Metropolitan Opera (Tiresias in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, among other roles), but his voice has picked up a loose vibrato by the time of this recording. Dr. Primus tells Poe that much of the knowledge housed by the Ushers was real knowledge of the kind opposed by Roman law and then by the Catholic Church, that Madeline refused to learn it, but that he (Primus) wishes to pass it on lest it be lost forever. The suggestion is, then, very strong, that Poe is the one to continue the knowledge of Usher House. Primus suggests that they meet again in three nights, when the “haze of miasma that rises from the tarn and enfolds this house” will be lifted at that time by an “illumination” that will come with a storm.


Poe and Roderick are in the latter’s apartments three nights later. Poe confesses to Roddy that Primus wants to make him heir to the Usher knowledge. Roderick says that he expected as much, but warns him to beware of Primus. Poe tells Roderick what Primus told him, of the storm and the illumination. Roderick mentions that this is All-Hallows’ Eve (again, a detail different from the original story). Roderick suggests that “Dr. Primus” is an ancient ancestor of his, who must find a vessel to continue “the covenant with the Elders” made 14 centuries earlier. And Roderick also suggests that there is another dread, something frightful, that he fears, and has obsessed him for hours, but he cannot put it all into words. Poe offers to withdraw, but Roddy begs him to stay, to see it through and help him if he can. And, yes, Poe reads the “Mad Tryst” of Sir Launcelot Channing and his knight Ethelred, as in the original story. The sounds described elsewhere are heard, and intrude on their mood, but Roderick has a different explanation for them. In this version, Primus has confronted Madeline in the armory below, but the sister—who, as in the original story, was not yet dead—has thrown him aside “like an empty sack,” thus destroying the evil of Primus and the elders. (At long last, the voice of Madeline is heard, singing a wordless line or two from far away.) Eventually, Madeline appears at the doorway of the parlor, runs to Roderick, embraces him, and they both fall dead. According to the libretto’s instructions, “The house is heard more than seen to collapse … in the darkness except for quick flashes of light.” Poe then returns to the role of narrator, saying that he “fled aghast” from that chamber and the mansion. Usher House is done with.


While Getty’s rewriting of this fictional story for dramatic purposes is imaginative and creative, my personal feeling is that an already somewhat incredulous tale has been taken to the level of Gothic fiction, of undead ancestors and “forces of evil” that border on vampire and ghoul stories. Yet the opera is highly entertaining, and I was entranced by Getty’s spectacular ability to create such a wonderful atmosphere and sustain it for 67 minutes. This is a real tour de force, certainly the best and most sustained musical creation of his I have heard, and as such I recommend your listening to it.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Edita Gruberova – her very name is melodious. The Slovak soprano is undoubtedly one of today’s most well-known interpreters of coloratura opera singing, and especially of Italian bel canto. She made her debut in 1970 as Queen of the Night in Mozart's "Magic Flute" at the Vienna State Opera and, ever since her performances in the same role at Glyndebourne and Salzburg in 1974, she has been a regular fixture on the world’s leading operatic stages and concert podiums. Flattering epithets such as "the Queen of Coloratura", "the Slovak Nightingale" or "prima donna assoluta" are hardly exaggerated, for they really do represent what Edita Gruberova has embodied for almost half a century. She is celebrated all over the world for her perfect mastery of vocal technique, her astonishing ability to master even the most difficult coloraturas and highest notes, her clear and precise intonation and, most importantly, for something that overshadows and transfigures everything else: the seductive and beguiling timbre of her voice. This album, released by BR-KLASSIK to celebrate her 50th stage anniversary, presents nine recordings made between October 1983 and June 2000 at Bayerischer Rundfunk concerts. In addition to well-known as well as lesser-known arias from operas by Handel, Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, and also the Couplet of Adele from Johann Strauss' operetta "Die Fledermaus", Edita Gruberova can also be heard in interpretations from Mozart's "Exsultate, jubilate", his “Laudate Dominum” from the “Vesperae solennes de confessore,” and also Michael Haydn’s far too rarely performed Christmas cantata “Lauft, ihr Hirten, allzugleich.” This album is more than a historical portrait – it offers a representative musical cross-section of Edita Gruberova's wide-ranging repertoire, and also includes several surprises that complement and enrich her comprehensive discography.