One of the 20th century's most questing and influential singers Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is celebrated above all for his extraordinary skill and insight in lieder. This complete collection of lieder and songs recorded for HMV, EMI Electrola, Teldec & Erato is brought together here for the very first time, showcasing not only his exceptional talent but also the evolution of his artistry and voice throughout his career, from 1951 to 1992. His relentless drive to renew the genre shines through as he explores a vast repertoire, from Schubert to Schoenberg, led by an unbounded curiosity that brought new dimensions to the art of singing. "... nobody could surely have prophesied that the singer would become such a prodigious phenomenon with a colossal achievement on record, never before matched and unlikely to be repeated in the future." Gramophone Magazine.

Christina Pluhar's new album, Terra Mater, is a hymn to nature. "This wonderful program is exposed to the four winds, in which you will hear the chirping of the nightingales, sweet birds, cuckoos, frogs and chickens, the whispers of the winds, heavy storms and the rumbling of the seas." Baroque repertoire, traditional music and improvisations are at the base of Terra Mater, recorded with L'Arpeggiata and the wonderful Swedish mezzo soprano Malena Ernman.

Fatma Said's third album, Lieder, is a very personal tribute to the art of German Song. Singing lieder has a central place in Fatma's musical life, it is a world of unique expression for her, listen to e.g. der Zwerg and it becomes crystal clear. Lieder is also a great collaborative project. Fatma recorded with the outstanding clarinettist Sabine Meyer, Anneleen Lenaerts on the harp, with our recently signed and critically acclaimed baritone Huw Montague Rendall, and many, many more

Following his acclaimed 2022 debut album, and his second solo release Nessun Dorma (2024), tenor Pene Pati brings his radiant voice to the Neapolitan song tradition, joined by the renowned ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro. 'Serenata a Napoli' brings together both iconic and lesser-known works by Capua, Tosti, Denza, and others, including beloved classics 'O sole mio' and 'O surdato 'nnammurato'. New arrangements by Antonio Paliotti balance tradition and freshness, offering an intimate, innovative rendition of Neapolitan repertoire. With it's warm melodies, 'Serenata a Napoli' evokes the charm and romance of Mediterranean nights, ideal for relaxed summer listening.

2014 Maria Callas re-mastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96 kHz re-master, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. Callas first sang Bellini's Norma in 1948, when she was just 25. She went on to perform the role of the heroic, but vulnerable Druid priestess -the ultimate embodiment of bel canto - more frequently than any other. In this second studio recording her conductor was again Tullio Serafin (he originally tutored her in the role in 1948), and the venue was again La Scala - where the opera was premiered in 1831. By 1960, Callas brought a wealth of new nuance to her interpretation, and she is aptly partnered by the creamy-voiced Christa Ludwig (in a rare recording of an Italian role) and the towering Franco Corelli.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. Callas never sang the role of Mim� on stage, but this did not prevent her recorded interpretation from being, as described by Philip Hope-Wallace in Gramophone, 'brilliantly realized, This Mim� comes alive and later haunts you in the most extraordinary way, one of the most moving I have ever heard.' Giuseppe di Stefano is an ardent Rodolfo and the young Anna Moffo makes a delectable Musetta.

Sabine Devieilhe takes the title role of the Nightingale in Stravinsky's miniature three-act opera Le Rossignol, while Francois-Xavier Roth - conducting the cast of leading French soloists, the choral singers of Ensemble Aedes, and the period instruments of his orchestra Les Si�cles - evokes all the magic of the score. This recording was made in March 2023 when the opera was presented in a production at the Th��tre des Champs-Elys�es. "Sabine Devieilhe will remain unforgettable as the disconcertingly sensual Nightingale," declared Le Figaro.

DECCA OPERA: MOZART DIE ENTFUHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL

#1 OPERA ALBUM / VARIOUS

Florence Foster Jenkins was a New York socialite who, despite being a hopelessly incompetent 'singer', believed herself to be an operatic soprano of note, and performed for invited audiences at recitals for thirty years or more until her death in 1944, just weeks after her only public performance at Carnegie Hall, which attracted an incredulous response. She was unable to pitch a note accurately or hold a tune, nor did she have any sense of rhythm or timing, and this collection of the private recordings she made in the early 1940s admirably portray her singular lack of talent. She acquired a cult legendary status over the years, to the extent that in 2016 a high profile feature film biopic is being released, starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, which will prompt a new surge of interest in her recordings. This release contains all the pieces she consigned to disc, comprising coloratura arias from well-known operas along with contemporary art songs, two written by her regular piano accompanist Cosme McMoon. It is simultaneously astonishing and hilarious, and for once the description of "unique" is amply justified.

This 31CD-box brings together all the operatic recordings that the German conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) made in the years from 1956 to 1993 for EMI Classics and Electrola (now Warner Classics). Aged 11, Wolfgang Sawallisch (1923-2013) heard a performance of Humperdinck's fairytale opera H�nsel und Gretel in his native Munich and, there and then, decided that he wanted to be the man in the orchestra pit who waved his arms and made things happen. It took him a while - war service as a radio operator and a spell as a prisoner of war delayed the inevitable - but by his late 20s he was conducting opera at Augsburg (starting with H�nsel und Gretel) and he had barely turned 30 when at Aachen he became the youngest Generalmusikdirektor in Germany. Opera recordings followed and his 1957 version of Richard Strauss's Capriccio is still regarded as the benchmark. Also in this box, along with more Strauss, perhaps the finest achievements of Sawallisch's other operatic hero, Wagner.

A singer of passion, elegance and dynamism, excelling equally in Italian and French opera, Roberto Alagna has numbered among the world's leading tenors for more than 30 years. His idiomatic phrasing and diction have consistently attracted praise. His recorded catalogue is substantial. In the judgement of the authoritative Grove Book of Opera Singers his recordings document "the plangent lyricism of Alagna's tone and the appealing ardor and inner fire of his style". Referring to his interpretation of the title role of Verdi's Don Carlos, in the recording conducted by Antonio Pappano, the New York Times wrote, "His intensely lyrical yet refined singing was a genuine revelation"

This 33CD box contains complete operas - by Bizet, Donizetti, Gounod, Massenet, Offenbach, Puccini, and Verdi - recorded between 1992 and 2017 and originally released by EMI Classics, Virgin Classics, Warner Classics, and Erato. The box notably documents Alagna's productive artistic partnerships with soprano Angela Gheorghiu (his wife from 1996 to 2013) and conductor Antonio Pappano.

In November 2011, the music world suffered a huge loss with the passing of the great soprano Montserrat Figueras. Acclaimed in recent years for her exceptional work with her husband Jordi Savall, both in performance and in recordings for their Alia Vox label, Figueras was famed not only as a vocalist but also for her scholarly efforts in the area of musicology. This comprehensive tribute album presents a selection of highlights from Figueras career. It includes recordings she made for the Astre'e, DHM, EMI and Alia Vox labels.

The setting of the novella Cavalleria Rusticana by the Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga by the Italian opera composer Pietro Mascagni (1863 - 1945) is regarded as the birth of a new style in Italian opera, "verismo", which gained great popularity throughout Italy from it's premiere in May 1890. In terms of content, Italian verismo is in the tradition of French naturalism and depicts the unadorned life of the simple, impoverished bourgeoisie at the turn of the century. The award-winning Spanish opera soprano Saioa Hern�ndez and the Orquestra Titular del Teatro Real under the direction of Carlo Montanaro invite you on an unforgettable musical journey of discovery through the aria world of Italian verismo and present a colorful, nuanced and melodic firework display of glamour and gold. The arias have been carefully selected and compiled by Saioa. The album comprises some of the most important verismo arias and offers a representative cross-section of the world of verismo.

VERDI ARIAS

A priceless collection of Hans Knappertsbusch's opera recordings made for Universal Music labels, including the legendary live Parsifal performances of both 1951 and 1962, the Vienna studio Die Meistersinger of 1950-51, the Munich Fidelio of 1961, as well as operatic excerpts and highlights. For singers such as Birgit Nilsson, Jon Vickers, George London and Hans Hotter, Knappertsbusch was the supreme Wagnerian. Audiences at the 1951 Bayreuth Festival were enraptured by the many beauties of his Parsifal - not only it's patience but it's steady unfolding, as if in a ritual, and the Decca recording became the first complete set of the opera on LP. Reissued on CD by many different labels, it returns to Decca here in the company of the 1962 account from Bayreuth, quicker and more flexible and perhaps even more attuned to the human drama of Wagner's final opera. Perhaps no one has conducted Parsifal more frequently than Knappertsbusch: over 200 times during a career that spanned just over half a century. His Wagner interpretations gained their unique authority from his study of the operas at Bayreuth under the direction of Hans Richter and the composer's son, Siegfried. His career was centred around performing all the mature music-dramas at the State Operas of Vienna and Munich, and latterly at Bayreuth. He had a bond of particular affection with the Vienna Philharmonic, and recorded albums of Wagnerian excerpts with them throughout the 1950s, including the Wesendonck Lieder and the First Act of Die Walk�re with Kirsten Flagstad. The complete studio recording of Die Meistersinger, from 1950-51, belies the idea that Knappertsbusch did not respond to a studio environment; it remains one of the most heart-warming accounts on disc. The same broad vein of humanism runs through his Fidelio recording with the Bavarian State Opera from 1961 and a strong cast led by a still youthful-sounding Jan Peerce and Sena Jurinac. Albums of Wagnerian excerpts from Zurich in 1947 preserve the artistry of Maria Reining and Paul Sch�ffler at their peak. Much here has long been unavailable on Decca; newly remastered, compiled with a new essay on the conductor's life and career by Peter Quantrill, the set is an essential acquisition for both devotees and sceptics of Knappertsbusch's fallible genius.

A landmark in Baroque opera recordings, newly remastered. This 'royal entertainment in music' was fashioned by Cavalli to a libretto by Giovanni Faustini for performance in Venice in 1644, two years after L'incoronazione di Poppaea saw the light of day. Through the course of Ormindo we follow the adventures of two pairs of lovers as they betray, deceive and flee from each other before the inevitable happy ending. A death scene in prison for the eponymous prince and his sweetheart Erisbe is marked by a grave pathos that sounds down the centuries - at least since Raymond Leppard exhumed the score from total obscurity. Conducting Ormindo at the 1967 Glyndebourne Festival, Leppard spearheaded the modern revival of Cavalli's fortunes. Critics noted the conductor's significant revisions and rearrangements, but they were almost unanimous in their gratitude at hearing and seeing on stage the work of a pioneering opera composer for the first time, and in performances that did full justice to both music and drama. Leppard and Glyndebourne assembled a sumptuous continuo section and cast well-schooled for the time in the ornate language of seventeenth-century Venetian opera. The popular and critical success of Ormindo at Glyndebourne gave rise to a sequel, with Leppard's similarly imaginative realization of Calisto, which has also been reissued by Eloquence (482 9382). L'Ormindo has long been unavailable and the package includes Raymond Leppard's original note and a synopsis.

SCHOENBERG: GURRELIEDER

BEETHOVEN: FIDELIO

2 CD 1 CD-ROM.

3 CD & 1 CD-ROM.

Two CD collection featuring the finest voices in Opera performing the most beautiful arias by the classic composers. An aria is a self-contained piece for vocals with orchestral accompaniment and this collection gathers together arias that will touch your heart and relax your soul as you are lifted by their beautiful melodies. 40 tracks including solos from Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, Jennifer Lamore, William Christie, Marcello Viotti and many others. WEA. 2008.

2014 Maria Callas remastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz remaster, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. This Tosca, made in 1953 with the forces of LaScala, is a landmark in recording history. Conducted with searing intensity by Victor de Sabata, it teams Callas with two of her closest colleagues, the tenor Giuseppe di Stefano and the baritone Tito Gobbi - a performer who could rival Callas in dramatic finesse and power. Tosca's aria 'Vissi d'arte' (I lived for art) has come to be seen as Callas's personal manifesto.

2014 Maria Callas re-mastered series reissue. With this Abbey Road 24-bit 96kHz re-master, engineers returned to the original master tapes, bringing new clarity & brilliance to her legendary studio recordings. Callas only sang Gilda in Rigoletto in one run of performances, in Mexico City in 1952, and she recorded the role three years later. She moves beyond the girlish tone and sparkling coloratura of the character's first scenes to create a figure of tragic stature as events unfold. 'Once heard, this rendering is never likely to be forgotten, ' was Gramophone's judgment on her interpretation, and the same could apply to Tito Gobbi's, embodying every aspect of the accursed court jester.

Classical Music