Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

It's his greatest, or at least his most popular, opera, and she one of the finest interpreters of it's title role. Though she seems somehow to have slipped from view when considering the greatest 20th c. sopranos, Renata Tebaldi is etched firmly into that mountainside with but few others. One of her great roles was, of course, Tosca, and she is heard here singing just this role in a 1961 live recording from Tokyo, Arturo Basile leading the NHK Symphony and Chorus. The cast is complementary to Tebaldi, with Giangiacomo Guelfi's Scarpia being the most notable. Remastered in 24bit/96kHs sound.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

From the private collection of the late, great dramatic soprano Martha Mödl comes this 1955 live broadcast recording of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, captured in excellent MONO sound and differing from the Testament label Die Walküre release of the same year’s performance with the same conductor (Joseph Keilberth) in both its sound (stereo) and, ever so slightly, in cast, first and foremost in the case of Ms. Mödl as Brünnhilde, but both, of course, first-rate dream casts. The other glorious, featured voices from this production include Astrid Varnay, Ramon Vinay, Josef Greindl and Hans Hotter.

Bayreuth in the 1950s was annual summer home to the greatest cast of Wagnerian singers in the opera world, as the numerous and thankfully recorded performances from that house in that decade reveal. This 1957 performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg has as its female lead Elisabeth Grümmer in the role of Eva, whom some argue was the character’s finest interpreter. Conducted by the fine French Wagnerian André Cluytens, other cast members include Gustav Neidlinger and Joseph Greindl. Complete on 4CDs; 24bit/96kHz re-mastered.