1 comments about Donizetti - Linda di Chamounix / Gruberova, Bernardini, Groop, Kim; Haider.

1. Linda di Chamounix is a fine example of an opera semiseria, reminiscent in its pastoral setting to La Sonnambula. It contains much beautiful music and a mandatory mad scene, hence the reason it was nicknamed Lucia di Lammermoor with a happy ending. Edita Gruberova, a true coloratura soprano in the tradition of Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills, does a fine job. Notwithstan ding a few wiry high notes she sings the role with delicacy and musicality, capturing the character s naivete well. She is well partnered in Don Bernardini who blends well with her in the duet and manages his solos arias with elegance. The rest of the cast is more than adequate, especially the Pierrotto of Monica Groop and the sonorous Antonio of Ettore Kim (only 28 at the time of recording). Chorus and orchestra are very good and well conducted by Friedrich Haider. This set was taped live during a concert version of the opera therefore there are no stage noises and applauses are minimal and unobstrusive. A very fine set of a somewhat neglected opera.

1 comments about Wagner: Parsifal.

1. When the Rudolf Moralt PARSIFAL appeared on CD several years ago, FANFARE Wagner critic Bill Youngren gave it a glowing review. Since then numerous Wagnerians and music-lovers have discovered this early (1948/49) Vienna broadcast performance. Ludwig Weber, the Gurnemanz, is truly remarkable; here, a couple of years before his famous Bayreuth performance, he excells on all counts, rivalling Han Hotter in interpretative skill and surpassing him in vocal beauty. Indeed, this may be the finest Gurnemanz committed to disc, and that says quite a lot. Gunther Treptow--a true heldentenor will not rival Melchior, Windgassen, or Svanholm in their finest moments, but here he does quite well, his clarion tones easily encompassing Parsifal's music; Konetzni's Kundry copes quite well with her second act scenes. Moralt conducts a fine performance, perhaps not as spiritual or expansive as Knappertsbusch in his various outings, but nevertheless engaging. The Myto CDs are in excellent mono sound.

No comments about Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro.

1 comments about Donizetti - Ugo Conte di Parigi / D. Jones, Harrhy, J. Price, Y. Kenny, M. Arthur, du Plessis, NPO, A. Francis.

1. Ugo, Conte di Parigi has an ugly title and a rather muddled plot line. The informative essay included with the libretto gives us a fascinating look at how a great drama was hacked up beyond recognition by censors before making its way to the operatic stage. The result was a brief and unhappy performance history for this opera. A dismal tale of jealousy and murder plots, Ugo is the story of an odious and mentally unstable princess who, betrothed to a young king she hates, harbors a dangerous obsession for an heroic knight. When it turns out her sister is in love with him...look out. A typical plot for an opera of the 1830s, but there is more than that to Ugo. A subplot which amounts to nothing less than a 10th-century murder mystery is there, with the identity of the assassin of the former king revealed at the 11th hour. In spite of Jeremy Commons' dismal assessment of the plot, a creative stage director could have a field day with this work. The score abounds in gorgeous, if predictable melodies. Especially fine are a duet for the sisters, and another for the Queen Mother and the villainess/heroine, Bianca. And Bianca's final aria, in which she melodramatically swallows poison and curses her sister and Ugo in front of a horrified company, are top-notch. Thunder sound effects are liberally strewn throughout the final scene, contributing to the dark, gloomy, and threatening atmosphere. Although her voice is not beautiful, Janet Price is perfect in the role of the unbalanced Bianca. Yvonne Kenny and Eiddwen Harrhy are wonderful in the supporting female roles (both of which are vocally taxing) and Della Jones, with her masculine chest voice and mastery of difficult coloratura, is splendid in her trouser role as the adolescent King of France. Christian du Plessis is menacing as Folco di Angio, an Iago-like prince intent on destroying the King through innuendo and manipulation. Only Maurice Arthur as Ugo, whose bleating tenor is downright annoying at times, fails to make an impression. This is a worthwhile recording that any Donizetti aficionado should own.

5 comments about Strauss - Die Frau ohne Schatten / Sawallisch.

1. I would agree with the other reviewers who cite the astounding vocal work that is captured in this recording. Nilsson and Varnay sound totally berserk most of the time, and Bjorner and Fischer-Dieskau are extremely impressive--you'd never believe that Dieskau is a super-subtle lieder artist from the sheer amount of sound he puts out--with very little of his vocal mannerisms, at that!
   
   If James King were still around, and he was asked what was the single best performance of his career, he MIGHT have cited this one--he really RULED as the Emperor, and sounds absolutely fabulous here.
   
   BUT HERE IS THE DOWN-SIDE to this recording:
   
   1.) The music is cut to ribbons---I've never heard so much of the score hacked away. As you approach the end of the opera, it seems that everytime the music cadences, you lose the next 10 pages of score. So we are unfortunately deprived of a lot of Nilsson and King's amazing peformances.
   
   2.) The sound quality is really quite bad. It must have been recorded over a fairly primitive house system--the orchestra is quite distant, except for close miking of the flutes and oboes (and harps). There is a lot of low rumble (was this cd transferred from LPS?), and often during quiet passages you can hear some pretty hideous print-through from the opposite side of the original tape. (However, the recording IS in stereo, and NOT mono as the box claims).
   
   3.) For some reason, Sawallisch eliminates many of the off-stage vocal parts in Act 3---most notably after the Amme has been thrown out of the Kingdom and the orchestral tempest dies down. The orchestra continues playing the ominous chorale-like stuff as the Empress enters the cave, but all of the vocal parts of Barak, the Frau and the Spirit Attendants have been omitted! I find this rather shocking--that a conductor of such great integrity as Sawallisch would do this. It's one thing to cut the passage entirely, but to actually PLAY the orchestral music while ELIMINATING the vocal parts is very disappointing. Makes the performance seem pretty haphard artistically.
   
   Still, in spite of these reservations, this recording is a fascinating and valuable document.



2. Listen to the "aria" in act 2, after the Dyer's Wife wakes up Barak after the "temptation", the Nurse having put him to sleep. Nilsson takes the high B at the words "market" to thrilling effect!!



3. The year is 1976. You are going to the opera house. Birgit Nilsson is 58 years old. It's an age where allowances have to be made for opera singers. You sit down and wait for her entry. BOOOOOOM!!!! You get a shock!! Is that the voice of a 58 year old woman???? Yes, Birgit Nilsson at age 58 still had LOTS of power in her voice. Her reading here is nothing short of ELECTRIFYING. Listen to her top B's, they hit you like lighting, like a ton of bricks!!! And look at the supporting cast, they are magnificent. I've never heard James King sing better in the role of the Emperor. His intense, penetrating interpretation is worth every cent of the price. And is that the legendary Astrid Varnay in the difficult role of the Nurse? Yes!!!! Varnay brings her artistry and intensity to the part, not to mention her legendary voice, powerful and full. Fischer-Dieskau, legendary Lieder singer/opera singer is Barak and Bjoner, with her powerful and bright soprano voice is the Empress, a magnificent alternative to Leonie Rysanek. Die Frau is my favorite Strauss opera. I was blown away by the power of the reading. If you like Die Frau, then this is for you - a must for the collector.



4. Birgit Nilsson gives a stunning performance of the Dyer's Wife. Her prodigious vocalism, firm and bright voice makes her moments of dramatic revolt the most thrilling moments ever recorded. She is surrounded by an all-star cast comprising Fischer-Dieskau, Astrid Varnay, James King and the great dramatic soprano Bjoner. In particular, King's emperor has never been so thrillingly captured. The all-star cast and the sense of excitement generated by a 'live' performance makes this one of the best Die Frau Ohne Schatten ever. Die Frau Ohne Schatten is a very lucky opera. Even though it is very difficult to cast, when the casting is good, every performance is almost a small miracle in itself like this one. Worth every cent that I paid. You'll be thrilled to bits too.



5. This is a fascinating and extremely important document. Firstly, this is the first of Birgit Nilsson's Dyer's Wife on record. The Dyer's Wife was the last role that Birgit Nilsson added to her repertoire in 1975. Here she is in superb voice - her performance is absolutely stunning!! Her top notes are incredibly powerful and, truth to tell, her voice is more powerful as recorded here than in the Solti Ring. Sheer sensation - her voice here is like liquid fire pouring across the floodlights. One year later, she would perform the Dyer's Wife at the Vienna State Opera (released under the Deutsche Grammophon Label).

   Secondly, we have Astrid Varnay's Nurse. Varnay performed the Nurse 22 times in her career and this is the only recorded performance of her Nurse that I know of. She is in marvellous form! Varnay is a true dramatic soprano. Imagine, two of the great Brunnhildes of the 20th century in an earth shattering performance of Die Frau Ohne Schatten. Bjoner makes a very exciting Empress. She is in thrilling voice and attacks all her notes fearlessly - they ring out gloriously in this recording. Dieskau takes the role of Barak and makes it his own.

   But perhaps the jewel of the jewels in this recording is James King as the Emperor. He is in sensational voice and in this recording, he shows why he was THE reigning Emperor of Die Frau Ohne Schatten in the 1960s and 1970s. James King was the most sought after Emperor of his generation.

   So this is a superb Die Frau Ohne Schatten. Yes, it is expensive but it is worth every cent in my opinion. The downside is that there is no libretto (it doesn't matter for me because I have got versions with librettos). This Die Frau is better than Sawallisch's studio version made in 1987. That version is note complete but the performance does not catch fire like this one.

No comments about Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov.

2 comments about Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

1. This is a live recording from the 1956 Bayreuth Festival. Music and Arts have (or claim they have) done everything possible to clean up the sound, but whatever they did to it can't have helped too much. The sound is full of scratches, amplitude fluctuations, clicks and tape hiss, and so some of the greatness of the performance is lost.

   The cast is led by Hans Hotter, THE heldenbariton of the 40's and 50's. Though his voice is beginning to decline, he sings with a humane warmth and understanding of the text that other interpreters of Sachs seem simply incapable of doing (with the exception of Schöffler for Knappertsbusch and, to a lesser degree, Frantz for Kempe). He is perhaps the best Sachs on disc, and it is outrageous that he did not sing the role in Kempe's studio recording from the same year as this performance.

   The rest of the cast is not as good. Gré Brouwenstijn is an intelligent singer, but does not have the instrument of a young Schwarzkopf or Grümmer, and is a bit rough in the Quintet solo. Wolfgang Windgassen is a lyrical Walther, but his essential B-flats in the Quintet are strained and he lacks the ring and ping essential for this role. Gerhard Stolze, famous/infamous for his "character" Mime, is an odd choice for David, and Milinkovic is only adequate is Magdalene.

   The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra definitely has its moments of sublime beauty, but just as definitely has its scrappy, uncoordinated moments. The chorus is good, but the sopranos aren't pure as they should be, but wobbly and screechy. André Cluytens, a Belgian specialist in French opera, is "correct but uninspired" as CJ Luten in his excellent liner notes points out. The great emotional moments of the opera are made emotional by Hotter and, sometimes, by Brouwenstijn and Windgassen, but Cluytens is basically content to wave his baton and hold his men together. Kempe's life-enhancing, lyrical conducting is unbeatable; Jochum, too, is magnificent.

   Music and Arts does not provide a libretto, and the tracks are not very generously indexed (usual playing time is around eight or nine minutes for one track). The price is fairly generous: four discs for the price of three. Like almost every other recording, the breaks between discs come at poorly chosen places: Act 1 is broken up at "Fanget an!", thus ruining the beginning of Walther's trial song, and Act 3 is broken up at "Die selige Morgentraum-Deutweise." This recording should only be purchased if A) you already own Kempe's classic recording (even without Hotter's Sachs) and B) if you can tolerate awful sound. If you buy this, you will be richly rewarded by Hotter's classic Sachs. But this should not be your only set of Wagner's greatest work.




2. Over 95% of the recording is good for a live performance, however, portions of the recording are quite unacceptable due to technical problems. This seriously detracts from the overall performance. The album does not include a libretto. It does have a summary and notice of which tracks have recording problems.

1 comments about Höller: Der Meister und Margarita.

1. We're being confronted here with one of the most interesting pieces that music theatre has produced before the end of the just gone XXth century.Holler's work sounds more like a theatrical piece with sung parts rather than an opera,opposite
   the conceptions of other composers on the same matter like Sergei Slonimskii and Rainer Kunad,who's rendition I also find excellent!
   Most of the vocal lines are written in a declamatory style,with certain inclinations that bring to mind the Alban Berg of LULU.Other structures,going back to the renaissance up to the crafty use of electronic music (specially in Margarita's flight over Moscow's rooftops)and even to the classic rock tune "Sympathy for the Devil",penned by no other than Mick Jagger and Keith Richards,in the Satanic Ball that takes place in the third scene of act one show us that York H?ller's efforts as a composer and as a librettist finally paid off,leaving us a magnificent work that won't disappoint the listener.Also,the text manages to keep the essence of the excentric,bizarre,sometimes humourous,some other ones spine-chilling original novel by Mikhail Bulgakov.Lothar Zagrozek,a true specialist in this type of repertoire displays his usual conducting skills.Baritones Richard Salter and Franz Mazura,veterans also in this kind of works do their best,most specifically Salter,who has also dealt with tough roles like Rihm's JAKOB LENZ,Trojahn's ENRICO IV and Aribert Reimann's "K" in his opera DAS SCHLOSS/THE CASTLE,among others.

1 comments about Bizet: Carmen.

1. how can i do anything if there is no info/data about this recording? who conducts? who are the main singers? when recorded etc?

1 comments about Franz Hummel: Gesualdo.

1. I bought this opera thinking that Schnittke's opera "Gesualdo" was finally in print...the info page on this recording listed Hummel as the Performer ... He's actually the composer...upon hearing he's a competent modern composer musically related to Schnittke....there's A LOT of recitive in this opera...just didnt want anyone to repeat my mistake.