You guys have convinced me, as well - I just added it to my wish list. After seeing Renee Fleming sing the Marschallin a couple of months ago, I think she's a national treasure.
Unfortunately, my dentist told me the other day that I need an implant (a little too cheerily, I might add), so that will probably end my buying much of anything except beanie-weenies until, oh .. the end of time.
Even better the entrance of Thais in the famous MET video features a really stunning dress that will go down in opera history as iconic, great cover photo of Renee........very good video version overall as wellCall me shallow (I've been called worse) but that recording of Thaïs went straight into the shopping basket almost just for the cover alone...
The CD cover really does sum it up nicely "five titans at their peak" indeed........Originally Posted by Hoffmann
The more you listen to Verdi's early operas the more you realize they are great works that are just overshadowed by even greater later works
Un Ballo x 2, both feature Reri Grist as Oscar.........and very strongly cast Ulrica's with Cossotto and Verrett
This really is stunningly well sung/performed. I listen to the first 3 in this Ring with some regularity, but never seem to make it all the way through to Götterdämmerung - it's wonderful!
more Macbeth
"Every theatre is an insane asylum, but an opera theatre is the ward for the incurables."
FRANZ SCHALK, attributed, Losing the Plot in Opera: Myths and Secrets of the World's Great Operas
more Orfeo ed Euridice
Grace Bumbry, (Orfeo), Anneliese Rothenberger (Euridice), Ruth-Margret Pütz (Amor)
Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig,
Václav Neumann
Recorded Heilandkskirche Leipzig October 1966
If La Monnaie would issue a recording of their performance I would buy immediately...
more Gluck
Gluck: Ezio
Original Prague version (1750)
Sonia Prina (Ezio), Max Emanuel Cencic (Valentiniano), Ann Hallenberg (Fulvia), Topi Lehtipuu (Massimo), Julian Pregardien (Varo), Mayuko Karasava (Onorio)
Il Complesso Barocco,
Alan Curtis
Live recording Théâtre de Poissy, 18 December 2008
Live recording but I wouldn't know it unless I looked at the booklet.
They try to confuse us with having two Ezio sets both conducted by Alan Curtis, Gluck and Handel......I have the Handelmore Gluck
Gluck: Ezio
Original Prague version (1750)
Sonia Prina (Ezio), Max Emanuel Cencic (Valentiniano), Ann Hallenberg (Fulvia), Topi Lehtipuu (Massimo), Julian Pregardien (Varo), Mayuko Karasava (Onorio)
Il Complesso Barocco,
Alan Curtis
Live recording Théâtre de Poissy, 18 December 2008
Live recording but I wouldn't know it unless I looked at the booklet.
This CD set made around the same time as video movie version with Nucci and Verrett, very good but I give the edge to earlier Verrett version with young Abbado conducting......serious Verdi fans must own bothmore Macbeth
That Metastasio geezer... he's everywhere. I bet he had a few prancing horses in his garage afforded to him by record sales.
Handel, Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis, Hallenberg, Gauvin and Prina... I should have bought that when it was on promotion at PC.
I don't have the video movie version but I now have the following Macbeth CDs:This CD set made around the same time as video movie version with Nucci and Verrett, very good but I give the edge to earlier Verrett version with young Abbado conducting......serious Verdi fans must own both
Abbado
Chailly
Gardelli
Muti
Sinopoli
"Every theatre is an insane asylum, but an opera theatre is the ward for the incurables."
FRANZ SCHALK, attributed, Losing the Plot in Opera: Myths and Secrets of the World's Great Operas
On first listen to this I can't say I enjoyed this much, but then I often find myslef getting a bit bored by bel canto opera seria. I will give it another whirl to see if familiarity improves it. Belisario fans, what are your favourite arias, preferably for male voices or mezzos?
...Clayton’s favourite passages from Belisario...
Il Trionfo (act 1)
Irene – Corri, amica, voliam sulla sponda; happy welcoming back her father from battle
Antonia – Sin la tomba è a me negata / O desio della vendetta; sung by Joyce El-Khoury with enough strength for a general’s wife but with some frailty of a mother who has lost her child and touching between madness/injury and revenge.
Belisario & Alamiro – Quando di sangue tinto / Sul campo della Gloria; your typical war buddy-buddy number but with just a pinch of added spice; father and son forming a father-son bond not knowing they actually are though hint at suspicion…
*Belisario, Irene, Alamiro and Antonina – Ah! Da chi son io tradito; the accusation has been made against the hero and here feel the impact on different members
Belisario – Sognai… Fra genti… barbare… ; hear the hero general has frailties too, the fear of his own name shaming the empire drove him to an act of madness
L’Elisio (act 2)
Alamiro – A si tremendo annunzio / Misera figlia… Irene addio; angered by the evil deeds of Eutropio, he will take vengeance against the empire. Alamiro goes from shock to compassion to anger
*Belisario & Irene – Ah! Se potessi piangere; father and daughter take comfort in each other. Irene has chosen to take care of her father in exile.
La Morte (act 3)
Belisario, Irene & Alessi – Se il figlio/fratel/padre stringere; despite cruel destiny, with the realization that Alamiro is Alessi the three are now joyful in their reuniting
*Antonina – Da quell di che l’innocente; her soul is tortured by the guilt of her own deeds. Joyce sings this as though Antonina is now spiritually exhausted, she has no more left.
The last scene – the death of the general and the curse of life for Antonina…
...
So how do these rank in the Sospiro charts of most played?I don't have the video movie version but I now have the following Macbeth CDs:
Abbado
Chailly
Gardelli
Muti
Sinopoli
I have the Abbado and Gardelli but I think I listen 5-1 respectively... Not just for the power of Verret but also I prefer Cappuccilli and Ghiaurov in the roles of Macbeth and Banco.
What about the Opera in English series?
I have Abbado, Gardelli and Schippers. I'm partial to the Gardelli because of Elena Suliotis, but also love Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau as Macbeth - and it, too, features Nicolai Ghiaurov as Banquo. I like Schippers' conducting and, of course, Nilsson as Lady M. Verrett's Lady is beautiful, but not quite edgy enough to my taste - maybe because Shirley Verrett was a mezzo, whose sound may be too rich for Lady Macbeth.
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