Favourites,
Gifts for... Opera Lovers
Are you looking for the perfect present for your opera-loving family and friends? We've picked out some of our favourite treats for opera enthusiasts: with highlights from the latest releases, books about the history of opera, biographies of opera's star singers and some great box sets, we hope you'll find something to suit every opera fan. (You can find our other themed gift guides here.)
New and Award-winning Opera Recordings
Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust
Michael Spyres (Faust), Joyce DiDonato (Marguerite), Coro Gulbenkian, Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, John Nelson
Two years on from their multi-award-winning account of Les Troyens, DiDonato, Spyres, Nelson and the Strasbourg Philharmonic join forces once again to mark the 150th anniversary of Berlioz’s death; reviewing the live performance in Strasbourg in April, The Times praised the orchestra’s combination of ‘Gallic colours and Germanic discipline’ and Spyres’s ‘ardent, doomed and near unsurpassable Faust’.
Available Formats: 2 CDs + DVD Video, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Donizetti: L’Ange de Nisida
Joyce El-Khoury (Countess Sylvia de Linarès), David Junghoon Kim (Leone de Casaldi), Royal Opera Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Sir Mark Elder
Though some of its music was incorporated into La Favorite, Donizetti’s 1839 opera didn’t see the light of day in its own right until last year, when two concert-performances (from which this live recording is taken) were mounted at Covent Garden. Our Recording of the Week when it was released back in March, Katherine described this thoroughly committed performance as ‘a wonderful opportunity to hear some familiar material in its original context and to discover some astonishingly innovative music which has never before seen the light of day.’
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Edited and orchestrated by David Trippett in 2017 and premiered in concert last year, the sketches for Liszt’s incomplete Byron-inspired opera lay virtually untouched in the Goethe and Schiller archive in Weimar for 170 years; its single act is paired here with the contemporaneous symphonic Mazeppa, also partly based on Byron.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Offenbach: La Périchole
Aude Extrémo (La Périchole), Stanislas de Barbeyrac (Piquillo), Alexandre Duhamel (Don Andrès de Ribeira), Les Musiciens du Louvre, Chœur de l'Opéra National de Bordeaux, Marc Minkowski
One of Offenbach’s greatest champions, conductor Marc Minkowski, celebrates the composer’s bicentenary in style with the first period instrument recording of this 1868 opéra bouffe about a couple of down-at-heel street-performers who are coerced into a drunken sham marriage. ‘Winning melodies, lively Spanish colouring, grace and wit even when characters turn boorish — really, what’s not to love?’ (The Times).
Available Formats: 2 CDs + Book, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Purcell’s patriotic semi-opera on a libretto by John Dryden has been part of Gabrieli’s repertoire for two decades, and this recording uses a new performing edition by cellist and musicologist Christopher Suckling and Paul McCreesh; the cast includes Roderick Williams, Carolyn Sampson, Anna Dennis and Mhairi Lawson.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Salieri: Tarare
Cyrille Dubois (Tarare), Jean-Sebastian Bou (Sultan Altar), Karine Deshayes (Astasie), Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
Following acclaimed recordings of Salieri’s Les Danaïdes and Les Horaces, Les Talens Lyriques turn to the tragédie lyrique Tarare, which premiered in the same year as Mozart’s Don Giovanni and sets the only operatic libretto ever penned by Beaumarchais. The Sunday Times praised ‘A score of beguiling instrumental variety and dramatic momentum...brilliantly brought to life by Rousset and his cast.’
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded over two concert-performances in Manchester last summer, the final instalment in this award-winning Ring Cycle prompted The Guardian to describe Elder as ‘a superb Wagnerian, acutely conscious of the complex relationship between tempo and pace’ and to praise The Hallé’s ‘deep fervour and burnished warmth of sound’.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ten years on from Sacrificium, Bartoli focuses on the most celebrated castrato of them all, Carlo Maria Broschi, with a collection of arias from his brother Riccardo’s La Merope (one of which is a world premiere), Porpora’s Polifemo, Semiramide and La festa d’imeneo, Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, Caldara’s La morte d’Abel, and Giacomelli’s Adriano in Siria.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Lise Davidsen sings Wagner and Strauss
Lise Davidsen (soprano), Philharmonia Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen
The magnificent Norwegian soprano’s debut recording of Strauss orchestral Lieder and scenes from Tannhäuser and Ariadne auf Naxos confirms her as one of the most thrilling young dramatic voices around, capable of exquisitely introverted pianissimo singing as well as riding the heftiest orchestral climaxes with unforced amplitude. She’s also an unpretentious, almost self-effacing communicator, delivering a Four Last Songs of open-hearted sincerity and infusing Wagner’s Elisabeth and Strauss’s Ariadne with youthful vulnerability.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky leads period instrument ensemble Artaserse in a kaleidoscopic survey of the many and varied operas by the seventeenth-century Italian composer Cavalli. Winner in the Recital category at this year’s Gramophone Awards, the whole album is shot through with the spirit of Venetian carnival.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The German tenor is on ardent, full-throated form in arias from operettas by Johann Strauss II and Kálmán, and displays understated dry wit in songs by Hans May, Peter Kreuder, Georg Kreisler and others; American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen makes an ideal sparring-partner in duets from Die Fledermaus, Wiener Blut and Die lustige Witwe, whilst the Wiener Philharmoniker under Ádám Fischer bring gloss and glamour to the table as well as an unexpected homespun charm in the folksier numbers.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
New Releases on DVD and Blu-ray
Barber: Vanessa (Blu-ray)
Emma Bell (Vanessa), Virginie Verrez (Erika), The Glyndebourne Chorus & London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jakub Hrůša
Teeming with allusions to film noir and American Gothic, Keith Warner’s recent Glyndebourne staging brings Barber’s 1958 opera Vanessa vividly to life in its first outing on DVD and Blu-ray; Emma Bell, Virginie Verrez and Rosalind Plowright all give brilliantly cinematic performances as three generations of women whose lives are thrown into turmoil by the arrival of an enigmatic stranger claiming to be the son of Vanessa’s long-lamented former lover Anatol, played with shifty charisma by Lithuanian tenor Edgaras Montvidas.
Available Format: Blu-ray
George Benjamin: Lessons in Love and Violence
Stéphane Degout (King), Barbara Hannigan (Isabel), Orchestra of The Royal Opera House, George Benjamin
Premiered at Covent Garden in 2018, Sir George Benjamin’s third opera shares the compelling, claustrophobic and almost queasily erotic atmosphere of its predecessor, Written On Skin, bringing sadism and sensuality into chilling proximity. Stéphane Degout manages to be both repellent and sympathetic as a modern incarnation of Edward II, whilst Barbara Hannigan is as mesmerising as ever as his humiliated yet imperious queen; Katie Mitchell’s production is as colourful and compact as the score itself.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Rossini: L'Italiana in Algeri
Cecilia Bartoli (Isabella), Edgardo Rocha (Lindoro), Ildar Abdrazakov (Mustafà), Ensemble Matheus, Jean-Christophe Spinosi
Thirty years on from her glorious recordings of Rossini’s other two great comic heroines, Cecilia Bartoli is La dolce vita incarnate as Italian girl abroad Isabella, in a witty, good-natured contemporary staging by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier from last year’s Salzburg Festival; imposing Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov reveals an unexpected gift for comedy as her antagonist Mustafà, whilst Alessandro Corbelli almost steals the show as Isabella’s tragi-comic elderly admirer Taddeo and Uruguayan tenor Edgardo Rocha brings hapless charm and crystal-clear top notes to the high-wire role of her lover Lindoro.
Available Format: Blu-ray
Collections and Box Sets
Released in celebration of the great German mezzo’s eightieth birthday in July this year, this 11-CD set includes complete recordings of song-cycles by Mahler, Schumann, Schubert and Mussorgsky, recitals of Liszt, Wolf, Brahms and Loewe, and substantial excerpts from Il trovatore, Così fan tutte, Hänsel und Gretel, and Das Lied von der Erde.
Available Formats: 11 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Released to mark the composer’s bicentenary in June, this 30-CD box includes complete performances of Orphée aux Enfers, Les contes d’Hoffmann, La Vie Parisienne and La belle Hélène in both French and German, plus highlights from rarities such as Les Brigands, Pomme d’Api, Monsieur Choufleur and Mesdames de la Halle, and Six Fables de La Fontaine.
Available Format: 30 CDs
New Books about Opera and Opera Singers
Jonas Kaufmann is widely regarded as the greatest tenor of today, and has captivated audiences in an astonishing variety of roles and works. In celebration of his 50th birthday, this newly published photo book documents highlights in the career of this exceptional singer in the form of a 'picture journey'. It includes photographs from his most famous roles, plus images from the early years of his career, never-before-seen photographs of his private life and behind-the-scenes footage.
Available Format: Book
Vivien Schweitzer offers a lively introduction to opera, spanning from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in 1600, generally considered the first successful opera, to Dead Man Walking and Anna Nicole in recent decades. Along the way, she introduces readers to the genre's most important composers, performers, and conductors, and to its key terminology, from coloratura to recitative.
Available Format: Book
This book leads the singer through the process of bringing the libretto and score to life, introducing them to the tools needed to create an interior and physical life for their character. Covering operatic repertoire including Handel, Mozart, and Britten, it presents exercises to help singers develop their own dramatic toolbox, and features interviews with conductors, directors, singers and casting agents to offer invaluable insights into the professional operatic world.
Available Format: Book
Wagner's epic cycle of four musical dramas about primal envy, cosmic conflict, spectacular self-sacrifice, redeeming human love and the downfall of gods revolutionised the nature of opera and conjured up an entire mythological world. John Deathridge's new facing-page translation of the libretto conveys the pungency and vitality of Wagner's words, reflecting the work's literary power while retaining its sense and dramatic energy.
Available Format: Book
Beautiful Sheet Music Editions
Thomas Adès's The Tempest, one of the most striking and successful operas of recent years, is available for the first time as a beautifully produced, limited-edition full score. Featuring the stunning image ‘Octopus’ by artist Claire Burbridge, this unique cased edition includes colour plates of exclusive images from Adès's original handwritten score and sketches.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Premiered in 2018, George Benjamin's ninety-minute opera Lessons in Love and Violence delves into the dark and turbulent events of King Edward II's life and death. Already available as a vocal score, Faber Music has now published the full orchestral score for this compelling drama.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Bärenreiter's scholarly-critical editions of Mozart's best-known operas are presented here in a scaled-down study score format. Including the full musical text of the New Mozart Edition for Così fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo, La clemenza di Tito and Le nozze di Figaro, this boxed set offers the perfect opportunity to get to know every detail of Mozart's music.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Facsimile of the autograph score from the National Archive of the Richard-Wagner-Stiftung Bayreuth
Wagner constantly strove to produce manuscripts of a high calligraphic standard, and the manuscript for Tristan und Isolde is no exception. However, more so than in his other scores, traces of his working process are evident, and it is this aspect of the autograph score that makes it so fascinating. Bärenreiter's facsimile edition includes the complete autograph score of the opera, alongside three pages of sketches and a comprehensive commentary on the autograph and Wagner's musical language.
Available Format: Sheet Music
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
