C Major
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Special offer. Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Raffaella Angeletti (Butterfly), Massimiliano Pisapia (Pinkerton), Claudio Sgura (Sharpless), Annunziata Vestri (Suzuki), Nino Batatunashvili (Kate Pinkerton), Thomas Morris (Goro)
Fondatione Orchestra Regionale Delle Marche, Daniele Callegari, Pier Luigi Pizzi
a very moving, intelligent show...Pisapia is a good Pinkerton, going from vaguely stupid and callow, to being in love with the idea of love, to sorrow and regret. His voice is hearty and reliable...Claudio... —
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Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – The Salzburg Concerts
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim
captures the sense of music-making on the wing...rarely has the final coda erupted with such overwhelming joy. The same electrifying concentration informs performances of Schoenberg's Variations... —
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Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7-9
and documentaries about each Symphony
Annette Dasch (soprano), Mihoko Fujimura (alto), Piotr Beczala (tenor) & Georg Zeppenfeld (bass)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Christian Thielemann
The performances, the Vienna Philharmonic on top form, can't help sounding wonderful...oddly, it is the discussions that are the most enjoyable elements in this ambitious set. —
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Special offer. Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
Anita Rachvelishvili (Orfeo), Maite Alberola (Euridice), Auxiliadora Toledano (Amore)
Orquesta BandArt, Gordan Nikolić
Rachvelishvili is a natural performer with a beautifully full mezzo-soprano, but as yet a lightweight Gluckian. —
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Special offer. Verdi: Falstaff
Ambrogio Maestri (Falstaff), Barbara Frittoli (Alice Ford), Meg Page (Judith Schmid), Mistress Quickly (Yvonne Naef), Massimo Cavalletti (Ford), Eva Liebau (Nannetta), Javier Camarena (Fenton), Peter Straka (Dr. Cajus), Martin Zysset (Bardolfo), Davide Fersini (Pistola)
Orchester der Oper Zürich...
the conductor starts apparently quite steadily. But this lack of a certain flick and bounce is compensated for by the focus of Daniele Gatti...places on Verdi's radically forward-looking orchestration...The... —
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Special offer. Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K384
Diana Damrau (Konstanze), Olga Peretyatko (Blonde), Christoph Strehl (Belmonte), Norbert Ernst (Pedrillo), Franz-Josef Selig/Christoph Quest (Bassa Selim)
Orquestra Simfònica del Gran Teatre del Liceu, Ivor Bolton
in this Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail everything is germane to the text that Mozart set, and Loy makes work of depth and strong emotion from what can seem like an overlong comedy...every singer... —
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Music is the language of the heart and soul
A portrait of Mariss Jansons
Ricarda Merbeth (soprano) & Bernarda Fink (mezzo-soprano)
Concertgebouw Orchestra & Netherlands Radio Choir, Mariss Jansons
Most valuable is the footage of his father, conductor Arvid Jansons, and of his own early days as a Herbert von Karajan protege...Of Jansons's humanity and penetrating gifts as a conductor we... —
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Leonard Bernstein conducts Debussy
Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome, Leonard Bernstein
In Debussy's best-known orchestral works, Bernstein conveys his every last wish —
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Karajan and Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin (violin)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Herbert von Karajan
an electrifying performance by a rejuvenated Berlin Philharmonic at the peak of its powers; it is also a visually stunning record of a masterclass in virtuoso conducting...[The bonus-feature]... —
