C Major
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Special offer. Verdi: Ernani
Marco Berti (Ernani), Carlo Guelfi (Don Carlo), Giacomo Prestia (Don Ruy Gomez de Silva), Susan Neves (Elvira), Nicoletta Zanini (Giovanna), Samuele Simoncini (Don Riccardo) & Alessandro Svab (Jago)
Orchestra E Coro Del Teatro Regio Di Parma, Antonello Allemandi
Berti’s Ernani has an effective vocal line and little stage persona, Carlo Guelfi’s baritone suddenly springs into life with his aria, and Giacomo Prestia is a slightly woolly-toned da Silva.... —
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Special offer. Verdi: Attila
Giovanni Battista Parodi (Attila), Susanna Branchini (Odabella), Sebastián Catana (Ezio), Roberto de Biasio (Foresto), Cristiano Cremonini (Uldino), Zyian Atfeh (Leone)
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma, Andrea Battistoni
Susanna Branchini is a fiery Odabella...scything her way through the role with some evidence of rawness in the more strenuous coloratura passages but producing some nicely quiet singing when... —
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Beethoven: Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123
Krassimira Stoyanova (soprano), Elīna Garanča (mezzo), Michael Schade (tenor), Franz-Josef Selig (bass)
Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden & Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann
Thielemann generally favours lively tempos and a lightness of touch. Details are clear and he elicits a remarkable luminosity from the substantial forces, making this a deeply engaging account...The... —
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Beethoven: Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123
Krassimira Stoyanova (soprano), Elīna Garanča (mezzo), Michael Schade (tenor), Franz-Josef Selig (bass)
Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden & Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann
Thielemann generally favours lively tempos and a lightness of touch. Details are clear and he elicits a remarkable luminosity from the substantial forces, making this a deeply engaging account...The... —
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Special offer. Wagner: Götterdämmerung
Lance Ryan (Siegfried), Ralf Lukas (Gunther), Matti Salminen (Hagen), Franz-Josef Kapellmann (Alberich), Jennifer Wilson (Brünnhilde), Elisabete Matos (Gutrune), Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Waltraute)
Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Zubin Mehta
Its brilliant use of computer graphic backgrounds and acrobatic mimes shows one can stage a truly modern, theatrically advantageous Ring without distorting its genuinely central concepts - Wagner's. —
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The programme is both straightforwardly popular and plays to conductor Valery Gergiev's strengths. He and the orchestra whip up a fine storm in the opening of Rossini's William Tell Overture,... —
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UNIKO
All music written by Kimmo Pohjonen and Samuli Kosminen
Kimmo Pojohnen (accordion) & Samuli Kosminen (percussion and sampling)
Kronos Quartet
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Special offer. Dvořák: Rusalka, Op. 114
Kristine Opolais (Rusalka), Klaus Florian Vogt (The Prince), Gunther Groissbock (Vodnik), Janina Baechle (Jezibaba), Nadia Krasteva (The Foreign Princess)
Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Tomáš Hanus (conductor) & Martin Kušej (stage director)
Whatever reservations one might have about the production, the performance as a whole is remarkable. The cast has clearly bought into the producer's concept and they deliver a devastating ensemble... —
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Special offer. Wagner: Tannhäuser
Peter Seiffert (Tannhäuser), Petra Maria Schnitzer (Elisabeth), Béatrice Uria-Monzon (Venus), Günther Groissböck (Hermann), Markus Eiche (Wolfram)
Orquestra Simfònica del Gran Teatre del Liceu & Cor del Gran Teatre del Liceu, Sebastian Weigle
Peter Seiffert sings powerfully and expressively as Tannhauser, and Petra Maria a bit too powerfully as Elisabeth. The orchestra, under Sebastian Weigle, gives a strong account of the score —
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Special offer. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K620
Alfred Reiter (Sarastro), Norman Reinhardt (Tamino), Ana Durlovski (Konigin der Nacht), Bernarda Bobro (Pamina), Daniel Schmutzhard (Papageno), Denise Beck (Papagena)
Prague Philharmonic Choir & Wiener Symphoniker, Patrick Summers
For visual effectiveness this new DVD and Blu-ray has no competition among a rich field of Magic Flutes...Musically, too, it is never less than good, and the Tamino of Norman Reinhardt and the... —
