CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro

starring: Anna Netrebko, Dorothea Roschmann, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, Bo Skovhus, Christine Schafer
directed by: Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Claus Gouh

Release Date June 12, 2007
If I had been in the audience at this performance I would have booed from the very beginning and throughout this horrible production. The singing was OK, the recits too slow and ponderous and WHAT was going on in the pit with all those pauses that added beats to pieces?
The Eros dancer was unnecessary; the Count wa a simpering idiot and I couldn't decide if he was sweating or had allergies or a nose bleed. Bartolo in a wheel chair? COME ON! It became about picking up papers and how he would get back in the chair! The "non piu andrai" was the worst travesty. I'm sorry the Salzburg audience had to be subjected to this at those prices. I will have a great deal of trouble watching the rest and THANK GOD I didn't buy it!

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Le Nozze di Figaro [Blu-ray]

starring: Marie McLaughlin, Christine Schäfer, Anna Netrebko, Dorothea Röschmann, Bo Skovhus
directed by: Brian Large

Release Date November 18, 2008
If I had been in the audience at this performance I would have booed from the very beginning and throughout this horrible production. The singing was OK, the recits too slow and ponderous and WHAT was going on in the pit with all those pauses that added beats to pieces?
The Eros dancer was unnecessary; the Count wa a simpering idiot and I couldn't decide if he was sweating or had allergies or a nose bleed. Bartolo in a wheel chair? COME ON! It became about picking up papers and how he would get back in the chair! The "non piu andrai" was the worst travesty. I'm sorry the Salzburg audience had to be subjected to this at those prices. I will have a great deal of trouble watching the rest and THANK GOD I didn't buy it!

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Lehar - Merry Widow / Kenny, Skovhus, Kirchschlager, Turay, Kunzel, San Francisco Opera

starring: Yvonne Kenny, Bo Skovhus

Release Date August 19, 2003
Today almost the entire community of classical music lovers agrees that operas and operettas should be sung in the original language. The composer had the specific words in his mind when he composed the music and using any other language would be a diminishment of his work and thoughts. The Merry Widow sounds absolutely horrible in English. All the exquisite continental flavour disappears and we are left with something that sounds like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera or worse like a shabby english/american vaudeville show. I wonder how the audiences in the English speaking countries would fancy hearing Three Little Maids From School sung in German! Its a pity though, for the artists are all accomplished singers and actors. I suppose its because of the dialogue ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Verdi - Don Carlos

starring: Ramon Vargas, Iano Tamar, Nadja Michael, Alastair Miles, Bo Skovhus
directed by: Peter Konwitschny

Release Date October 30, 2007
A history of a French Don Carlos mirrors the failure of France to provide singers whose career is based on that language. The DVD under consideration reflects that deterioration in that not one singer can claim it as their first language. The Don is Mexican, Posa a Dane, Elizabeth a Georgian, Philip an Englishman,Eboli, a German. As a result we really don't anything resembling French production although Vargas, Miles and Skovhus are better at it than Tamar and Michael. Tamar, howeve, has a beautiful lyrico spinto voice and Michael are somewhat careless. Even with these criticisms I am thrilled that it is a complete text and unlikely to be challenged in the next few years.

What can be challenged and should be is the Konswitschy staging. It is not ... Read More: