CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

starring: Lucia Popp, Kurt Moll, Francisco Araiza, Edita Gruberova, Wolfgang Brendel
directed by: Wolfgang Sawallisch, August Everding

Release Date December 06, 2005
This is a very good performance of The Magic Flute. I must admit, the black-face Monostatos is a little off-putting (what? you can't find a good black tenor for the part?), but the singing is good, and in German (important to me). My favorite version of The Magic Flute is still that of the Düsseldorf Marionettentheater, but since that is not available on DVD, this will have to do.

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

The La Scala Opera Collection / Adriana Lecouvreur, Lucia di Lammermoor, Cosi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, Lo Frate 'Nnamorato, La Fanciulla del West, La Donna del Lago, William Tell, Attila, I Due Foscari, I Vespri Siciliani

starring: Edita Gruberova, Mirella Freni Samuel Ramey, Placido Domingo

Release Date July 25, 2006
Lucia in this La Scala series was the best I have ever experienced, even better than Sutherland's. This was the first time I ever heard Mariella Devia( Lucia) singing and what a singing it was! Vincenzo la Scola as Edgardo was also superb. This Lucia alone is worth buying the whole series, in my opinion. Other operas were all of high quality, in singing, costume, staging. It might have something to do with the size of the theater but the sound from La Scala seems better than Metropolitan Opera's.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Humperdinck - Hansel und Gretel (1981)

starring: Edita Gruberova, Brigitte Fassbaender, Hermann Prey, Helga Dernesch, Sena Jurinac
directed by: Georg Solti, August Everding

Release Date January 10, 2006
This is a fantastic video. Great orchestra and a wonderful cast, all conducted with great energy. These performers understand and interpret the music exactly right--perfectly within a great tradition, but not jaded by it. There are more radical productions out there (which some might translate as "interesting," or "imaginative"), but there isn't a better one.

Highest recommendations!

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Bellini - Norma

starring: Edita Gruberova, Sonia Ganassi, Zoran Todorovich, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Friedrich Haider
directed by: Jurgen Rose

Release Date March 13, 2007
All the great Normas of whom I'm aware (Callas, Sutherland, Caballe and, distantly in time, Ponselle) were betrayed in one way or another by their supporting cast. Or, if not their cast, the conductor.

Not this time. This is a magnificent performance and the magnificence emerges as early as the overture - which soars.

All the supporting cast - and make no mistake, NORMA is Norma's opera and that is as it should be - all the supporting cast is excellent and they sing their bel canto with intelligence as well as accuracy.

I still love all the old recordings and dvd's but this one in two minutes assumed a very special place in my heart.

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Verdi - La Traviata / Gruberova, Shicoff, Zancanaro, Rizzi, La Fenice

starring: Edita Gruberova, Neil Shicoff, Giorgio Zancanaro, Mariana Pentcheva, Antonella Trevisan
directed by: Derek Bailey

Release Date April 26, 2005
Perfect! Gruberova sings her precious heart out with control and conviction. Her agility is astounding. Shicoff is a sweatheat and I fell in love with him as Alfredo. His pain and joys are clearly felt and alomst unbearable. He is strong yet senstive. Their acting is superb, every jesture is meaningfull and beautiful. This DVD haunts me in the best possible way!

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Mozart - Cosi fan Tutte

starring: Edita Gruberova, Delores Ziegler, Teresa Stratas, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Luis Lima
directed by: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Release Date May 09, 2006
Mozart - Cosi fan TutteWhen I decide to get a DVD I always read the reviews and I am glad that I select this version for this opera.
Sometimes,when you see an opera very far from the stage you don't see much of the acting, but with the DVD production this is very important as also the singing ,for this particular performance It is very convincing.
This is a very beautiful video.

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Mozart - Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail [Abduction from the Seraglio]

starring: Edita Gruberova, Francisco Araiza, Martti Talvela, Reri Grist, Norbert Orth
directed by: Karl Böhm, August Everding

Release Date September 13, 2005
I didn't expect such a glorious Abduction when I sat down with friends to watch this DVD. Re-releases of such old productions (1980) are often plagued by stiff camera work, unbalanced recording, and/or outmoded vocal technique. This offering from Deutsche Grammophon has none of those flaws. Thus I rushed here to the keyboard, to proclaim the excellence of my "discovery" to the world, only to find that Mike Birman has already written everything I wanted to say, and in 2006! Bravo, Mike!

The only addition I can make is to call attention to the role of Thomas Holtzmann as Pasha Selim, the pivotal character in this operatic sermon of Enlightenment values. Holtzmann conveys just the right measure of despotic arrogance in the first two acts so that his noble gesture of ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Johann Strauss - Die Fledermaus / Popp, Gruberova, Fassbaender, Weikl, Berry, Hopferwieser, Kunz, Guschlbauer, Vienna Opera

starring: Lucia Popp, Edita Gruberova, Brigitte Fassbaender, Theodor Guschlbauer, Bernd Weikl

Release Date February 22, 2005
What can I say? I enjoyed this more than the Covent Garden Die Fledermaus. John Mortimer was trying to make sense of the convoluted plot. It's virtue is that it makes no sense at all; that it is whimsical, capricious and you don't have to think at all. Someone complained that the singing was great but not the acting. I can't see that. I found the acting was perfectly serviceable. Nonetheless, there was something to offend people. It contains a scene of drunk humor. The master of the jail and his assistant do funny things while supposedly drunk on Slivovitz. This version dates to the '80s before such scenes were censored. Still, while others might be offended, I wasn't. In fact, I found it the perfect way to while away a New Years eve.

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Strauss: Arabella

starring: Gundula Janowitz, Bernd Weikl, René Kollo, Sona Ghazarian, Edita Gruberova
directed by: Otto Schenk

Release Date May 13, 2008
I have rated this DVD four stars because it is a film and not a live performance. Yes, the singers' attention to lipsynching is good (as good as the performance of Ariadne auf Naxos)but the performance still lacks the effectiveness that only a live performance has. It is also on two discs which is unnecessary--afterall DGG (a Universal Company) released their Arabella on one disc.

Initially I was reluctant to consider this performance. Solti's recording was the first complete (true an earlier one from Salzburg was released in the 90's) recording. Starring Della Casa, Gueden and George London it should have perfection. Alas Solti's brutal handling of the music and his rigidity effectively destroyed the beauty of the score. Later a DGG live performance conducted by Keilbert ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

R. Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos

starring: Walter Berry, Axelle Gall, Edita Gruberova, Manfred Jungwirth, René Kollo
directed by: Filippo Sanjust

Release Date January 08, 2008
For a good performance of Ariadne, the most important ingredient is a good Ariadne and Zerbinetta. Gundula Janowitz sings superbly and ably conveys the bearing of the distraught and, at times, aloof princess, Ariadne.

Edita Gruberova turns in the performance of a lifetime, as the epitome of a coquettish Zerbinetta. Her "Grossmachtige Prinzessin" by itself is something you will want to share with friends, to show them the virtuosity of a truly great singer. As a crowning glory to this famous aria, our flirty Zerbinetta effortlessly ascends to the very highest notes--Get this!--as she powders her face. Spectacularly, it displays both Gruberova's incomparable singing abilities, and her perfectly complementary acting abilities.

The "harlequin group" also displays ... Read More: