CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Britten: Peter Grimes

starring: Peter Pears, Heather Harper, Bryan Drake, Elizabeth Bainbridge, Owen Brannigan
directed by: Joan Cross, Benjamin Britten

Release Date July 08, 2008
This is the only opera written after Puccini's TURANDOT that I consider to be an opera, let alone a masterpiece. If you enjoy GRIMES, my recommendation is to get this superb telecast plus the one with Vickers. Two very different interpretations that cannot be equalled today in any opera house. Britten wrote GRIMES for Pears so we have that link here as well as Britten's marvelous conducting. Vickers' Grimes is more tragic while Pears is pathetic but both deserve to be seen as two sides of one coin. Picture quality, sound, and supporting cast are top-rate.

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World

starring: Alfred Marks, Joel Grey, Elizabeth Gale, Claire Powell, David Hillman
directed by: Dave Heather

Release Date October 22, 2002
I love "The yeomen of the Guard". I was really disappointed with this version. I did like the idea of moving the scene from the reign of Henry VIII up to the restoration era, because it made much more sense of the storyline of war, heroism, and the Guard made up of veterans. This would have fit very well in the post English Civil War period, far more than in Henry's time. This detail was not lost on the "new" D'Oyly Carte's production when they were performing.

Most of the casting was good, except for Pheobe, who needed a little more of the naughty-girl in her, and the dreadful miscasting of Joel Grey as Jack Point.

There were jesters during the Restoration, though they were a fading tradition soon to disappear, ... Read More: