CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) / Levine, Battle, Serra, Metropolitan Opera

starring: Kathleen Battle, Francisco Araiza, Manfred Hemm, Kurt Moll, Luciana Serra
directed by: Brian Large

Release Date December 12, 2000
The recording is superb and the singers are great! I especially love Manfred Hemm's acting and singing. His humorous acting is well worth the money spent in this DVD. I love his green bird costume! It's hilarious.
His voice is deep, moving and expressive.

The orchestration is also very well played and recorded. Other supporting singers are well chosen as well.

I would love to see this live with the same people!

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Rossini - La Cenerentola / Frederica von Stade, Francisco Araiza, Paolo Montarsolo, Claudio Desderi, Laura Zannini, Claudio Abbado

starring: Frederica von Stade, Paolo Montarsolo, Francisco Araiza, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Claudio Abbado

Release Date January 10, 2006

Despite the fairy tale title, this particular opera is fun for all ages. We think it is the best Rossini opera, and Von Stade is the perfect Cinderella.
Our only objection is that the the voices are synched to the singers, but this is a necessay thing for 'movie' format staging.
We would put this production on a 'must see' list.

CD-Charts Position 3
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
Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

I am very pleased with this production of the Magic Flute. The sets are terrific and the singing is excellent. Also liked the costumes.

CD-Charts Position 4
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 ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Monteverdi - L'Orfeo

starring: Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Philippe Huttenlocher, Trudeliese Schmidt, Dietlinde Turban, Francisco Araiza
directed by: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Release Date March 13, 2007
This version is one of the best orfeos i've ever seen. The scenery and vestuary are gorgeous and the singers are fabulous. Fernando Arauza is marvelous.

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Monteverdi - L'Orfeo, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (Boxset)

starring: Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Trudeliese Schmidt, Eric Tappy, Rachel Yakar, Matti Salminen
directed by: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Release Date March 13, 2007
Of all the operas that Claudio Monteverdi wrote, only three survive. In the late 1970s the Zurich Opera performed all three, staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, directed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. They were filmed and later shown on PBS. I had all three on Betamax tape ... but no longer have a Betamax player. Finally, they have come out on DVD.

I can't praise these productions highly enough. Musically and dramatically they are at the top of the tree. Particularly memorable are the performances of Philippe Huttenlocher in ORFEO, Paul Esswood and Alexander Oliver in POPPEA, Werner Hollweg, Simon Estes, and Arley Reece in ULISSE. But the moments that I looked forward to the most, as I finally slid the DVD into my computer, were some of Ponnelle's bits of "business," ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Gounod - Faust

starring: Francisco Araiza, Ruggero Raimondi, Gabriela Benackova, Walton Gronroos, Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper
directed by: Erich Binder, Ken Russell

Release Date August 08, 2006
The sound quality of this recording was so bad that I returned the item to Amazon. I don't know whether it was a defective disc or just a bad job of recording.

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Mozart - Don Giovanni / Allen, Gruberova, Murray, Araiza, Desderi, Mentzer, Muti, La Scala Opera

starring: Thomas Allen, Edita Gruberova, Francisco Araiza

Release Date June 15, 2004
Overall, I like this "Don Giovanni," although because a review of the opera generally begins with the title character, I must start with the production's weakest link. Thomas Allen is not the seasoned Don one can see four years later in the 1991 DVD from the Cologne Opera. By 1991, he has perfected his suave seducer approach to the role. I know that Don Giovanni is considered his signature role, but in this La Scala production, he's flat (not in the musical sense). He just has no flare. Since his voice also sounds strained at times, perhaps he was having an off night.

Edita Gruberova's voice is well-suited for Mozart (her singing as Fiordiligi in the Ponnelle film of "Cosi Fan Tutte" is stunning). As Donna Anna, she doesn't disappoint. "Non mi dir" is a highlight of the second ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Giuseppe Verdi - Falstaff (Herbert Von Karajan - His Legacy for Home Video)

starring: Giuseppe Taddei, Rolando Panerai, Francisco Araiza, Piero De Palma, Heinz Zednik
directed by: Herbert von Karajan

Release Date March 26, 2002
Artful sets and costumes, excellent casting and acting = a balmy evening's theatrical event. Plus, the singers are quite well in tune, which cannot be assumed in Verdi productions. The music? Well, I can't say it's much to the point. Now if the same libretto had been set by Rossini... However, the last act, the ghostly stuff, does finally reach the level of compositional subtlety and complexity to be emotionally effective. Five stars for that act, three stars for the first and longest parts, averaging about four stars.

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Massenet - Manon

starring: Edita Gruberova, Francisco Araiza, Georg Tichy, Hans Helm, Wilfried Gahmlich
directed by: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Adam Fischer

Release Date January 09, 2007
be warned: this performance is heavily cut...almost every act has a HUGE chunk taken out of it. I was glad I had checked this out from the library to preview before buying it. Tons of act 3 and 4 especially are cut. All of Manon is great music, so this was just really disappointing. I can tolerate a few cuts, but this...

I give it three stars anyway because Gruberova and Araiza are really good and the production is visually stunning in the old grand manner.

By all means get this if you are a fan of these singers, but if you are a fan of this opera you will be appalled by the cuts.