CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Massenet - Manon / Fleming, Alvarez, Vernhes, Chaignaud, Lopez-Cobos, Paris Opera

starring: Renée Fleming, Marcelo Alvarez, Jean-Luc Chaignaud, Michel Sénéchal, Alain Vernhes

Release Date October 21, 2003
And a very satisfying one too!

Massenet's music is sublime; the satin-voiced Renee Fleming portrays a charming Manon and Marcelo Alvarez, a convincing Des Grieux (although no one can live up to my childhood memories of seeing the great Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayao and Giuseppe Di Stefano in the leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera). The highlight for me was Alvarez's heart-breaking rendition of "Ah, fuyez, douce image!" as Des Grieux waits to take his vows at Saint Sulpice. The red-haired Fleming is stunning in the title role, but she presents such a picture of health that I had to suspend my disbelief when she is supposed to be dying on the rode to Le Havre. This is partly the fault of the costumer, who dressed her in shiny ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Verdi Gala / Placido Domingo,Jose Carreras,Jose Cura,Marcelo Alvarez

starring: Marcelo Alvarez, Daniela Dessi, Jose Carreras, Ruggero Raimondi, Jose Cura

Release Date March 22, 2005
This is an excellent concert. Singing and orchestra are great as are the selections. The comments between selections do not, in my opinion, add anything and are not worth hearing more than once but can be skipped using the skip button on the remote.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

The Woman with Red Boots

starring: Catherine Deneuve, Fernando Rey, Adalberto Maria Merli, Jacques Weber, José Sacristán
directed by: Juan Luis Buñuel

Release Date April 08, 2003
Let's face it, Juan Bunuel is not the master that his dad is. The plot of this most dangerous game variation lurches rather than flows, and the various reality defying tricks added along the way seem abrupt, giving the impression of gimmick rather than a sense of the supernatural. And not to be a spoilsport for all my fellow letches out there, but when you slow down the DVD frame by frame, you discover that Catherine Deneuve is not quite naked in that brief, early shot, but is wearing a semi-sheer body suit. Personally, I can't wait for the Hunger's release.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Verdi - Rigoletto

starring: Marcelo Alvarez, Carlos Alvarez, Inva Mula, Julian Konstantinov, Jesus Lopez Cobos
directed by: Graham Vick

Release Date October 31, 2006
This could have been a great "Rigoletto". The orchestra, the singing, and the acting are all first rate. Why "they" had to put Carlos Alvarez [Rigoletto] in that hideous rubber body suit that sporadically poured water/sweat like it was coming out of a faucet detracted, however, from the emotional power of a few of his important scenes. I'm not exaggerating here; to the extent that any good performance requires that we suspend our disbelief in the theatricality of the production with which we've become engaged, that body suit, which must have used water [like in a water balloon] to support his deformities, literally spurted its liquid contents out of the back of his head as if a spigot were turned on and off every now and then. Too bad, because the principals, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Puccini - Tosca

starring: Fiorenza Cedolins, Marcelo Alvarez, Ruggero Raimondi, Marco Spotti, Daniel Oren
directed by: Hugo de Ana

Release Date September 25, 2007
The main selling point of this production of Puccini's 'Tosca' is the luxurious staging at the Arena di Verona, an outdoor theater built into the ruins of a public building dating from 30 AD. The stage is huge and the scenery needs to be huge as well for it to work effectively. And in this production it certainly does that. The stage is dominated by enormous broken statues of a noble Roman head and of its arm holding a sword and a crucifix. This is somehow transformed into the interior of the church in Act I, Scarpia's headquarters in Act II and the scene in which Cavaradossi is killed and Tosca leaps to her death in Act III. Act I features an enormous painting on which the painter Cavaradossi is working; it stands at least twenty feet high. And, without giving the coup ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Puccini - La Boheme / Alvarez, Gallardo-Domas, Hong, Servile, de Carolis, Parodi, Bartoletti, La Scala Opera

starring: Marcelo Alvarez, Cristina Gallardo-Domas, Hei-Kyung Hong, Bruno Bartoletti, Roberto Servile

Release Date February 22, 2005
I bought this DVD a long time ago, but never get the nerves to review it because opera is very difficult to review. There are too many areas to put attention to. I, therefore, will only describe briefly and hopefully succinctly of the three principal singers' singing and acting qaulity.

Cristina Gallardo-Domas has a beautiful voice and is a good singer also.
She is undoubtedly one of the best on the scene today. She portrays Mimi quite touchingly. Here, I don't mean to be impolite, but to say it is really impolite. I, nevertheless, can't help mentioning here that her mouth is really big. When she has to open it wide in order to deliver an all out forte, it looks odd and funny. In the death scene, for instance, I think Alvarez has a hard time ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor / Bonfadelli, Alvarez, Frontali, Olivieri, Palazzi, Fournillier, Genoa Opera

starring: Donizetti, Marcelo Alvarez, Stefania Bonfadelli, Patrick Fournillier, Roberto Frontali

Release Date October 19, 2004
I seem to begin watching every opera nowadays with a critical eye, as I did this one. But, within a very short time, I was completely taken in. Roberto Frontali as Enrico was rivetting as a singer and villain. Stefania Bonfadelli, with her expressive doe-like eyes, was superb. She sang and acted the entire opera with unfading energy and precision. Her duet with the flute was magnificent. Her entire performance was magnificent. She deserves ten stars. Marcelo Alvarez as Edgardo exceeded my expectations, too. He was also excellent. The rest of the cast and the chorus were terrific also.

Highly recommended!

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Verdi Box Set: Falstaff, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore

starring: Marcelo Alvarez, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Bryn Terfel, Jose Cura, Christine Schafer
directed by: David McVicar

Release Date June 26, 2007
I seem to begin watching every opera nowadays with a critical eye, as I did this one. But, within a very short time, I was completely taken in. Roberto Frontali as Enrico was rivetting as a singer and villain. Stefania Bonfadelli, with her expressive doe-like eyes, was superb. She sang and acted the entire opera with unfading energy and precision. Her duet with the flute was magnificent. Her entire performance was magnificent. She deserves ten stars. Marcelo Alvarez as Edgardo exceeded my expectations, too. He was also excellent. The rest of the cast and the chorus were terrific also.

Highly recommended!

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Verdi - Rigoletto / Marcelo Alvarez, Roberto Servile, Inva Mula, Andrea Silvestrelli, Svetlana Serdar, Keri Lynn Wilson, Siena Opera

starring: Marcelo Alvarez, Roberto Servile

Release Date September 06, 2005
As my fellow reviewers already mentioned, this video has many flaws. The sound is very bad. At moments you can scarcely hear the orchestra; sometime sound and image are not really in sync; the voices are not well balanced. And you can see the mic! At first I thought that Servile/Rigoletto had a huge, ugly wart on his forehead, then I realized it was a microphone, and if you check you'll see one on almost every singer, on the forehead, at the hair line. Sparafucile has one on his check, poorly covered by his bart. Now, the problem with opera singer having this kind of micro, is that the voice comes out muffled or - on the contrary - too loud and ugly (like in Sparafucile's case). It was very annoying to see and hear this DVD, for this reason.
Then the staging. Quite boring ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Manon

starring: Renée Fleming, Marcelo Álvarez, Jean-Luc Chaignaud, Michel Sénéchal, Alain Vernhes
directed by: François Roussillon

Release Date
As my fellow reviewers already mentioned, this video has many flaws. The sound is very bad. At moments you can scarcely hear the orchestra; sometime sound and image are not really in sync; the voices are not well balanced. And you can see the mic! At first I thought that Servile/Rigoletto had a huge, ugly wart on his forehead, then I realized it was a microphone, and if you check you'll see one on almost every singer, on the forehead, at the hair line. Sparafucile has one on his check, poorly covered by his bart. Now, the problem with opera singer having this kind of micro, is that the voice comes out muffled or - on the contrary - too loud and ugly (like in Sparafucile's case). It was very annoying to see and hear this DVD, for this reason.
Then the staging. Quite boring ... Read More: