CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Wagner: The Great Operas from the Bayreuth Festival

from: Decca

Release Date June 17, 2008
Though hardly a Wagner fanatic, I have increasingly come to admire, if not always to love, his music dramas for their boldness, sublime pathos, and cosmic scope. To know Wagner is to appreciate, at very least, where Bruckner, Mahler and Strauss came from (they didn't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus--or Woden as the case may be). Wagner also has the ability to shed light--sometimes garish, sometimes healing, always searching--on some of the darkest places in the human psyche. If you fancy modern myth--Tolkien, Lewis, Mary Stewart, et. al.--then you cannot afford to ignore Wagner, who as the pioneer of *Gesamtkunstwerk* (multi-media) may well be the greatest mythmaker of all.

If you are perchance a Wagner neophyte with ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

The #1 Opera Album

by: Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Léo Delibes, Georges Bizet, Umberto Giordano, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Gioachino Rossini, Alfredo Catalani, Jacques Offenbach, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Charles Gounod, Gaetano Donizetti, Pietro Mascagni, Antonin Dvorak, Richard Bonynge, Herbert von Karajan, Alberto Erede, Lamberto Gardelli, Giuseppe Patane, John Mauceri, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, Gyorgy Fischer, Riccardo Chailly, Istvan Kertesz, Leone Magiera, Evelino Pido, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Luciano Pavarotti, Jussi Bjorling, Renata Tebaldi

Release Date February 27, 2001
I'm new to opera, but this CD has really beautiful music. I use it in my CD clock radio (Timex, that I purchased here also) to go to sleep to.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

25 Wedding Favorites

from: Vox (Classical)

Release Date September 05, 2000
CD has a good selection of songs, particularly for a formal wedding; however the last 5 songs on my CD were garbled so I can't evaluate those.
Worth the money, and I would buy again (hoping that the entire CD was clear and easy to understand.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

The Most Famous Opera Duets

from: EMI Classics

Release Date April 12, 1994
Maybe these don't represent absolutely the greatest duets in all opera. But they represent some awfully good ones! The CD begins with a duet from "Les Pecheurs des Perles" (Puccini) and ends with the gloomy Miserere (from "Il Trovatore," by Verdi). In between are many more operas, from Donizetti and Mozart to Strauss and Wagner. Some of the finer singers of the past half century appear in various of these duets.

A bit more detail on a handful of these to illustrate.

"Sull'aria" from Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro." Heather Harper and Judith Blegen sing the parts here. This is a sweet duet from the opera. The singer's voices meld well together and this represents a poignantly sung piece.

"Ah! Verrana a tell sull'aure," ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Classical Wedding

by: Various Artists

Release Date April 30, 1996
This CD had most, if not all, of the classic songs that everyone would want played during their wedding!
And of course with the great price no one could go wrong!

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Andrea Bocelli - Sacred Arias / Myung-Whun Chung

by: George Frideric Handel, Giulio Caccini, Charles Gounod, Franz Schubert, Cesar Franck, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Pietro Mascagni, Louis Niedermeyer, Franz Xaver Gruber, John Francis Wade, Jean-Paul Lecot, Myung-Whun Chung, Andrea Bocelli

Release Date November 09, 1999
What a wonderful CD! This is music I will listen to over and over - his voice is amazing!

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Tannhauser

starring: Heinz Feldhoff, Gwyneth Jones, Franz Mazura, John Pickering, Robert Schunk

Release Date August 12, 2008
There are many videos of Bayreuth performances, but this was the first. For that reason alone, it's worth watching; fortunately it isn't the only reason.

Unlike later recordings, this one includes curtain calls. I think this was an excellent decision, since it evokes the thrill of being part of a Bayreuth audience. Only in Bayreuth will an audience remain absolutely silent until the last note has faded, and then erupt in a paroxism of emotion - good or bad. Listen carefully, and you'll hear the point where the audience begin to stamp their feet, causing the wooden structure of the Festspielhaus to resonate with a sound like thunder. They obviously liked this performance.

And why not, indeed; it's excellent.

Gwyneth Johns performs ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

25 Thunderous Classics

from: Vox (Classical)

Release Date September 05, 2000
I love this cd. The majesty and power of the music is overwhelming.

If you like a strong, powerful melody, you'll like this cd

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

A to Z of Classical Music

from: Naxos

Release Date October 17, 2000
It's only natural we sometimes hit the high seas....make that Cs. This is one box set about which we sing praises. This set features more than two hours of the finest music from across the centuries by such composers as Schubert, Chopin, Mozart, Handel, Stravinsky and Glass. The set also comes with a 562-page illustrated book, detailing the lives of hundreds of composers, a
glossary of musical terms and a unique guide to the classical music used in 360 top films.

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Nessun Dorma ~ 20 Great Tenor Arias / Pavarotti, Carreras, Domingo, Bergonzi, Aragall, Björling, Di Stefano, Kollo, Corelli, Del Monaco...

from: Decca

Release Date June 09, 1998
What beautiful music. I'm new to opera, but the tracks on this CD are awesome. My only complaint is that Nessun Dorma is the last tract...so I start out there first.