CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Wagner: The Great Operas from the Bayreuth Festival

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: Decca

Release Date June 17, 2008
This is a great bargain. The best Lohengrin available and a blazing Ring. The booklet has many errors, the biggest of which is that Rheingold and Siegfried date from 1971 while the other two parts are from 1967. Don't be fooled. The entire Ring is from 1967. Bohm did not conduct the Ring in 1971 -- Horst Stein did, Windgassen was not singing in it in '71, the 67 was Wieland's production, the 71 was Wolfgang's. And on and on. Enjoy the CD's. For less than $2 a disc, we can do with a sloppy book.

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Carreras · Domingo · Pavarotti: The Three Tenors in Concert / Mehta

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: Decca

Release Date September 05, 1990
Arrived in fine time. Knew what I was getting, based on several viewings and listenings on PBS. Met my expectations. Good quality of used CD.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

The Best of the Three Tenors

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Jose Carerras, Zubin Mehta, James Levine

Release Date June 11, 2002
The subject says it all... I need to save up to purchase more of their work.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

The #1 Opera Album

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
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 5
Average Rating:

Italian Opera Arias [Includes DVD]

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: Virgin Classics

Release Date February 05, 2008
As I understand it, Natalie Dessay recently underwent surgery for nodes on her vocal chords. Hence, I was quite interested to listen to this CD, to see if this had affected her obvious gifts as a coloratura soprano, one of those high-flying phenomena. I even compared how she sounded here to some of her earlier recordings; for the most part, I don't really hear much of a difference (but my ears are quite untutored).

She reigns as one of the premier coloratura sopranos of the current era. I'm not sure that she ranks with Sumi Jo, but she surely ranks ahead of most others of her species. And her awesome high notes (listen to her in "Fruhlingstimmen," the Strauss waltz; that final note must be G or possible even A above high C? Not quite Mado ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Beethoven's Wig

Release Date March 05, 2002
This is a great product. The kids love it. The main vocalist has a zany way of cracking his voice which a hilarious complement to the other opera-class voices on the CD.

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

The Most Famous Opera Duets

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
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 8
Average Rating:

Puccini - La Bohème / Freni, Pavarotti, Harwood, Ghiaurov, Karajan

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Giacomo Puccini, Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, Elizabeth Harwood, Rolando Panerai, Nicolai Ghiaurov

Release Date October 25, 1990
In a recent BBC3 "CD Review" broadcast, Alexandra Wilson made a gallant attempt to achieve the impossible task of choosing amongst forty or so recordings of "La Boheme" - and while I agreed with her ultimate choice of the Beecham recording with Bjorling, Merrill and De Los Angeles, I have rather more regard for this discarded Karajan recording simply because Pavarotti's voice, in its prime, as she herself put it, "runs through the recording like a golden seam". The rest of the cast is wonderful, too, although Karajan's love for the score is manifested in a rather deliberately "beautiful" approach and thereby slightly undercuts the drama. I cannot be without either recording of this eternally youthful and moving opera, and although Freni was captured in slightly ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Puccini - Turandot / Sutherland · Pavarotti · Caballé · Ghiaurov · Krause · Pears · LPO · Mehta

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: Decca

Release Date October 25, 1990
I bought the recording in the tape form years ago. I could not listen to it any more because of the wear after I played it too many times. Fortunately, technology came to the resue, CD!!!

The tenderness, emotion, range, and capacity, from a delicate note to a full blown key, Luciano Pavarotti's voice is from Heaven. No tenor recordings came close to the quality of singing of this one.

Joan Sutherland is the sweetest Liu that I have ever heard. Better still, the voices of the two, Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pvarotti, were the best combination ever. Add to this, we get Montserrat Caballe as the princess.

What more can one ask for?

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Puccini: Madama Butterfly (complete opera) with Maria Callas, Lucia Danieli, Nicolai Gedda, Herbert von Karajan, Chorus & Orchestra of La Scala, Milan

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: EMI Classics

Release Date August 19, 1997
While working on the PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES Archives page, I started thinking about Maria Callas & her rather bizarre, non-singing role in the equally bizarre 1970's Pier Passolini film MEDEA--and noticed this CD of Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY. I must admit that I was kind of turned-off to see that the CD was remastered from the original non-sterophonic LP (there's just so much even digital technology can do in salvaging pre-stereo operatic recordings) and I really only purchased it because I was curious hear Callas in one of her less notable roles (unbelievably there were only 3 performances).

I was pleasantly surprised to find myself really enjoying the entire production.

Of course director Herbert Von Karajan is a famous talent in his own right and ... Read More: