CD-Charts Position 161
Average Rating:

Sixteen Most Requested

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: Castle

Release Date January 17, 2005
I received the item sooner than I expected.I am very pleased with my selection,especially the quality of it.This encourages me to make future purchases.

CD-Charts Position 162
Average Rating:

The Very Best of Lucia Popp

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: EMI Classics

Release Date September 02, 2003
Lucia Popp came from my home country of Slovakia. In 1963, she took her chance and, as the amazingly talented 24-year-old ingenue, accepted the offer to sing in Vienna. She crossed the iron curtain. This for a long time made her and undesirable element in the Communist Czechoslovakia. Only after the collapse of Soviet block in 1989 she gained the due recognition also in her homeland. Tragically, just four years later she died of cancer, aged only 54...
What she left is the great body of work. She specialized on German and Austrian composers, which is evident also from this great compilation. However, anything she touched, she turned into gold.
On this double CD you can find many of her glorious recordings. Especially high recommended ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 163
Average Rating:

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro / Furlanetto, Upshaw, Te Kanwa, Hampson, von Otter, Troyanos; Levine

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Michael Forest, Renato Capecchi, Heidi Grant Murphy, Anne Sofie von Otter, Tatiana Troyanos, Anthony Laciura

Release Date February 11, 1992
I don't want to waste anybody's time by writing a long review. If you like Figaro, this is the recording you want.

I have to agree with the other reviewers that this is by far the most enjoyable production of Mozart's opera. I am especially partial to Te Kanawa, but all the other participants did a great job. As far as I know, this is the only recording that features a young-sounding Barbarina. In most others she sounds like a mature woman, which I find annoying.

Get it and emoy!

CD-Charts Position 164
Average Rating:

Eugene Onegin

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: Opera D'oro

Release Date June 15, 1999
I think this particular recording is poor : the singers, the sound quality, the selection of excerpts....

Amazon's service was fine !

CD-Charts Position 165
Average Rating:

Korngold: Die tote Stadt

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: Orfeo D'or

Release Date April 26, 2005
For decades the only reliable recording of Korngold's swooningly gorgeous Die Tote Stadt has been the one under Erich Leinsdorf on RCA. It boasts a good cast, but Leinsdorf's conducting is stiff and without the ravishing touch that sends Korngold's lush music into orbit. Lately there was a budget Naxos issue that came from a decent live performance in Sweden, but it was hardly on a high plane of accomplishment. Which leaves room for a Tote Stadt that gets everything right.

This one almost does. It derives from another live performance, this time from the Salzburg Festival in 2004. No rival ensemble can match the Vienna Phil. as a pit orchestra, and their playing is resplendent, even though Donald Runnicles at times remains too chaste with this ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 166
Average Rating:

Bellini - I Puritani / Sutherland

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Vincenzo Bellini, Joan Sutherland

Release Date January 21, 1997
I bought this Puritani along with her Sonnambula of the same year with Resigno. What a contrast! I don't mean her technique, which remains in unequaled in both performances. But in this performance under the great Serafin her expression and interpretation reached heights which she would never again achieve with her permanent conductor and husband Richard Bonynge. Here her virtuosity is completely at the service of her art, and indeed I'm sure Bellini would believe that she had achieved his goal of making his audiences weep, and die of weeping. She sounds absolutely hearbreaking in Oh vieni al tempio, and you weep with her in the famous qui la voce. In the cabalettas, she tastefully refrained from over decorating her melodies, witout at all diminishing her stature ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 167
Average Rating:

Rossini - Guillaume Tell / Bacquier, Caballé, Gedda, Mesplé, Kovacs, Howell, RPO, Gardelli

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
from: EMI Classics

Release Date October 25, 1990
Written and produced in Paris in 1829, this is Rossini's last and grandest opera. Based on a play by Schiller, this opera is almost a compendium of Romantic themes. The tenor hero is a young revolutionary fighting foreign occupiers on behalf of the common people, in love with a princess of that same occupying power who renounces her country and station to fight for the common people beside the man she loves. The pastoral setting is majestic and full of grandeur, reflecting the noble cause for which they fight and is held up as an example of all that is good. You name it, they've got it! And Rossini wrote some of his best music for all of this, packing the opera with memorable tunes that reflect the themes of the play and are themselves reflected in national songs ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 168
Average Rating:

Berlioz - Béatrice et Bénédict / S. Graham · Viala · McNair · Cachemaille · C. Robbin · Bacquier · Le Texier · Opéra de Lyon · Nelson

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Hector Berlioz, John Nelson, Susan Graham, Jean-Luc Viala, Choeur & Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon, Catherine Robbin, Gilles Cachemaille, Gabriel Bacquier, Vincent Le Texier, Sylvia McNair

Release Date May 05, 1992
this is a review of the work itself and not the recording, which is generally very well played, sung, etc. i was very curious to listen to b&b since 'much ado...' is my fave shakespeare comedy. after hearing it, i have to admit i'm a little disappointed. berlioz had to cut out the subplots of don jon and his schemes, and hero and her travails to fit this opera into a two hour format. trouble is what he has left, while it can stand on its own, somehow feels naked compared to the bard's story. the subplots not only add contrast and texture but they also extend the story, so that the denouement doesn't come so close on the heels of the deception scene in the garden. berlioz's opera just seems rushed compared to shakespeare's play. this isn't really berlioz's fault, though. it's just ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 169
Average Rating:

Amahl and the Night Visitors

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Lorna Haywood, James Rainbird, David Syrus, Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House - Covent Garden

Release Date September 15, 1998
The music is beautiful, and this is the definitive Christmas opera, but the original recording is much better. This is an almost too polished version. Every sylable is just so, and each part is so perfect it is almost boring. The child in the original is much better because he is not so polished that it seems affected.

CD-Charts Position 170
Average Rating:

Phase 4 Stereo: Gilbert & Sullivan: HMS Pinafore / D'Oyly Carte Opera Company

CD-Charts > Music > Operettas
by: Arthur Sullivan, Arthur Jackson, Thomas Lawlor, Ralph Mason, Valerie Masterson, Donald Adams, John Reed, Christene Palmer, John Ayldon, Pauline Walkes, James Walker, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Release Date November 11, 1997
I love the versions of "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General" and "When I Was A Lad". The lyrics were fairly easy to understand and the vocals were fun and spunky, just as Gilbert & Sullivan should be:). I have no complaints (even the price was right); all in all two great CDs.