building a nice opera collection

[Superhorn]

  I don't agree about 12 tone music not being suitable for operas.
   Berg's Lulu(Wozzeck is atonal but not 12 tone), Schoenberg's Moses and Aron and the more recent Lear,based on the Shakespeare play by Aribert Reimann, and Zimmermann's Die Soldaten are all works of genuine stature,if hardly easy listening. With repeated hearings on CD,
you should be able to get accustomed to them,and even find them enjoyable!
 
Any basic collection of operas would include Verdi's Falstaff,Otello,Aida,Don Carlo,Un Ballo in Maschera,La Forza del Destino,Simon Boccanegra, La Traviata,Il Trovatore,Rigoletto,Macbeth and perhaps Ernani and Nabucco.
For Puccini,Manon Lescaut, La Boheme,Tosca,Madama Butterfly, La Rondine, Il Tabarro,Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi(Il Trittico),
La Fanciulla del West and Turandot. For Wagner, the complete Ring,Tristan&Isolde,Die Meistersinger, Lohengrin,Tannhauser,Der Fliegende Hollander and Parsifal . Mozart's Don Giovanni,Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, Die Zauberflote, The Abduction from the Seraglio,Idomeneo,and La Clemenza di Tito. Bizet's Carmen, Gounod's Faust and Romeo&Juliette,Massenet's Manon, Werther, and Thais,
Debussy's Pelleas, and Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites,
Stravinsky's Rake's Progress.
  For Handel,you want Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Rinaldo, and Rodelinda,
  Monteverdi's Orfeo and the Coronation of Poppea, Gluck's Orfeo& Euridice, and Beethoven's Fidelio, and Weber's Der Freischutz.
  For Rossini, you need Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola(Cinderella), Semiramide, L'Italiana in Algeri and William Tell.
Donizetti:Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale,L'Elisir D'Amore, and for Bellini,Norma,I Puritani, and La Sonnambula. Then there are Ponvchielli's La Gioconda, Boito's Mefistofele, Giordano's Andrea Chenier.
  For Richard Strauss, Salome,Elektra,Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne Auf Naxos, Die Frau ophne Schatten, Arabella, and Capriccio.
In Czech opera, don't miss Smetana's Bartred Bride, Dvorak's Rusalka, and Janacek's Jenufa,Katya Kabanova, the Cunning Little Vixen and
From the House of the Dead.
In Russian opera you need Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov,Khovanshchina, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Queen of Spades,and Borodin's Prince Igor. Prokofiev's War and _eace and Love for 3 Oranges,and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk district by Shostakovich,
and the Tsar's Bride by Rimsky-Korsakov.You can't go wrong with the Gergiev recordings.
Britten:Peter Grimes, Billy Budd and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas. Berlioz: Les Troyens, Benvenuto Cellini and Beatrice & Benedict. Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel.
Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess,and Barber's Vanessa,and Floyd's Susannah. Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss,and Lehar's Merry Widow.
  Whew! Big list ! That should keep you occupied. I've probably left some out. classicstoday.com has excellent recommendations by opera expert Robert Levine.

[DavidRoss]

Any basic collection of operas would include [virtually all of the 100 or so operas most frequently performed worldwide over the past twenty years].

Basic collection?

[Anne]

Great list!  I would add Verdi's Attila especially the La Scala DVD with Sam Ramey.  That performance is truly wonderful - the acting, the unique situation, the memorable arias and I don't know about other people but I felt bad for poor old Attila (Sam Ramey) when he was killed.  This DVD has been deservedly praised many times on several bulletin boards.

[Tsaraslondon]

I've not heard Giulini, but I'd bet it's a darned good 'un.  Your post reminds me that it's been quite some time since I last heard this work (and I've never seen it), so I think it's time to give my only copy a spin:  Serafin/la Scala/Gobbi/Callas.  I hope Tsaraslondon approves.

I do indeed, though it has to be admitted that it makes the cuts traditional at the time and is in (pretty good) mono sound. Whilst Cappuccilli doesn't quite have Gobbi's musical imagination, the Giulini is an excellent alternative, though it is 30 years old now. Nothing has since come along to challenge these top recommendations. Incidentally the Serafin is a top recommendation in the Metropolitan Guide to Recorded Opera. Admittedly this was published in 1993, but I doubt things will have changed any since then.

[Catison]

Glass....quote. "Although his music is often, though controversially, described as minimalist, he distances himself from this label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures."[4] Although his early, mature music is minimalist, he has evolved stylistically."

He has been through quite a number of styles.

Mike, do you know of a piece of Glass's that is serial?  There is part 12 of his Music in Twelve Parts that is written around a 12 tone row, but that is entirely tongue in cheek.  As far as I know, Glass avoids any kind of serial music, and most of his music (since about 1970) has been completely diatonic; some even argue his harmony is too diatonic (most of his material uses broken chords of the major and minor variety).

Or do you have a different definition of serial?

[knight66]

I doubt that I have, I assume I must be wrong, along with odd bits I have read about him. I can take being wrong.

Mike

[MDL]

  I don't agree about 12 tone music not being suitable for operas.
   Berg's Lulu(Wozzeck is atonal but not 12 tone), Schoenberg's Moses and Aron and the more recent Lear,based on the Shakespeare play by Aribert Reimann, and Zimmermann's Die Soldaten are all works of genuine stature,if hardly easy listening. With repeated hearings on CD,
you should be able to get accustomed to them,and even find them enjoyable!
 

I was startled to notice in the Guardian today that a new recording of Aribert Reimann's devastating opera Lear has been released on Oehms. I love the DG recording and I might have to get this new one to compare.

From the Guardian:


Reimann: Lear, Koch/Kranzle/Lazar etc/Frankfurt Opera Chorus/Frankfurt Museum Orch/Weigle(Oehms)

Andrew Clements
The Guardian, Friday 5 June 2009
Article history
Reimann: Lear Koch/Kranzle etc/Frankfurt Museum Orchestra/Weigle Oehms Buy at the Guardian shop Aribert Reimann is in his early 70s, and his seven operas to date (a new one, Medea, is due next year) are close to being repertory pieces in the German-speaking world. Only one, though, has made its way internationally: the version of King Lear that Reimann completed for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in 1978. The piece has been successful because it pulls no emotional punches; it creates and sustains a fiercely expressionist world from the opening bars, and delineates each character with great precision. Though not a subtle piece, it is a mightily effective one, and this new recording, taken from four performances at the Frankfurt Opera last autumn, shows its power has not dated. With Wolfgang Koch as Lear and Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Caroline Whisnant and Britta Stallmeister as his three daughters, the performances are very competent. The old Deutsche Grammophon recording, with Fischer-Dieskau peerless in the lead, is the one to get if you can find it, but this recording has a raw immediacy of its own.

[The new erato]

  I don't agree about 12 tone music not being suitable for operas.
   Berg's Lulu(Wozzeck is atonal but not 12 tone), Schoenberg's Moses and Aron and the more recent Lear,based on the Shakespeare play by Aribert Reimann, and Zimmermann's Die Soldaten are all works of genuine stature,if hardly easy listening. With repeated hearings on CD,
you should be able to get accustomed to them,and even find them enjoyable!
 
Any basic collection of operas would include Verdi's Falstaff,Otello,Aida,Don Carlo,Un Ballo in Maschera,La Forza del Destino,Simon Boccanegra, La Traviata,Il Trovatore,Rigoletto,Macbeth and perhaps Ernani and Nabucco.
For Puccini,Manon Lescaut, La Boheme,Tosca,Madama Butterfly, La Rondine, Il Tabarro,Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi(Il Trittico),
La Fanciulla del West and Turandot. For Wagner, the complete Ring,Tristan&Isolde,Die Meistersinger, Lohengrin,Tannhauser,Der Fliegende Hollander and Parsifal . Mozart's Don Giovanni,Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, Die Zauberflote, The Abduction from the Seraglio,Idomeneo,and La Clemenza di Tito. Bizet's Carmen, Gounod's Faust and Romeo&Juliette,Massenet's Manon, Werther, and Thais,
Debussy's Pelleas, and Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites,
Stravinsky's Rake's Progress.
  For Handel,you want Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Rinaldo, and Rodelinda,
  Monteverdi's Orfeo and the Coronation of Poppea, Gluck's Orfeo& Euridice, and Beethoven's Fidelio, and Weber's Der Freischutz.
  For Rossini, you need Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola(Cinderella), Semiramide, L'Italiana in Algeri and William Tell.
Donizetti:Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale,L'Elisir D'Amore, and for Bellini,Norma,I Puritani, and La Sonnambula. Then there are Ponvchielli's La Gioconda, Boito's Mefistofele, Giordano's Andrea Chenier.
  For Richard Strauss, Salome,Elektra,Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne Auf Naxos, Die Frau ophne Schatten, Arabella, and Capriccio.
In Czech opera, don't miss Smetana's Bartred Bride, Dvorak's Rusalka, and Janacek's Jenufa,Katya Kabanova, the Cunning Little Vixen and
From the House of the Dead.
In Russian opera you need Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov,Khovanshchina, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Queen of Spades,and Borodin's Prince Igor. Prokofiev's War and _eace and Love for 3 Oranges,and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk district by Shostakovich,
and the Tsar's Bride by Rimsky-Korsakov.You can't go wrong with the Gergiev recordings.
Britten:Peter Grimes, Billy Budd and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas. Berlioz: Les Troyens, Benvenuto Cellini and Beatrice & Benedict. Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel.
Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess,and Barber's Vanessa,and Floyd's Susannah. Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann. Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss,and Lehar's Merry Widow.
  Whew! Big list ! That should keep you occupied. I've probably left some out. classicstoday.com has excellent recommendations by opera expert Robert Levine.

A good list IMO. But ypu need some French baroque, at least a Lully and a Rameau work.

[Wendell_E]

Someone mentioned this set on another board.  I've already got about half of these recordings, but at this price I may get it anyway:

http://www.amazon.com/Verdi-Great-Operas-Scala-Various/dp/B001UN1IQ6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1244305779&sr=1-1

Verdi: Great Operas from LA Scala

CD 1-2 Rigoletto
Renata Scotto (Gilda)
Fiorenza Cossotto (Maddalena)
Carlo Bergonzi (Duca)
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Rigoletto)
Rafael Kubelik

CD 3-4 Il Trovatore
Antonietta Stella (Leonora)
Fiorenza Cossotto (Azucena)
Carlo Bergonzi (Manrico)
Ettore Bastianini (Il Conte de Luna)
Tullio Serafin

CD 5-6 La Traviata
Renata Scotto (Violetta)
Gianni Raimondi (Alfredo)
Ettore Bastianini (Germont)
Antonino Votto

CD 7-8 Un Ballo in Maschera
Antonietta Stella (Amelia)
Adriana Lazzarini (Ulrica)
Giuliana Tavolaccini (Oscar)
Gianni Poggi (Riccardo)
Ettore Bastianini (Renato)
Gianandrea Gavazzeni

CD 9-11 Don Carlos [this was the first recording of the five-act version (in Italian), but I don't know whether there are any cuts]
Antonietta Stella (Elisabetta)
Fiorenza Cossotto (Eboli)
Flaviano Labò (Don Carlos)
Ettore Bastianini (Rodrigo)
Boris Christoff (Filippo)
Gabriele Santini

The rest are all conducted by Abbado:

CD 12-14 Macbeth
Shirley Verrett/ (Lady Macbeth)
Piero Cappuccilli (Macbeth)
Plácido Domingo (Macduff)
Nicolai Ghiaurov (Banco)

CD 15-16 Simon Boccanegra
Piero Cappuccilli (Simon Boccanegra)
Mirella Freni (Maria Boccanegra)
José Carreras (Gabriele Adorno)
Nicolai Ghiaurov (Fiesco)
José van Dam (Albiani)
Giovanni Foiani (Pietro)

CD 17-19 Aïda
Katia Ricciarelli (Aïda)
Plácido Domingo (Ramadès)
Elena Obraztsova (Amneris)
Leo Nucci (Amonasro)
Nicolai Ghiaurov (Ramfis)
Ruggiero Raimondi (Re dell'Egitto)
Lucia Valentini Terrani (Priesterin)

CD 20-21 Requiem
Katia Ricciarelli, Shirley Verrett, Plácido Domingo,
Nicolai Ghiaurov

It says "Also includes a 70 page booklet with short synopses in English, German and French."  In other words, no libretti, but I've got those anyway.

[DavidRoss]

Wow.  Incredible offer for $50.  Thanks.