What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[ritter]

Seriously? 

Fixed, thanks!

[brewski]

Oh happy day: OperaVision has uploaded the new production of Salome by the Irish National Opera, with costumes and an intriguing nautical set design by the great Leslie Travers. The title role is sung by Sinéad Campbell Wallace, and the conductor is Fergus Sheil.

-Bruce

[ritter]

A real rarity, Maurice Emmanuel's 3-act tragédie lyrique Promethée enchainé. The composer himself translated and condensed Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound.



Apparently Emmanuel had composed a 5-act opera on Prometheus many years earlier, but destroyed it as he thought it was too operatically conventional. Be that as it may, this later effort is quite attractive and concise (as is the composer's later tragédie Salamine).

This 1959 performance in Paris seems to have been  the posthumous première of the work (the composer only got to hear a partial performance many years earlier). The conductor is Eugène Bigot.

[steve ridgway]

Berlioz: Les Troyens Act I.



I'm enjoying it so far, it's a dramatic and vivid story .

[Lisztianwagner]

Richard Wagner
Tristan und Isolde, act 1^ & 2^

Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen, Christa Ludwig, Martti Talvela, Eberhard Waechter
Karl Böhm & Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

[steve ridgway]

Berlioz: Les Troyens Acts II & III. Half way through the opera now.

[steve ridgway]

Finished Les Troyens. There was a lot of colourful action packed into the epic history. I just thought some of the music was a bit too jolly; it would be interesting to hear what a 20th century composer would have done with it.

[Tsaraslondon]

Finished Les Troyens. There was a lot of colourful action packed into the epic history. I just thought some of the music was a bit too jolly; it would be interesting to hear what a 20th century composer would have done with it.

I dread to think. Personally, I reckon it's Berlioz's greatest work and a startlingly original work. The music is jolly when it needs to be.

The Live Davis recording you were listening to is good, but I don't think it's as good as his earlier effort with Vickers and Veasey. It isn't perfect by any means (no recording of the opera is) but on the whole the cast is better.

I would also never want to be without the recording of Janet Baker in the final scenes under Sir Alexander Gibson.

[nico1616]

This opera has fared well on disc. The Callas/Votto on EMI certainly is one of the best. I also like the Tebaldi/Pavarotti/Bartoletti on Decca and the Toscanini on RCA.

This Muti is one of my latest discoveries and it is great. You can never go wrong with Domingo and Cappuccilli, Arroyo and Cossotto as the female leads are as impressive

[knight66]

I enjoy the Solti Ballo, superb singing from the soloists. I also have a Karajan box of all his Decca/DG studio operas. I did not listen to the Ballo for a long time, just thought from comments read that I would not enjoy it. I got round to it recently and thoroughly enjoyed it, Barstow especially impressed me with her expressive singing and the sound was warmer than I recall from her.

Knight

[Tsaraslondon]

I enjoy the Solti Ballo, superb singing from the soloists. I also have a Karajan box of all his Decca/DG studio operas. I did not listen to the Ballo for a long time, just thought from comments read that I would not enjoy it. I got round to it recently and thoroughly enjoyed it, Barstow especially impressed me with her expressive singing and the sound was warmer than I recall from her.

Knight

I remember listening to the Karajan for the first time a while ago now and enjoyed it much more than I expected to. Like you, I was much impressed by Josephine Barstow's intelligent singing as Amelia, even if I wish it had been captured a few years earlier. She was a wonderful stage animal and I remember in particular a shattering Violetta, a thrilling Salome (in Joachim Herz's production) and her superb Katerina in David Pountney's brilliant production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, halcyon days for the English National Opera. She was still treading the boards a couple of years ago and I saw her as old Heidi in the National Theatre's production of Follies.

Good to see you back on here, by the way. I hope you are well.

[nico1616]

First listen to this historic Rossini recording.

[Florestan]

First listen to this historic Rossini recording.

How is it?

[nico1616]

How is it?

The first impression is great. The sound of a 1954 recording is not perfect, but it is sufficient.
Giulini is one of my favorite conductors, although I don't think I have ever heard him conducting Rossini before. Luckily he keeps the pace moving and he conducts with a smile. The cast is dominated by Cesare Valletti and Giulietta Simionato. The tenor is just perfect, what a sweet voice! Simionato is a bit too matronal in her 'Cruda Sorte' aria but her vocal acting is great further on. Except for Sciutti (luxury casting in a small role), I had never heard of the rest of the singers. Mario Petri (Mustafa) and Marcello Cortis (Taddeo) surely make an impression.
I just love Diapason for supplementing their magazines with these historic recordings.

I once had the Abbado Italiana in my collection but did not like it and sold it, and somewhere on my shelves there is the Varviso but it did not make a lasting impression either. I think this Italiana in Algeri is the one for me.

[Florestan]

The first impression is great. The sound of a 1954 recording is not perfect, but it is sufficient.
Giulini is one of my favorite conductors, although I don't think I have ever heard him conducting Rossini before. Luckily he keeps the pace moving and he conducts with a smile. The cast is dominated by Cesare Valletti and Giulietta Simionato. The tenor is just perfect, what a sweet voice! Simionato is a bit too matronal in her 'Cruda Sorte' aria but her vocal acting is great further on. Except for Sciutti (luxury casting in a small role), I had never heard of the rest of the singers. Mario Petri (Mustafa) and Marcello Cortis (Taddeo) surely make an impression.
I just love Diapason for supplementing their magazines with these historic recordings.

I once had the Abbado Italiana in my collection but did not like it and sold it, and somewhere on my shelves there is the Varviso but it did not make a lasting impression either. I think this Italiana in Algeri is the one for me.

Thanks.

[Tsaraslondon]

The first impression is great. The sound of a 1954 recording is not perfect, but it is sufficient.
Giulini is one of my favorite conductors, although I don't think I have ever heard him conducting Rossini before. Luckily he keeps the pace moving and he conducts with a smile. The cast is dominated by Cesare Valletti and Giulietta Simionato. The tenor is just perfect, what a sweet voice! Simionato is a bit too matronal in her 'Cruda Sorte' aria but her vocal acting is great further on. Except for Sciutti (luxury casting in a small role), I had never heard of the rest of the singers. Mario Petri (Mustafa) and Marcello Cortis (Taddeo) surely make an impression.
I just love Diapason for supplementing their magazines with these historic recordings.

I once had the Abbado Italiana in my collection but did not like it and sold it, and somewhere on my shelves there is the Varviso but it did not make a lasting impression either. I think this Italiana in Algeri is the one for me.

I don't think Giulini has any other Rossini operas in the catalogue, though he did conduct a well received disc of Rossini overtures back in the 1950s with the Philharmonia.

He also presided over the one La Scala flop of Callas's career in 1956, which was a hastily thrown together and under-rehearsed revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, which he recalled as the worst memory of his life in the theatre.

"I don't feel it was a fiasco for Maria alone, but for all of us concerned with the performance. It was an artistic mistake, utterly routine, thrown together, with nothing given deep study or preparation."

Maybe that was why he never returned to Rossini.

[ritter]

Alfredo Catalani's Edmea (1886), in it's only recording (live from Lucca in 1989, conducted by Massimo de Bernart).



The libretto, by Antonio Ghislanzoni (who also provided Verdi with the words to Aïda), is really silly (a love triangle set in 17th century Bohemia), and the music is typical Catalani. No flashes of genius here, I'm afraid, but this brand of scapigliatura has its charms.

After his unplanned debut in Brazil, this was the first opera Arturo Toscanini conducted upon his return to Italy (in Turin). The composer was very pleased with the performance, and Toscanini would profess lifelong admiration and gratitude to Catalani (naming two of his children after characters from La Wally, the composer's best known work).

[Lisztianwagner]

Richard Wagner
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Herbert von Karajan & Staatskapelle Dresden

[steve ridgway]

Messiaen: Saint François D'Assise

[Wanderer]

Messiaen: Saint François D'Assise

Lengthy, but very worthwhile; I hope you like it! I'm seeing it live in June.