C Major
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Special offer. Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
Leo Nucci (Simon Boccanegra), Robert Scandiuzzi (Jacopo Fiesco), Simone Piazzola (Paolo Albiani), Paolo Pecchioli (Pietro), Tamar Iveri (Amelia/Maria), Francesco Meli (Gabriele Adorno)
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma, Giorgio Gallione
The solo singing is adequate and often more than that and dominated by Leo Nucci’s portrayal of the eponymous role...Scandiuzzi as Boccanegra’s implacable foe, Fiesco, is sonorous and acts well...Tamar... —
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Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (HRSinfonie Orchester), Paavo Järvi
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Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 9 & 10
Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (HR-Sinfonieorchester), Paavo Järvi
No previous instalment in Paavo Järvi's Mahler cycle prepared me for the raw passion of this Ninth. —
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Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem
Valentina Farcas (soprano), Matthias Goerne (baritone), State Choir Latvija, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Paavo Järvi
A sense of momentum as well as occasion lends an unusual spirit of celebration, quite alien to both the sombre tread of most symphonic performances and the carefully cultivated archaism of ‘period’... —
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Special offer. Verdi: La forza del destino
Carlos Álvarez (Don Carlo), Nina Stemme (Leonora), Salvatore Licitra (Don Alvaro), Nadia Krasteva (Preziosilla), Alastair Miles (Padre Guardiano), Wiener Staatsoper, Zubin Mehta, David Pountney
Tenor Salvatore Licitra as Don Alvaro in La forza del destino, caught in Vienna 10 years ago- his singing is admirably clean, his tone noble. Alongside him, Nina Stemme is a gutsy Leonora, assiduously... —
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Special offer. Mozart: Don Giovanni, K527
Simone Alberghini, Irina Lungu, Julia Novikova, Dmitry Korchak, Jiří Brückler
National Theatre Orchestra, Plácido Domingo (conductor) & Jiří Nekvasil (director)
Katerina Kněžíková (Donna Elvira) is a Prague favourite and despite some vocal brittleness is animated and communicative, especially in her Act II aria ‘Mi tradi’. Irina Lungu (Donna Anna) is... —
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Rossini: Le Comte Ory
Julie Fuchs (Adèle), Philippe Talbot (Le Comte Ory), Gaëlle Arquez (Isolier), Eve-Maud Hubeaux (Ragonde), Jean-Sébastien Bou (Rambaud)
Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Les éléments, Louis Langrée, Denis Podalydès (director), Christian Lacroix (designer)
In this recent Paris staging, it is the second act which delights rather more than the first… The Opéra Comique’s Francophone cast is led by Julie Fuchs’s sweet-toned Countess… Talbot is excellent,... —
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Special offer. Gluck: Alceste
Dorothea Röschmann (Alceste), Charles Castronovo (Admète), Michael Nagy (High Priest of Apollo), Bayerische Staatsoper, Antonello Manacorda
The chorus and orchestra under Antonello Manacorda are fine, as is Tiziano Mancini’s video direction. —
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Grieg: Peer Gynt
Jakob Feyferlik, Alice Firenze, Wiener Staatsballett, Wiener Staatsoper, Simon Hewett
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Salzburg Opening Concert 2008 with Boulez & Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Pierre Boulez
Boulez paints the often delicate colours of Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales with subtlety, the Vienna Philharmonic's woodwind showing their finesse. —
