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The #1 Opera Album
: :The labels that are now gathered under the Universal Classics umbrella have a pretty impressive scorecard in the area of classical compilations. We've seen The Greatest Opera Show on Earth, The Yellow Guide: Classical Music, Best of the Millennium, and now there's The No. 1 Opera Album. But that's no surprise, since Universal has some of the finest interpreters in its catalogue to draw from. This two-CD set (at the price of one), for example, brings together the likes of Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Luciano Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Georg Solti, Herbert ...
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The Ultimate Puccini Collection
: essential recording:Ordinarily, it pays to be wary of collections such as these, which often promise a lot but deliver a mishmash of disconnected excerpts. This disc, however, is something of an exception: you really do get just about all of Puccini's best arias, which is possible, because he didn't write so many operas that choosing the best moments becomes a matter of the producer's personal taste. Also, Puccini's operas are so popular that every major label has excellent complete recordings of all of them, so in making this compilation it was possible ...
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The Greatest Opera Show on Earth
from: Polygram Records
: :This really is a remarkable collection, and anyone even remotely interested in opera is bound to be vastly entertained by it. Almost everything and everyone is here, albeit in small doses: Tebaldi, Pavarotti (a lot), Bjoerling, Bartoli, Sutherland, Solti, Karajan, Troyanos, Gheorghiu, Nucci; the composers are Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, and all the other usual suspects. There are plenty of fine compilation sets on the market, and this is one of the best. One can only hope that it whets listeners' appetites for whole operas. --Robert Levine
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Pavarotti: Greatest Hits
from: Decca
: :This really is a remarkable collection, and anyone even remotely interested in opera is bound to be vastly entertained by it. Almost everything and everyone is here, albeit in small doses: Tebaldi, Pavarotti (a lot), Bjoerling, Bartoli, Sutherland, Solti, Karajan, Troyanos, Gheorghiu, Nucci; the composers are Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, and all the other usual suspects. There are plenty of fine compilation sets on the market, and this is one of the best. One can only hope that it whets listeners' appetites for whole operas. --Robert Levine
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Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti - Puccini's Greatest Love Songs ~ Tu Tu Amore
: :This really is a remarkable collection, and anyone even remotely interested in opera is bound to be vastly entertained by it. Almost everything and everyone is here, albeit in small doses: Tebaldi, Pavarotti (a lot), Bjoerling, Bartoli, Sutherland, Solti, Karajan, Troyanos, Gheorghiu, Nucci; the composers are Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, and all the other usual suspects. There are plenty of fine compilation sets on the market, and this is one of the best. One can only hope that it whets listeners' appetites for whole operas. --Robert Levine
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Rossini - La Cenerentola / Bartoli, Dara, Matteuzzi, Corbelli, Pertusi, Chailly
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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Cecilia Bartoli - A Portrait
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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Pavarotti & Friends 2
from: Decca
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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Mad about Cartoons
from: Deutsche Grammophon
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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Super Estrellas de la Opera - Super Stars of Opera (2 CDs)
from: Lideres Ent. Group / EMI
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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