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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 ...
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Offenbach - La Périchole / Crespin, Vanzo, Bastin, Strasbourg PO, Lombard
: 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 ...
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Der Ring des Nibelungen / Karajan / Berlin Philharmonic
: essential recording:DG's 20-bit transfer reveals more tape hiss than before, while the orchestral image is better focused, with more definition at the bottom end. Some have likened Herbert von Karajan's 'chamber-music approach' to Wagner's Ring cycle in terms of his scaling down or deconstructing the heroic roles. This approach has less to do with dynamics per se than it does with von Karajan's masterful balancing of voices and instruments. He achieves revelations of horizontal clarity, allowing no contrapuntal strand to emerge with an unwanted accent or a miscalibrated dynamic. The ...
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Ten Top Sopranos
from: Decca
: essential recording:DG's 20-bit transfer reveals more tape hiss than before, while the orchestral image is better focused, with more definition at the bottom end. Some have likened Herbert von Karajan's 'chamber-music approach' to Wagner's Ring cycle in terms of his scaling down or deconstructing the heroic roles. This approach has less to do with dynamics per se than it does with von Karajan's masterful balancing of voices and instruments. He achieves revelations of horizontal clarity, allowing no contrapuntal strand to emerge with an unwanted accent or a miscalibrated dynamic. The ...
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Régine Crespin - Songs of Ravel & Satie, Beethoven 'Ah! Perfido', Concert Arias
: :The now-retired Régine Crespin is easily the greatest soprano voice to come out of France since World War II, notable not just for its body and luster but for such an effortless sense of line that you're never aware of the individual notes, only the overall musical idea they're meant to create. This was recorded a bit late in her career and some wobble is apparent. But her characterization of the words--so important in Ravel's precise animal portraits in Histoires Naturelles--is peerless. Too bad that the Satie songs--in terms of quality--veer ...
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Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier
from: London
: :The now-retired Régine Crespin is easily the greatest soprano voice to come out of France since World War II, notable not just for its body and luster but for such an effortless sense of line that you're never aware of the individual notes, only the overall musical idea they're meant to create. This was recorded a bit late in her career and some wobble is apparent. But her characterization of the words--so important in Ravel's precise animal portraits in Histoires Naturelles--is peerless. Too bad that the Satie songs--in terms of quality--veer ...
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Opera Collection II
from: EMI Classics
: :The now-retired Régine Crespin is easily the greatest soprano voice to come out of France since World War II, notable not just for its body and luster but for such an effortless sense of line that you're never aware of the individual notes, only the overall musical idea they're meant to create. This was recorded a bit late in her career and some wobble is apparent. But her characterization of the words--so important in Ravel's precise animal portraits in Histoires Naturelles--is peerless. Too bad that the Satie songs--in terms of quality--veer ...
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Der Rosenkavalier [Highlights]
from: Polygram Records
: :The now-retired Régine Crespin is easily the greatest soprano voice to come out of France since World War II, notable not just for its body and luster but for such an effortless sense of line that you're never aware of the individual notes, only the overall musical idea they're meant to create. This was recorded a bit late in her career and some wobble is apparent. But her characterization of the words--so important in Ravel's precise animal portraits in Histoires Naturelles--is peerless. Too bad that the Satie songs--in terms of quality--veer ...
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Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 'Choral'; Choral Fantasy; Ah, Perfido
from: Sony
: :The now-retired Régine Crespin is easily the greatest soprano voice to come out of France since World War II, notable not just for its body and luster but for such an effortless sense of line that you're never aware of the individual notes, only the overall musical idea they're meant to create. This was recorded a bit late in her career and some wobble is apparent. But her characterization of the words--so important in Ravel's precise animal portraits in Histoires Naturelles--is peerless. Too bad that the Satie songs--in terms of quality--veer ...
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Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites
from: Angel Records
: :The now-retired Régine Crespin is easily the greatest soprano voice to come out of France since World War II, notable not just for its body and luster but for such an effortless sense of line that you're never aware of the individual notes, only the overall musical idea they're meant to create. This was recorded a bit late in her career and some wobble is apparent. But her characterization of the words--so important in Ravel's precise animal portraits in Histoires Naturelles--is peerless. Too bad that the Satie songs--in terms of quality--veer ...
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