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Bel Canto Spectacular
from: Decca France
:Album Description:For the past decade the Peruvian tenor has earned ecstatic critical and public response internationally for a technical prowess and an authoritative style that must surely equal what the public would have heard from the greatest tenors more than 150 years ago. Flórez’s exhilarating vocalism, matched by a magnetic stage presence, has prompted major opera companies to revive many rare works especially for him. • A celebration of THE Belcanto tenor of our times • The King of ...
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Puccini - La Rondine / Gheorghiu · Alagna · Matteuzzi · Mula · Rinaldi · Ciofi · Bacelli · LSO · Pappano
from: EMI Classics
: :This is one of the problem operas of Puccini's maturity, something he began writing while under the spell of Lehar's The Merry Widow that never quite came together as a piece of theater. But the score contains some of Puccini's most congenial music and attractive scoring. An alert, resourceful new presence on the opera scene, conductor Antonio Pappano is just the one to make the best possible attempt at holding it together. Stars Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna show ...
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Handel - Radamisto
from: Virgin Classics
: :This is one of the problem operas of Puccini's maturity, something he began writing while under the spell of Lehar's The Merry Widow that never quite came together as a piece of theater. But the score contains some of Puccini's most congenial music and attractive scoring. An alert, resourceful new presence on the opera scene, conductor Antonio Pappano is just the one to make the best possible attempt at holding it together. Stars Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna show ...
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Puccini - Il Trittico / Alagna, Gheorghiu, Guelfi, Guleghina, Gallardo-Domás, Manca di Nissa, Palmer, Shicoff, van Dam, LSO, PO, Pappano
: essential recording:Aficionados are familiar with Puccini's Il Trittico or 'Triptych,' his three one-act operas that premiered at New York's Metropolitan in 1918; everyday opera lovers should know them as well. Here is Puccini at his most imaginative: Il Tabarro, a shocker about the jealousy of an older man towards his deceitful younger wife on a houseboat on the Seine is dark and foreboding, and is, incidentally, probably his greatest, tightest opera. It is given a superb performance here, ...
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Patrizia Ciofi & Joyce DiDonato - Amor e gelosia (Handel Operatic Duets)
from: Virgin Classics
: :In baroque opera, the spotlight was usually reserved for the bravura arias, designed to show off the singers' brilliant coloratura and skill in improvising ornamentation. The ensembles, on the other hand, were left to languish in the shadows. This record aims to right that wrong in a program of 17 duets drawn from 13 mostly unfamiliar Handel operas. In an attempt to create some cohesion, these primarily short selections are arranged under the heading 'Love and Jealousy,' with love ...
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Vivaldi - Bajazet / D'Arcangelo, Daniels, Ciofi, Genaux, Mijanovic, Garanca, Europa Galante, Biondi [Includes Bonus DVD]
from: Virgin Classics
: :This stunner of an opera involves the proud sultan Bajazet (bass) and his battle with his bloodthirsty rival-tyrant Tamerlane (counter-tenor). More than 50 operas were composed on the subject. Here Vivaldi has composed all the recitatives and marvelous arias for the dignified, fine characters and used arias by other composers--Hasse, Giacomelli, Carlo Broschi--for Tamerlano and the nasties. The music is energetic and virtuosic throughout. Fabio Biondi leads Europa Galante and soloists with urgent, theatrical precision, making the story come ...
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Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro / Gens, Ciofi, Kirchschlager, Regazzo, Keenlyside, Concerto Köln, Jacobs [Hybrid SACD]
from: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
: : René Jacobs has done it again. Following on the heels of his superb Cosi fan tutte, he now offers a Nozze di Figaro which is alive and vibrant; it seems to be happening in real time. There's so little artifice in the characters' recitatives and the rhythm is so conversational that we get the impression of real people, in a real pickle of a situation. The singing/acting is stunning, with Simon Keenlyside's Count the best on CD (a ...
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Berlioz - Benvenuto Cellini
from: Virgin Classics / EMI
: :This recording presents--almost--Berlioz's original thoughts on this very complicated opera (which went through more than a dozen versions, with additions and subtractions, in the composer's lifetime), although conductor John Nelson also adds an aria or two Berlioz later added, making it somewhat different from the version recorded by Philips under Sir Colin Davis a little over 30 years ago. If I had to choose one of these two superb performances, it would be this: the opera's odd rhythms are ...
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Monteverdi - L'Orfeo / Bostridge, Ciofi, Coote, Dessay, Gens, Prina, Sampson, Agnew, Bertin, Luperi, Maltman, Regazzo, Le Concert d'Astree, Haim
from: Virgin Classics
: :It seems natural that of all mythological heroes, Orpheus, a singer endowed with matchless musical gifts, should appeal to so many opera composers. L'Orfeo, which premiered at the Court of Mantua in 1607, was Monteverdi's first opera. This fairly new genre sought to combine performing practices of Greek and Roman antiquity with music capable of arousing and expressing emotions through a dramatic text. Alessandro Striggio's libretto gives the story an unusual perspective: it focuses on the power of music, ...
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Bel Canto Spectacular [Limited Edition] [CD+DVD]
from: Decca
:Album Description:CD+DVD pressing. For the past decade the Peruvian tenor has earned ecstatic critical and public response internationally for a technical prowess and an authoritative style that must surely equal what the public would have heard from the greatest tenors more than 150 years ago. Flórez’s exhilarating vocalism, matched by a magnetic stage presence, has prompted major opera companies to revive many rare works especially for him. • A celebration of THE Belcanto tenor of our times • The ...
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