What opera are you currently listening to / watching? CD/DVD

A really good Trovatore
Carreras, Ricciarelli,
Colin Davis

Sounds very good so far.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Georg Solti: Wiener Philharmoniker (1984–1985)
Edita Gruberová, Kathleen Battle, Gösta Winbergh, Heinz Zednik, Martti Talvela, Will Quadflieg

I find this opera delightful, not very serious at all, but with some spectacular music. Very impressive. I've never actually seen it, but it's a pleasure to listen to it. This is a good recording, captured in splendid sound, though I could have managed with slightly less triangle in the overture. Casting is impressive. Talvela passed away in 1989, and most of his opera recordings that I can think of (Marke in Böhm's Bayreuth Tristan from 1966, Fasolt in Karajan’s Rheingold, Hunding in Karajan's Walküre, the Commendatore in Böhm's 1967 Don Giovanni, and soloist in several Beethoven Ninth, Missa Solemnis, Verdi Requiem, etc. recordings) date from much earlier than this recording. All in all I'm very satisfied with this.

Dernesch, Ludwig, Kollo, Braun, Sotin, Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Solti.

My one and only opera recording conducted by Solti. A superb performance of the Paris version.

Giuseppe Verdi: Aida
Claudio Abbado: Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala (1981)
Katia Ricciarelli, Plácido Domingo, Elena Obraztsova, Leo Nucci, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Ruggero Raimondi, Lucia Valentini Terrani

Haven't heard this opera in a few years, so I'll be revisiting it. I've just started this recording so I won't comment on the singing, but the orchestra is really superb here so far. Seems like there is a live recording Abbado made about a decade earlier which has attracted more positive press. I was listening to a lot of Abbado's symphonic recordings yesterday (Mahler 1 and 6, Beethoven 4) so I was in the mood for some more of him today.

Giuseppe Verdi: Aida
Georg Solti: Orchestra e Coro del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (1961)
Leontyne Price, Rita Gorr, Jon Vickers, Robert Merrill, Giorgio Tozzi

I'll try Karajan tomorrow (recorded in 1959 with the Vienna Philharmonic, also for Decca). I gather the two competing sets were due to Decca's partnership with RCA starting in the late 1950s, as described by Culshaw in his posthumously published memoir. Karajan was the Decca recording, made in Decca's Sofiensaal in Vienna, while this was the RCA set (hence Price, even though Solti was exclusive to Decca). Fitting, I suppose, for me to turn to a Hungarian and an Austrian for my Verdi (though I really enjoyed Abbado's conducting also). In any case, the sound is good, and it's great to hear Vickers and Price; I generally respond well to Solti's conducting, and that is the case here, at least so far.

I have been obsessively listening to Britten the whole week—I mean, like anything Britten ... orchestral, solo voice, choral, opera… In my eyes, British classical music has finally been redeemed since it has taken me forever to genuinely start appreciating the British composers (my own shortcoming, I admit).

I have been listening to Britten's short Curlew River and currently I'm listening to Billy Budd (Britten/Pears) properly for the first time. Absolutely fantastic! To my own great surprise, I feel I prefer Britten's operas to Strauss'; I might even prefer them to a lot of Verdi and Puccini as well. I just feel that each of his operas I've so far listened to has been of an evenly high quality and very thought-through in terms of the text, the music, and the way they interact with each other. Britten's positively inventive style just seems a perfect fit for putting rather complex texts into music, while retaining their philosophical and dramaturgical content. For instance, of the ones I've heard, I think there is hardly a better operatic rendition of any Shakespeare play than Britten's A Midsummer's Night Dream. (I very much like Verdi's Otello and Falstaff but they feel more like Verdi and less like Shakespeare, while Britten makes his opera feel like… Shakespeare.)

I also feel what contributes my enjoyment of Britten's operas is the fact that, differently from Strauss who has sopranos sing male roles, Britten has tenors sing female roles. And I'm very partial of the male voices !

Giuseppe Verdi: Aida
Herbert von Karajan: Wiener Philharmoniker (1979)
Mirella Freni, Agnes Baltsa, José Carreras, Piero Cappucilli, José van Dam, Ruggero Raimondi, Katia Ricciarelli, Thomas Moser

Taking a break from the Decca sound for today; I hadn't realized that Karajan recorded this opera twice. I'll try the '59 Decca tomorrow instead of today, I suppose. The '59 was recorded when Karajan was actually in charge of the Wiener Staatsoper.

An oft forgotten recording of Tristan und Isolde but it's Ralph Moore's top choice for a stereo studio recording and it certainly has a lot going for it. Chief among its attractions is the gorgeously sung Isolde of Linda Esther Gray, not dissimilar to that of Margaret Price, except that Gray did sing Isolde in the theatre before illness tragically cut short her career. After Gray the best performance is that of Gwynne Howell as King Mark, his voice beautiful and his German diction excellent. Mitchinson's vibrato is occasionally a little wide, but nowhere near as bad as most tenors you are likely to hear in the role today. Joll and Wilkens have no doubt been bettered elsewhere, but Goodall's conception of the work is wonderful one you've got used to the slow speeds.

A bit of love for this obscure opera. Having recently discovered the work of Rudi Stephan, I just wanted to share my enthusiasm



Regards,

Vincula