Donizetti: Maria Stuarda

At the outset, I have to say that this opera is one of my least favorites. Somehow, it just doesn't communicate with me. I lived with the Sutherland-Pavarotti recording on London for a long time, listened to it occassionally, and then left it on the shelf. I know that both of them were acclaimed for their performances on this London recording, and of course, Sutherland and Pavarotti's singing certainly merit such acclaim. That said, however, I found both of them very ungainly in this music.
By L. Mitnick

2017 is the tenth anniversary of the passing of the 20th Century’s most famous tenor – Decca marks this occasion to marvel once again at the sheer quality of the voice of ‘The People’s Tenor’ with a 101-disc collection presenting every role he ever recorded and performed. Every role since his debut recording of La Boh?me in 1961 is included, allowing critics, collectors and opera lovers once more to appreciate his truly exceptional gifts. Every single opera is presented in the best possible audio quality, remastered at Abbey Road under the supervision of former Decca engineers.

2017 is the tenth anniversary of the passing of the 20th Century’s most famous tenor – Decca marks this occasion to marvel once again at the sheer quality of the voice of ‘The People’s Tenor’ with a 101-disc collection presenting every role he ever recorded and performed. Every role since his debut recording of La Boh?me in 1961 is included, allowing critics, collectors and opera lovers once more to appreciate his truly exceptional gifts. Every single opera is presented in the best possible audio quality, remastered at Abbey Road under the supervision of former Decca engineers.

It's a measure of Natalie Dessay's entirely appropriate priorities of musical content over her vanity that she looks so ghastly on the cover of her album of scenes and arias from Italian operas. She's dressed as the mad Lucia who certainly shouldn't be looking her best, but "as if she has risen from the grave" and the image is emblematic of her commitment to dramatic verisimilitude in the role.

Soprano Diana Damrau assumes the crowns of three different Tudor queens, the central characters in operas by Donizetti: Anne Boleyn (Anna Bolena), Mary, Queen of Scots (Maria Stuarda), and Elizabeth I (Roberto Devereux). With Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra and Chorus of Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, she performs the substantial and climactic final scene of each work. When Damrau sang Maria Stuarda at the Zurich Opera, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote: “She commands a voice that seems to have no limits. Her coloratura is stunning, her vocal range impressive, and her dynamic shadings are breath-taking. Damrau is in a class of her own.”