Opera Now 2005

Leoncavallo + Mascagni - Pagliacci + Cavalleria Rusticana (2005) [DVD9] {Deutsche Grammophon}
DVD9 -> 7.35 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 4:3 | Italiano (LPCM, 2 ch / DTS, 6 ch) | ~ 140m | ISO Image
Subtitles: Italian / French / German / English / Spanish / Chinese
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 105 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1984, 1985, 2005 Deutsche Grammophon | 0440 073 4033
Classical / Opera

Elena Obraztsova, Placido Domingo, and Renato Bruson star in this Mascagni opera production. Teresa Stratas, Placido Domingo, and Juan Pons star in this Leoncavallo opera production. Both are performed at La Scala with George Pretre conducting. Two classic operas–Mascagni's CAVALLERIA RUSICANA and Leoncavallo's PAGLIACCI–are performed by opera heavyweights in these now legendary productions directed by the famed Franco Zeffirelli. The 2 operas, which have been traditionally performed together since the late 19th century, star tenor Placido Domingo, Fedora Barbieri, Elena Obraztova, Teresa Stratas, and other stars of their caliber.

Wagner - Die Walkure (2005) [2DVD] {Deutsche Grammophon} (Pierre Boulez)
2DVD9 -> 12.7 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 4:3 | Deutsch (LPCM, 2 ch / DTS, 6 ch) | ~ 215 min | ISO Images
Subs: English, Deutsch, Francais, Espanol, Chinese
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 90 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2005 Deutsche Grammophon | 00440 073 4059
Classical / Opera

The legendary centennial Ring! Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau with their breathtaking reading of Wagner's gargantuan masterpiece. Wagner's ideas of "racial purity" reach a logical conclusion in Act I of Die Walküre, powerfully performed in this Bayreuth production. Siegfried, the tragic hero of the cycle, is begotten in an adulterous, incestuous mating of Siegmund (Peter Hoffmann) and Sieglinde (Jeanne Altmeyer), a twin brother and sister. No miscegenation here.

This production, by Andrei Serban with sets and costumes by Michael Yeargan, originally was conceived for the Welsh National Opera in a co-production with the Netherlands Opera, and it was premiered in Cardiff in 1982. It also appeared with great success at Covent Garden 10 years later. The present video is of a performance given at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, to which the production traveled in 2001 as part of the Bellini bicentennial celebration.
–Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Cecilia Bartoli's new CD features a collection of music that could not be heard in her native Rome at the start of the 18th century due to Papal censorship. Theaters, the Church felt, were places of evil and corruption and operas led people to immorality. But some music-loving senior members of the priesthood asked composers to write oratorios and cantatas–indeed, operas without staging, essentially–for their own private entertainment. Call it what you will, the music is sensational–by turns virtuosic, gentle, and playful–and always expressive: just right, it seems, for Cecilia Bartoli's temperament. The opening aria on the CD, a call for peace in the name of Jesus, is, in fact, a dazzling martial air with trumpets blaring and the voice going through an amazing array of coloratura fireworks.

In 1994, the same Metropolitan Opera put two contrasting pieces of the verismo puzzle side by side—the belated verismo of Puccini’s Il Tabarro and the classic verismo of Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, which had reached the stage some twenty-six years earlier.

This low-budget Philip Glass opera, Les enfants Terribles, is based on a novel and play by Jean Cocteau, forming the third ring in Glass' trilogy of works devoted to the elaborate personal mythology of the great French visionary. Foregoing the controversial and dualistic 1949 film of Les enfants Terribles made by Jean-Pierre Melville, Glass decided to realize the visual element through a collaboration with choreographer Susan Marshall, re-creating Cocteau's story as a "dance opera." Les enfants Terribles is the most compelling Glass score beheld in many years.

For more than two decades, Cecilia Bartoli has undeniably been one of the leading artists in the field of classical music. All over the world, her new operatic roles, her concert programs and recording projects – in exclusivity with Decca – are expected with great eagerness and curiosity. The exceptional amount of 8 million CDs sold, more than 100 weeks ranking in the international pop charts, numerous Golden Discs, four Grammys® (USA), nine Echos and a Bambi (Germany), two Classical Brit Awards (UK), the Victoire de la musique (France) and many other prestigious awards reflect the immense success of for example Opera proibita and her solo albums dedicated to Vivaldi, Gluck and Salieri and that she is firmly established as today’s “best-selling classical artist”.

The RAI Pasquale of 1955 is almost as good as the two Verdis [#4 Otello and #551 Traviata], marred only by Italo Tajo's overdone mugging in the title-part. Alda Noni, remembered affectionately by older opera-goers in the same part at London's Cambridge Theatre in the late 1940s, remains a charming, minxish though now more buxom Norina. Sesto Bruscantini is a model of a Malatesta, Cesare Valletti even better as an Ernesto in the class of his teacher, Tito Schipa. Erede's seasoned conducting and a resourceful staging makes this a delightful experience.

This is, by operatic standards of fidelity, a very faithful musical treatment of Edmond Rostand's classic drama about the swashbuckling poet and swordsman with the big nose. The music is competent but not spectacular; that quality is found in the libretto. The title role is expertly filled by Roberto Alagna, who not only has the best tenor voice in France but also turns out to be an accomplished actor in a demanding role. He is well-supported by a cast that clearly loves the story, its various characters and its often brilliant dialogue.