Verdi Alzira

Alzira is based on the play by Voltaire and displays the composer's maturity through glowing lyric moments, and the weaving together of complex emotional and musical strands.
All act with conviction as they are singing and bring good expression and diction to their roles…In the title role, Junko Saito sings with warm expressive tone, good diction and also acts with conviction. (MusicWeb International)

Decca proudly presents the Complete Works by Giuseppe Verdi in a single 75 CD box set. From the ever-popular “Aida” to the obscure “Alzira,” all 28 of Giuseppe Verdi's operas are here as well as his Sacred Works, Arias, Songs, Ballet Music, the String quartet and other rarities.

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

At the risk of being proclaimed a heretic by opera lovers in general and Verdi afficonados in particular, I have to declare that this work by the great Italian maestro has to be his worst; well, if we were to rank his 28 operas, one of them has to be at the bottom - this is it! Surprising, because when it was originally produced in 1845, Verdi had already mounted 8 operas, including the far-superior "Nabucco", so, one would think that he was progressing steadily - and he was, because a few years later he produced a trilogy of great operas ("Rigoletto", "Il Trovatore", and "La Traviata"); there is no way, whether storywise or musically, to disguise the fact that with "Alzira", the reknowned composer hit the proverbial bump in the road to musical immortality - and he himself knew it when he called it "ugly"… By Cy Reese

Decca is celebrating the 200th anniversary of the supreme master of Italian opera Giuseppe Verdi’s birth in matchless style by releasing in February 2013 a 75-CD box containing his entire canon of works.

Karajan’s Deutsche Grammophon complete recordings is recorded on chronological order. From the “Magic Flute” overture of the 1938 recording used as first recording to the recording of the last in 1989, and the Symphony No.7 of Bruckner. There is no selling separately. It becomes ordering limited production.