Boito Rudel

Roberto Devereux, the last and probably the greatest opera Gaetano Donizetti composed for the San Carlo Opera House in Naples, is based on the intense, tangled relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex, who was beheaded for treason in 1601. The role of the queen is one of the strongest in the bel canto soprano repertoire. In this video (essentially a New York City Opera production transplanted to the Filene Center at Wolf Trap performing arts center outside Washington, D.C.), Beverly Sills gives one of the great performances of her career.

Arrigo Boito's treatment of the Faust legend is imaginative yet also faithful to Goethe's original conception, and the score is memorable for its rich orchestral sounds, beautifully punctuated with lyrical passages and choral interludes. Robert Carsen's sumptuous, post-modern production of Mefistofele is a gloriously decadent and theatrically stunning realisation, and the San Francisco Opera's performance has been unanimously acclaimed in both Paris and San Francisco. Samuel Ramey, in the title role, has won both critical and overwhelming popular approval.

Anna Bolena premiered in 1830 and was Donizetti’s first great success–and it remains one of his finest works. Aside from his usual endless fount of melodies, we find through-composed scenes wherein recitative seamlessly melds into arioso and into aria or ensemble. Anna manages to come across as a real character, as does the unfortunate Jane Seymour, who has the (bad) luck to be Henry VIII’s new love; and Henry’s music, too, is composed effectively for this royal villain. Less successfully portrayed but still with a couple of fine arias and some stunning ensemble music is Anna’s brother Percy. He’s an earthbound character but his music is wonderful and difficult (it was composed for the legendary Rubini).

Ever since the operas of Handel started to return to the stage in the 1920s, Giulio Cesare has been one of the pieces held in high regard. Always known by name through the most famous of Cleopatra’s arias (”V’adoro, pupille” and “Piangerò la sorte mia”) and often produced successfully in Germany, it has gathered a reputation as the best of the composer’s operas-the reasons for which can now be verified by anyone who acquires RCA Victor’s current release of the highly successful New York City Opera production.

The dynamic mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos was born into a singing family; her Greek father was a tenor, and her German mother a soprano. Born in New York, Troyanos studied at the Juilliard School with Hans J. Heinz, while singing occasionally in the New York area (she was a member of the original chorus for the Broadway production of The Sound of Music). In April 1963 she made her operatic debut with the New York City Opera, in the New York premiere of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. She remained with the City Opera for two years.

These are a product of DECCA/Mexico for the local market , Victor Suzan, label manager at Universal Music Mexico ,he resurrected 50 recitals from DECCA´s and PHILIPS´ vaults that have NEVER been released on cd ANYWHERE!!!!

Best-known today as the librettist of Verdi’s final Shakespearean masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff, the multitalented Arrigo Boito was also a fine composer in his own right. Hugely ambitious in scope, and some 20 years in the making, his first (and only completed) opera, Mefistofele, sets out to encompass nothing less than the whole of Goethe’s vast poetic drama Faust (parts I and II), and is considered the very central work of his phase between Verdi and Puccini. Making his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper, director Roland Schwab (a protégé of the legendary Ruth Berghaus) plays devil’s advocate by setting the opera in a nightmarish atmosphere. The exceptional cast features Rene Pape, Joseph Calleja, Kristine Opolais, and Karine Babajanyan.