Don Carlo Blu Ray

This production from Teatro Comunale Luciano Pavarotti Modena is conducted by Fabrizio Ventura. He has performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as well as the Arena di Verona and the Sydney Opera House. The cast is led Giacomo Prestia who has performed with some of the world’s greatest conductors including Abbado, Mehta, Muti, Gatti and Barenboim. He is supported by Mario Malagnini and Cellia Costea.

The highlight of the 2013 Salzburg Festival in Giuseppe Verdi’s bicentennial year, Don Carlo is conducted by Antonio Pappano and stars Jonas Kaufmann in the title role. “With Antonio Pappano in the pit, Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros brought to their interpretations of the leading role rapturous arcs of phrasing and tone that we have not heard for a generation. Verdi's music can weather mediocrity and still provide audiences with enjoyment … but here he was truly honoured as he would have wished.” (The Telegraph)

A red hot ticket at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010/2011 was Donizetti's comic gem, Don Pasquale, with Anna Netrebko reviving Norina, the part that made her a star in New York. Opera summed up the simple truth: ". . . everyone adored her". John Del Carlo's impressive singing and acting chops as the Don are given every boost by Otto Schenk's hilarious staging and James Levine's witty conducting. Leading this opera for the first time at the Met, the renowned maestro demonstrates that his gifts suit Donizetti as perfectly as Wagner. Mariusz Kwiecien and Matthew Polenzani scintillate as Malatesta and Ernesto.

Callas’s only operatic appearances in Germany were Lucia di Lammermoor, with Karajan conducting, in Berlin in 1955, and La sonnambula in Cologne in 1957, but in both 1959 and 1962 she made concert tours of the country, visiting Hamburg twice. The video recordings of her concerts in the city showcase her in a dazzling variety of Italian and French repertoire for both soprano and mezzo-soprano: three consisting Verdi roles (Lady Macbeth, Elvira from Ernani and Elisabetta from Don Carlo); Imogene from Bellini’s Il pirate; Giulia from La vestale; Chimѐne from Massenet’s Le Cid; Verdi’s most explosively dramatic aria for mezzo-soprano—Eboli’s ‘O don fatale’ from Don Carlo; Carmen’s seductive Habanera and Séguedille and, from Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Angelina’s final rondo, which magically combines modest charm and sparkling virtuosity.

For "La forza del destino", Verdi created one of his most famous melodies, the "fate" motif that permeates the whole of the score. Music and action alternate in masterly fashion between large-scale crowd scenes and intimate interiority, in that way illustrating Verdi's real theme: the manner in which fallible human beings are destroyed by a cruel fate.

This DVD is a new production of the Puccini favourite, staged at Salzburg 2012.Tenor Piotr Beczala rocks as Rodolfo, Mimì’s lover. Massimo Cavalletti sings Rodolfo’s friend Marcello with uncommon finesse and beauty of tone. Nino Machaidze is a moving Musetta.The robust orchestration of this popular opera verges on the ethereal as Mimì’s life slips away. Throughout his reading, conductor Daniele Gatti strikes the perfect balance between sentiment and sentimentality, vigour and fragility, the specter of untimely death and the quick and young it haunts. The New York Times wrote, “You don’t often hear Mimì sung with such vivid character and sheer charisma.”

La forza del destino (The Force of Fate), premiered in St. Petersburg 1862, is one of Verdi’s most important opera compositions. Its plot is complicated and combines a sequence of interlaced unfortunate strokes of fate. Donna Leonora is the centre of events, together with her brother Don Carlo di Vargas and her lover Don Alvaro. The story was originally set in 18th century Spain, however the French director Nicolas Joël established the action in a slightly later period, in the time of the Empire, the early 19th century.

Callas first appeared at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1952, as Norma. It became the scene for her last-ever operatic appearance: in June 1965, in a Zeffirelli production of Tosca that had been mounted for her the previous year. This Blu-ray disc includes Act 2 of that production, recorded in February 1964. Callas is joined by that Scarpia of Scarpias, Tito Gobbi, and as Cavaradossi, the dynamic tenor Renato Cioni. The conductor is Carlo Felice Cillario. This disc also contains extracts from a gala concert given two years earlier at Covent Garden. Callas performs Elisabeth’s magnificent Act 5 aria from Don Carlo (recalling a role she sang at La Scala in 1955) and the Habanera and Séguedille from Carmen, evoking one of the great might-have-beens of operatic history, since she never sang the entire role of Carmen on stage.

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.