Ngrid Kappelle, Håkon Austbø Messiaen: Mélodies Complete

Nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for "Best Opera Recording", Olivier Messiaen's St. Francis of Assisi, the grandest grand opera since Wagner's Parsifal, came into being in 1983, during the first Reagan Administration, when Men at Work topped the pop charts. Somehow, it has already acquired a historical aura, as if it were an antiquity whose head and paws are only now emerging from the sand. José van Dam, who created the demanding title role in 1983, is a powerful presence in this live recording from the 1998 Salzburg Festival, and Dawn Upshaw―the lone female soloist in this baritone-dominated work―is appropriately radiant as the Angel. Conducted by Kent Nagano, who studied the score with the composer, this can be recommended to fans of Messiaen or to anyone interested in modern opera as a truly definitive recording.