Flanked by a spectacular cast featuring the role debuts of Nicky Spence (named ‘Personality of the Year’ by BBC Music Magazine in 2022) and Simona Šaturová, the conductor Ben Glassberg (Music Director of the Opéra de Rouen Normandie) once again demonstrates his Mozartian temperament. This late masterpiece (written at the same time as Die Zauberflöte) places his musical genius at the service of a plot centred on the complexity of emotions, passionate love and the absurd disaster of betrayal.
The labels that are now gathered under the Universal Classics umbrella have a pretty impressive scorecard in the area of classical compilations. We've seen The Greatest Opera Show on Earth, The Yellow Guide: Classical Music, Best of the Millennium, and now there's The No. 1 Opera Album. But that's no surprise, since Universal has some of the finest interpreters in its catalogue to draw from. This two-CD set (at the price of one), for example, brings together the likes of Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Luciano Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, and many more. Yet the other key to a successful compilation is canny anthologizing, and here again, you have a nice selection to give you a smattering of opera's heavyweights from the Italian, German, and French repertory (there's even a step outside the standard framework with an aria from Dvorák's lovely Rusalka). Ranging from 1959 to 1997, the choices from back catalogue will doubtless be the entry ticket for many into this grandest of the arts.
This oddball Philip Glass production, featuring Iggy Pop and hallucinogenic paraphrasing of Maharishi-era Beatles tracks, really is a more jolly and entertaining affair than you might expect from a Charles Manson-themed rock-opera. Some fantastic gems in here, and if you're a Beatles fan prepare to have the top of your skull blown off.
This SIX CD collection of 101 favorite tracks is the perfect introduction to the world of opera, including the worlds most famous and popular tenor and soprano arias, duets and choruses. With a running time of over 7 hours of music this box set provides excellent value for money. This delightful collection includes everyones favorite opera highlights, from the lyricism of Puccinis Nessun dorma! and O mio babbino caro, to the power and might of Verdis Anvil Chorus and Wagners Ride of the Valkyries. Features some of the greatest opera singers of the last 50 years, including Luciano Pavarotti, Dame Joan Sutherland, Jussi Bjorling, Kiri Te Kanawa, Placido Domingo and Renata Tebaldi.
Le toréador, ou L'accord parfait (The Toreador, or The Perfect Agreement) is an opéra comique in two acts by the French composer Adolphe Adam with a libretto by Thomas-Marie-François Sauvage. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris on May 18, 1849. It was a huge success and the work regularly appeared in the repertoire of the Opéra-Comique until 1869.
Être Dieu: opéra-poème, audiovisuel et cathare en six parties (French for "Being God: a Cathar Audiovisual Opera-Poem in Six Parts") is a self-proclaimed "opera-poem" written by Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, based on a libretto by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán with music by French avant-garde musician Igor Wakhévitch. It was originally published in 1985.
Orange Mountain Music and the Metropolitan Opera are proud to announce the release of Philip Glass’s opera SATYAGRAHA across a variety of media. SATYAGRAHA portrays Gandhi’s years in South Africa during the time he developed his tools for social transformation through nonviolence. Captured at the 2011 revival of the work, the production was directed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch and starred Richard Croft as Gandhi along with a stellar cast with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra & Chorus under Dante Anzolini. Sung in Sanskrit from texts drawn from the Bhagavad Gita, the opera dramatically portrays the vocal text was by Constance DeJong with book by Philip Glass and Constance DeJong. The Met Opera’s co-production with the English National Opera was heard in New York in 2008 and 2011 and in London in 2007, 2013, and 2013.