WAGNER – DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN       OPUS ARTE OA CD9000B D

Richard Wagner’s hugely ambitious opera Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) took more than a quarter of a century to create. Based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and taking as its subject a mythic-symbolic history of the world from creation to its destruction and redemption, this may be the most challenging and monolithic piece of music ever written. The controversial composer was an anti-semitic ego-maniac given to excessive gambling and womanising, but he was also single-mindedly ruthless in creating work that had a revolutionary influence on the course of Western music. Der Ring des Nibelungen is his largest and most famous composition and consists of four operas, three of which last for about four hours, and was originally intended for performance over four successive nights. Loosely based on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied, Wagner’s Ring tells the story of a magic ring made by the dwarf Alberich from gold stolen from the Rhine. The complicated plot also involves the god Wotan, hero Siegfried and a wild horsewoman of the air, Brünnhilde. The music is richly textured, and grows in complexity as the cycle proceeds. Wagner wrote for an orchestra of gargantuan proportions, including a greatly enlarged brass section with new instruments invented especially for the work. The Bayreuth Festspielhaus was constructed for this work to be performed in, with a specially designed stage that allows singers voices to blend with the huge orchestra without straining - essential for such long performances. This splendid 14-disc CD box set, the first ever Opus Arte CD release, features live recordings from the impressive 2008 Bayreuth Festival production. Christian Thielemann conducts the Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra superbly and the soloists include Michelle Breedt, Albert Dohmen as Wotan, Stephen Gould as Siegried, the excellent Kwangchul Youn, Hans-Peter Konig, Linda Watson as Brünnhilde and Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde. ‘Thielemann creates a musical experience epic in its scale and inexorable in its apocalyptic, shattering power.’ - The Guardian.

HANDEL - TESEO       CARUS 83.437

George Frideric Handel’s third London opera, the extraordinary Teseo, was intended to follow the success of Rinaldo after the unpopular Il pastor fido. The only by Handel opera that is in five acts, it has an Italian libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym based on Philippe Quinault’s Thésée and premiered at the Queen’s Theatre in London in 1713, receiving an additional 12 performances. Between 1713 and 1984 there were only two revivals, the first being in Göttingen in 1947. The story of the opera focuses on Theseus, who has returned in disguise to Athens, ruled by his capricious father Aegeus. Both men are in love - or lust - with the same woman, Agilea. So Aegeus tries to break his earlier promise to marry the enchantress Medea. Teseo is a gripping drama of sorcery and desperate love, with dazzling arias and colourful scoring for strings, oboes, recorders, bassoons and trumpets. The opera was an attempt to merge the French and Italian operatic traditions and contains some fabulous music as well as a superbly wonderfully dramatic role for the sorceress Medea. To succeed, Teseo needs strong singers and this recording on three CDs features a fine cast that includes Franco Fagioli as the Athenian General, Teseo, Jutta Bohnert as his beloved Agilea, Kai Wessel as Agilea’s guardian Egeo, and American mezzo-soprano Helene Schneidermann as the formidable Medea. Teseo is not often performed or recorded but this excellent performance reveals a winning blend of mythical and human characters. Helene Schneidermann is superb and Konrad Junghänel conducts the Stuttgart State Opera Orchestra with all the required drama and intensity. ‘It hardly gets better than this’ - Die Welt.

MOZART - LA CLEMENZA DI TITO             TELDEC 2564688308

La Clemenza di Tito was Mozart’s last great opera, written to celebrate the Coronation of the Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia in 1791. Its final performance in Prague coincided with the first performance in Vienna of The Magic Flute, only three months before the composer’s death. The libretto is based on an opera seria by the brilliant Italian-born librettist Metastasio (Pietro Trapassi), who had worked with Gluck, Handel and Haydn. Less often performed than the more accessible Da Ponte trilogy, La Clemenza di Tito is a powerful, inventive and dramatic work. Mozart wrote some of his most beautiful music to create an opera seria of great nobility - a humane reflection on relationships, power and forgiveness. This 2-CD set features a terrific 1994 recording by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Chorus and Orchstra of the Zurich Opera House, with Philip Langridge as a dramatically noble Tito Vespasiano, Lucia Popp (a charming Vitellia), Ruth Ziesak (Servilia),  Ann Murray (Sesto), Delores Ziegler (Annio) and László Polgár (Publio). This is one of a series of excellent new opera releases by Teldec that also includes 3-CD Mozart box sets featuring Harnoncourt: Le Nozze di Figaro (with Thomas Hampson, Carlotte Margiono, Barbara Bonney and Anton Scharinger) and Cosi Fan tutte (again with Hampson and Margiono). Carlo Rizzi conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and Ambrosian Singers in Verdi’s La Traviata, with the wonderful Slovakian soprano Edita Gruberova as Violetta. Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel features Donald Runnicles and the  Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, with Jennifer Larmore and Ruth Ziesak as the poor woodcutter’s children.

PUCCINI - LA RONDINE       NAXOS 8.660253-54

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was born in Lucca, Italy, in 1858. His father died when he was five years old and Giacomo was sent to study piano with his uncle Fortunato Magi, who considered him to be a poor and undisciplined student and was later educated at the Milan Conservatoire under Ponchielli and Buzzini. Puccini subsequently took the position of church organist and choir master in Lucca, but it was not until he saw a performance of Verdi’s Aida that he became inspired to be an opera composer, starting with Le Villi. His real success began with the production of Manon Lescaut in 1893 and in all Puccini wrote twelve operas, although died before he could complete the last, Turandot. His three-act opera La Rondine (The Swallow) was first performed at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo (or the Théâtre du Casino) in Monte Carlo in 1917. Although Puccini himself rated this work highly it has been produced and recorded far less frequently than some of his more famous compositions, perhaps because it is sometimes considered more of an operetta. La Rondine has an appealing score and similarities in plot and characters to La Bohème (the story is set twenty years later than Bohème, in the reign of Louis Napoleon III). Puccini wrote three versions of La Rondine and this double CD features an innovative production at the 2007 Torre del Lago Puccini Festival that is in effect a fourth version, combining the first two acts of the first version with Lorenzo Ferrero’s 1994 orchestration of parts of the Finale of Act 3 of the incomplete third version (1921), together with Ruggero’s Act 1 Romanza from the second version (1920). The Festival’s Orchestra and Chorus are conducted by Alberto Veronesi and the soloists in this vibrant recording of one of Puccini’s most appealing and accessible works include Svetla Vassileva, Maya Dashuk, Fabio Sartori and Emanuele Giannino.

STRAUSS - DIE FLEDERMAUS         TELDEC 2564-69125-6

Johann Strauss’s frothy masterpiece Die Fledermaus (The Bat) is one of the world’s best-loved operettas, second only to Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow. The original sources for Die Fledermaus were a farce by German playwright Julius Roderich Benedix, Das Gefängnis (The Prison) and a French vaudeville play, Le réveillon, by Offenbach’s official poets, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Max Steiner, who was director of the Theater an der Wien, one of the leading theatres in Vienna, sensed that he could make money by producing stage works from the pen of the city’s most popular composer but Strauss early operettas were mostly unsuccessful. It was when Steiner offered Strauss a text that had been discarded by Offenbach that he found the inspiration to begin Die Fledermaus. An experienced man of the theatre, Richard Genée, was brought in to make the story more Viennese and Strauss is said to have completed the work in just 43 days. The operetta premièred on in 1874 at the Theater an der Wien and has been part of the regular operetta repertoire ever since. In this recording, the excellent Nikolaus Harnoncourt puts the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra through its paces, with the Chorus of De Nederlandse Opera and a sterling cast that includes the stylish German tenor Werner Hollweg, Solvakian coloratura soprano Edita Gruberova, Christian Boesch, Marjana Lipovšek, Josef Protschka and Anton Scharinger. This double CD is one of a great value series from Warner Classics featuring Harnoncourt’s memorable recordings on the Teldec label. They include another Johann Strauss work, Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron), as well as Beethoven’s Fidelio and operas by Weber (Der Freischutz) and Mozart (Die Zauberflote, Lucia Silla and Idomeneo).

VERDI – IL TROVATORE               OPERA FANATIC  OF5

Giuseppe Verdi’s four-act opera Il Trovatore (The Troubadour), with an Italian libretto by Salvatore Cammarano based on a play by Antonio García Gutiérrez, received its first performance at the Teatro Apollo in Rome in 1853. In 1857, Verdi revised the opera for Paris as Le Trouvère and added a ballet. Despite its complicated and sometimes incomprehensible plot, Il Trovatore has since become one of the most popular works in the standard operatic repertoire.  Set in the mountains of Medieval Northern Spain, Il Trovatore is a warrior named Manrico. His enemy is led by the Count di Luna, who loves Leonora, one of the queen’s ladies in waiting. According to Ferrando, the captain of the guard, an old woman had been accused twenty years earlier of casting an evil eye over the Count’s brother. She was burnt at the stake and the subsequent disappearance of the boy, followed by the discovery of a child’s skeleton in the ashes, led to the conclusion that the woman’s daughter had thrown him into the flames to avenge her mother. Meanwhile, back in the present, Leonora does not love the Count, but the troubador Manrico, raised by the gypsy Azucena. Manrico is not only the Count’s rival, but as a follower of the rebellious Count d’Urgell, he is also the Count’s sworn enemy. In the Second Act, Azucena tells Manrico her version of the terrible event twenty years ago and the plot becomes even more complicated. The opera’s libretto may call for a considerable suspension of disbelief but its gloriously melodic score features such riches as the ‘Anvil’ Chorus, the ‘Miserere’ scene, two great tenor arias and a beautiful baritone aria. This splendid double CD features a recording made in Berlin in 1961 by the Chorus and Orchestra of Rome Opera, conducted by Oliviero de Fabritiis. Soloists include the great Franco Corelli as Manrico, Italian soprano Mirella Parutto, mezzo-soprano Fedora Barbieri as the formidable Azucena, Agostino Ferrin as Fernando, and baritone Ettore Bastianini as Count di Luna. The characters burn with the passions of love, hatred, sexual desire and revenge that eventually destroy them.

EDWARD RUSHTON - THE SHOPS         NMC D146

The young British composer Edward Rushton studied at Chetham’s School of Music, King’s College, Cambridge, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and the Zurich Conservatoire. His composition teachers have included Robin Holloway and James MacMillan. Currently based in Zurich, he works as a freelance composer and pianist. Concert works have been commissioned for and played by such groups as the Endymion Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Schubert Ensemble, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the London Symphony Orchestra. His refreshing and very funny new opera, The Shops, is described as ‘part satire on rampant consumerism, part psychological thriller’. Its central character, Christoph Schmalhans, is an obsessive stamp collector. He manages to steal prize examples from museums with the aid of his girlfriend Francesca, who distracts attention by causing scenes. His activities eventually attract the interest of the police and psychologists. In between, there is a running commentary on the phenomenon of shopaholics, along with a song-and-dance number from members of a mutual support group. Adventurously scored for five clarinets, violin, two cellos, double bass and percussion, The Shops has a sharply lyrical libretto by Rushton’s wife, Dagny Gioulami. In this recording, made with funding from the Peter Moores Foundation, the dynamic Opera Group is conducted by Patrick Bailey and the outstanding cast includes Darren Abrahams (tenor) as Christoph, Anna Dennis (soprano) as Francesca, Phyllis Cannan (contralto), Richard Burkhard (baritone), Louise Mott (mezzo-soprano) and Paul Reeves (bass). ‘A lemon sorbet of an opera’ - The Times.

HANDEL/MENDELSSOHN - ACIS AND GALATEA       CARUS SACD 83.420

George Frideric Handel first composed his Acis and Galatea as a masque in 1718, setting it to a libretto by John Gay, Alexander Pope and John Hughes based on John Dryden’s translation of Ovid published a year earlier. Galatea, a semi-divine nymph, is in love with the shepherd Acis, who is friends with Damon, another shepherd. Along comes a monstrous giant, Polyphemus, who falls in love with Galatea. Galatea rejects Polyphemus, as she loves Acis. In anger, Polyphemus kills Acis. Galatea is distraught, but her attendants remind her that she is divine, so she turns him into a fountain, making him immortal. In 1732 Handel revised and expanded the work to three acts and presented it in London, after which in various forms it became the composer’s most widely performed dramatic work during his lifetime. This version is a recently discovered arrangement by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, recorded at its world premiere during the Göttingen International Handel Festival in 2008. Unlike Mozart’s widely published version of 1788, Mendelssohn’s arrangement existed only in manuscript form and despite its excellence was heard only in England during the second half of the 19th century. The manuscript was rediscovered and restored by the Göttinger Händel-Gesellschaft, and performing material prepared in collaboration with the Carus Verlag Stuttgart. This landmark recording features Nicholas McGegan conducting the Festspiel Orchester Göttingen and NDR Chor, with Julia Kleiter (soprano) outstanding as Galatea, Christoph Prégardien (tenor) as Acis, Michael Slattery (tenor) and Wolf Matthias Friedrich (bass). Mendelssohn’s re-orchestrated version gives an added depth to Handel’s beautiful pastoral entertainment, encompassing both love and tragedy.

PORGY & BESS - GERSHWIN         AUDITE 23405

George Gershwin's ‘American folk opera’ Porgy and Bess was first performed in New York in 1935 with a cast of classically trained African-American singers. With a libretto by DuBose Heyward (based on his novel Porgy) and lyrics by Ira Gershwin, it’s set in fictitious Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1920s and tells the story of Porgy, a crippled black man, and his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her pimp, and Sportin’ Life, the drug dealer. The groundbreaking music incorporates blues and jazz elements into the classical art form of opera, though the work was not generally accepted as a legitimate opera until 1976, when the Houston Grand Opera staged a triumphant production of Gershwin’s complete score. A 1952 revival by Blevins Davis and Robert Breen had previously restored much of the music cut from the original Broadway production, including many recitatives, and divided the opera into two acts, making a more operatic form. This double CD captures that legendary 1952 production and is the only official release remastered from the original master tapes in the DLR archives. The conductor is Alexander Smallens, who also conducted the original New York premiere, and the superb cast is headed by the young Leontyne Price as Bess and William Warfield as Porgy, with Cab Calloway (Sportin’ Life), John McCurry (Crown) and Helen Colbert (Clara). This a sensational rediscovery of a recording that reveals the musical and dramatic intensity of a work that Gershwin considered his finest composition. ‘There is singing, shouting, crying, arguing, fighting, intermittent praying, dancing, howling, stamping. Nobody seems to be acting but simply offering their unique temperament, vitality and sheer existence.’ - Berliner Kurier, 1952. This atmospheric release is an indispensable addition to the discography of a thrilling masterpiece.

BIZET – CARMEN       AUDITE 95.497

Ferenc Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Ernst von Dohnányi. He had a meteoric rise to fame, making his first appearance as a conductor at age 15, and became music director of the newly formed RIAS Symphony Orchestra in Germany in 1949. He specialised in the music of Mozart and Beethoven and conducted Carmen relatively seldom in the opera house, though more frequently in the recording studio. This CD from audite features the first production that he recorded for the RIAS Berlin in 1951, containing a compilation of key scenes from Bizet’s ever-popular opera Carmen. The orchestra sound is slender and transparent and he picks fresh but not exaggerated tempi. His choice of soloists – including mezzo-soprano Margarete Klose (Carmen), tenor Rudolf Schock (Don José) and soprano Elfriede Trötschel (Micaëla) - reveals marked contrasts in character. Fricsay considered recordings to be a synthesis of the arts in which audio engineering played a major role, and this recording demonstrates the extent of evocative effect that could be achieved by monaural means. Fricsay’s interpretation possesses a surprising modernity and this is a fascinating historic recording one of the world’s most popular operas.

GOUNOD - FAUST       DIVINE ART DDH27810

Charles Gounod’s five act opera Faust was written to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Carré’s play Faust et Marguerite which itself was loosely based on the first part of Goethe's Faust. The opera debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris in 1859 but was not well-received. Recitatives were added to replace the original spoken dialogue before the opera was successfully revived in Paris in 1862, after which it became the most frequently performed opera at the Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra. It also went on to become a staple of the international repertory, despite a full production requiring a large chorus and elaborate sets. Faust was first performed in Italy at La Scala, Milan, in 1862, with an Italian libretto by Achille De Lauzières. The recorded version here follows this edition closely, omitting the ballet scene and with minor cuts in the Waltz, Love Duet and Soldiers’ Chorus as well as in the final scene. The recording was made by the Gramophone Company’s Milan office over a two-week period in June, 1920, and was originally issued on twenty 12” discs. Though recorded acoustically, these discs were in mint condition and careful restoration has been carried out to avoid digital distortion, providing remarkably good overall sound quality that allows the excellent performances to shine through. The booklet with this double CD contains the Italian libretto as well as a synopsis of each act and biographical details of the main performers, who include Giuliano Romagnoli (Faust), Gemma Bosini (Margherita), Fernando Autori (Mefistofele), Gilda Timitz (Siebel), Napoleone Limonta (Wagner), Adolfo Pacini (Valentino) and Nelda Garrone (Marta). The Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala is conducted by Carlo Sabajno. This is the first time that this important historical recording has appeared on CD and it’s a memorable version of one of the most popular, tuneful and sophisticated operas ever composed.

BELLINI – COMPLETE OPERAS       DYNAMIC CDS 552

Born in Catania, Sicily, Italy, Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was a child prodigy from a highly musical family. It was said that he could sing an air of Valentino Fioravanti at eighteen months, began studying music theory at two and the piano at three, and by the age of five could play well. His first composition dates from his sixth year. He was born in 1801 and died, prematurely, in 1835 at the age of only 34. Famous for his range and wonderfully flowing melodic lines, Bellini was the quintessential composer of Bel canto opera. Early works such as Adelson e Salvini and Bianca e Fernando were received with great success and led to a commission by La Scala for the opera Il Pirata. His next six operas of note were all performed in the prestigious La Scala: La Straniera, Zaira, Romeo and Juliet, Ernani, La Sonnambula and Norma. Bellini’s last two operas, Beatrice di Tranda and I Puritani, were also highly successful, but he is mainly known today for the sublime Norma, written at the peak of his career. This magnificent box set of 24 audio CDs and 1 CD-ROM includes all Bellini's operas - the first time that a complete edition has ever been released. The artists include Montserrat Caballé, Maria Callas, Patrizia Ciofi and Dimitra Theodossiou, with conductors Leonard Bernstein, Richard Bonynge and Georges Prêtre. In addition to the complete set of works, the box includes two bonus historical recordings of La Sonnambula featuring Maria Callas and Norma with Montserrat Cabballé in the title role. This is voluptuous, mesmerizing music by one of the world’s greatest opera composers.

PUCCINI – LA BOHEME         TELARC 80697

Giacomo Puccini’s four-act opera La Bohème is one of the composer’s best known works as well as one of the most performed operas in the standard repertoire - second only to Madama Butterfly, also by Puccini. The Italian libretto is by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de Bohème by Henri Murger. The opera’s première was in Turin on 1896 at the Teatro Regio (now the Teatro Regio Torino), conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. This two-disc set (for the price of one) from Telarc features Robert Spano conducting the award-winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in a brilliant recording of Puccini’s much-loved opera. La Bohème tells of friendship, love and loss in a community of bohemians in 19th century Paris. For its time this story story was the antithesis of the usual elements of melodrama (intrigue, violence, jealous rage, assassinations, etc.). Instead, La Bohème provided a subtle, intimate and psychologically profound view of the intertwined lives of a colourful group of young individuals. The music is some of the most moving music ever written, and it’s performed admirably here by a talented young cast that includes sopranos Norah Amsellem (Mimi) and Georgia Jarman (Musetta), American tenor Marcus Haddock (Rodolfo), the brilliant Italian baritone Fabio Maria Capitanucci (Marcello), Christopher Schaldenbrand (Schaunard), bass Denis Sedov (Colline) and basso buffo Kevin Glavin (Benoit/Alcindoro).

JUSTIN DELLO JOIO - BLUE MOUNTAIN       BRIDGE 9273

Justin Dello Joio was born in 1955 in New York City and is the son of the great American composer, Norman Dello Joio. Justin in fact represents the seventh generation of composers in the Dello Joio family. He has received many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ highest honour, the Academy Award in Music. His music has been championed by ensembles ranging from the Primavera String Quartet to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He is currently faculty composer-in-residence in the Department of Music and Performing Arts at New York University’s Steinhardt School, and was named composer of the year 2007 by the Classical Recording Foundation. His one act opera, Blue Mountain, was commissioned by Det Norske Blaseensemble and premiered in October 2007 in Oslo, Norway, as part of the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival. A recording made in performance there is now released on this CD. Written to commemorate the hundredth year of Edvard Grieg’s death, Blue Mountain is based on descriptions of the Norwegian composer’s final days and includes the roles of Grieg, his wife Nina, his physician, and his friend and champion, Percy Grainger. Dello Joio’s exciting and colourful score weaves in references to several Grieg works, including his Violin Sonata in C minor, one of his Lyric Pieces for Piano (Evening in the Mountains), a brief snatch of Peer Gynt, and references to his Piano Concerto. The Norwegian Wind Ensemble is conducted by Kenneth Jeans and the excellent soloists include Nils Harald Sødal, Njål Sparbo, Marianne Andersen and Torben Grue.

SCIARRINO - LOHENGRIN     COL LEGNO WWE 20264

The prolific Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino was born Palermo, Sicily, in 1947 and began experimenting with music at the age of twelve. Essentially a self-taught composer, he moved to Rome and studied electronic music at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia before going to Milan to teach at the conservatory. Since 1982 he has concentrated mostly on his compositional career and currently lives in Città di Castello, Umbria, although he sometimes still teaches in Florence and Bologna. Sciarrino’s work is avant-garde and includes pieces for wind instruments, five piano sonatas and several operas or theatrical works. He incorporates isolated sonorities, extended playing techniques, frequent silences and ironic references to other music (such as American pop music) or stories (such as in Lohengrin). The latter is an operatic monodrama first seen in 1982 in Milan and then revised by Sciarrino in a new version premiered in two years later in Catanzaro. The opera is less than an hour long and is loosely based on the plot of Wagner’s opera of the same name. The story is seen from the point of view of Elsa, a vestal virgin who is accused of fornication. Lohengrin marries Elsa, but on their wedding night, despite Elsa’s attempts to seduce him, he refuses to consummate the marriage. Eventually one of the pillows changes into a swan and Lohengrin returns to the moon on its back. The beguiling opera ends with the revelation that Elsa is actually a patient in a psychiatric ward. This first-ever live recording of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Lohengrin, in the production performed at the Tyrolean Festival Erl, features soprano Marianne Pousseur as Elsa with the excellent Ensemble Risognanze conducted by Tito Ceccherini. Also included are the instrumental piece Vento d’ombra and two fantastic piano pieces, Due notturni crudeli, played by Alfonso Alberti.

ZELLER - THE BIRDSELLER           ALBANY TROY 1012/13

Austrian composer Carl Zeller (1842-1898) was the only child of physician Johann Zeller, who died before his son’s first birthday. Zeller sang in the Vienna Boys’ Choir and studied law and composition before working as a civil servant for most of his life. He composed songs, choral works and several operettas, by far the best-known of which is Der Vogelhändler (The Birdseller). This three act operetta with a libretto by Moritz West and Ludwig Held (based on Varin and Biéville’s Ce que deviennent les roses) was a great success when first performed in 1891 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna with the famous Viennese actor and singer, Alexander Girardi, in the title role. It has a familiar boy-meets-girl plot, set in that never-never land of operetta where mistaken identities are as common as pine trees and nightingales sing on cue. The Birdseller has one of the most captivating scores ever written and its best-known melody, the beautiful ‘Roses in Tyrol’, ends Act I. This excellent Ohio Light Opera revival is conducted by Nathaniel Motta and features Boyd Mackus (King Karl), Jack Beetle (Count Stanislaus), Joshua Kohl (Adam), Julie Wright (Princess Marie), Paul Hindemith (Baron Weps), Robin Famsley (Christel) and Sandra Ross (Countess Adelaide). The Birdseller is an uplifting, nostalgic work that represents the final great flowering of nineteenth century operetta. Recorded live, it is here given a highly enjoyable and lively English language performance at the 2007 Ohio Light Opera Festival.

PUCCINI - MADAMA BUTTERFLY             DYNAMIC CDS 599/1-2

Giacomo Puccini’s poignant opera Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly), with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, was based on a book by John Luther Long and a play by David Belasco. The first version, premiered 1904 at La Scala in Milan, had only two acts and was poorly received. The revised version split the long second act in half and proved more acceptable, although the two-act version is still preferred in Italy. Sometimes criticised for its stereotyping of ‘passive’ Asians or reflecting the supposed anti-American tone of the play on which it is based, Madame Butterfly nevertheless remains one of the most popular works in the operatic repertoire. This double CD captures a magnificent production of Puccini’s timeless Japanese tragedy recorded in 2004, on the 100th anniversary of its premiere, at the prestigious Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, Viareggio, Italy. The Orchestra and Chorus Città Lirica are conducted by the great tenor Placido Domingo and the international cast includes the marvelous Italian diva Daniela Dessí (Cio-Cio-san), Fabio Armiliato (B.F.Pinkerton) and Juan Pons (Sharpless). This release also comes with a catalogue celebrating Dynamic’s admirable thirty years of CD and DVD production, divided into coloured sections for easy reference.

LEHAR - THE LAND OF SMILES     TELARC 80419

The Land of Smiles (Das Land des Lächelns) was one of Franz Lehár’s later works. With a German libretto by Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Löhner, this bittersweet ‘romantic’ three-act operetta was originally called Die gelbe Jacke (The Yellow Jacket) and was presented, unsuccessfully, at the Theatre an der Wien in 1923. Lehár later revised the work under its new title and this version was performed in Berlin in 1929. Lavishly staged, the show was built around the performance of the famous Austrian tenor Richard Tauber, a friend of Lehár’s, for whom he customarily wrote a ‘Tauber song’ or ‘Tauberlied’ - a signature tune exploiting the exceptional qualities of his voice - in most of his later operettas. On this occasion it was the famous Dein ist mein ganzes Herz (You are my heart’s delight). The Land of Smiles was also produced in New York, Vienna and London, where Tauber again appeared. The demanding lead role on this recording is sylishly sung by Jerry Hadley. Performed in English by an impressive cast, including Nancy Gustafson and Naomi Itami, under the assured direction of Richard Bonynge, this is a rare chance to discover one of Franz Lehár’s neglected masterpieces.

HANDEL - IL TRIONFO/TESEO/AMADIGI         WARNER 2564-69651-9

George Frideric Handel was perhaps the greatest opera composer of the first half of the 18th century. These works became neglected following Handel’s death but now, more than 250 years later, they are receiving much greater attention, with many stage revivals and studio recordings. This splendid 6-CD box set features Les Musiciens du Louvre and their award winning conductor and founder, Marc Minkowsky. Established in 1982, Minkowski’s orchestra is dedicated to the subtle art that is French Baroque music and has also championed several contemporary French operas. This release includes three of of Handel’s lesser known operas: Il Trionfo, Teseo and Amadigi. Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno was one of Handel’s earliest oratorios, dealing with such matters as beauty, time, pleasure and truth, and revealing the imagination and musical skill of the young composer. Teseo, with its vengeful sorceress, Medea (superbly sung here by Della Jones), is reminiscent of Rinaldo. The ‘magic opera’ Amadigi features another sorceress, Melissa (Eiddwen Harrhy), who attempts to use magic to gain the love of Amadigi (the brilliant French contralto Nathalie Stutzmann). Minkowsi and his excellent ensemble, together with a cast of talented young singers, have created period performances of great inventiveness and verve.

WAGNER – GOTTERDAMMERUNG     MELBA  MR 301099-102

Richard Wagner’s vast work, Der Ring des Nibelungen (‘The Ring of the Nibelung’), comprises four full-length operas and is arguably the most extraordinary achievement in the history of opera. Götterdämmerung (‘Twilight of the Gods’) is the last of the four operas received and its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1876 as part of the first complete performance of the Ring. The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war of the gods which brings about the end of the world. However, as with the rest of the Ring, Wagner’s account of this apocalypse diverges significantly from his Old Norse sources. This splendid four-SACD release from Melba Recordings makes musical history by completing the first ever Ring Cycle to be recorded in state-of-the-art Super Audio 5.1 surround sound. Recorded live in Adelaide in 2004, Melba’s Ring captures all the excitement and energy of the acclaimed State Opera of South Australia production in studio-perfect sound that has won praise from critics and public alike. The State Opera of South Australia Corus and a trimphant Adelaide Symphony Orchestra are conducted by Asher Fisch, with an outstanding cast that includes the American tenor Timothy Mussard (Siegfried), Lisa Gasteen (thrilling as Brünnhilde), Duccio dal Monte (Hagen), Jonathan Summers  (Gunther), Joanna Cole  (as Gunther’s siste, Gutrune),  John Wegner (Alberich),  Elizabeth Campbell  (Waltraute), Natalie Jones (Woglinde), Donna-Maree Dunlop (Wellgunde)  and Zan McKendree-Wright (Flosshilde). ‘Sensationally recorded…the best-sounding cycle on the market to date, bar none’ - Gramophone Magazine.

VIVALDI - ORLANDO FURIOSO           CPO 777 095-2

Antonio Vivaldi’s three-act opera, Orlando Furioso, is set to an Italian libretto by Grazio Braccioli based on an epic poem of the same name by Ludovico Ariosto. This Italian poet lived from 1474 to 1533 and worked on Orlando Furioso for almost 30 years, not publishing it in its final form until a year before his death. This celebrated narrative poem of the Italian High Renaissance has inspired many artists and musicians in the years since. The first performance of Vivaldi’s version was at Teatro Sant’Angelo, Venice in 1727. His opera alternates arias with recitative and is set on an island at an unspecified time. The story combines several plot lines from Ariosto about the exploits of the hero Orlando, his unrequited love for the beautiful Angelica, and the powerful sorceress Alcina. Vivaldi claimed to have written more than 90 operas, although evidence survives of only about 50, and Orlando Furioso is one of the most important. The score has a wealth of colour and dramatic structure as many choruses, arias, and recitatives figure significantly in the overall action. On this 3-CD recording, Italian conductor Federico Maria Sardelli leads his prizewinning Modo Antiquo baroque orchestra in an authentic performance on historical instruments. The cast includes mezzo-soprano Anne Desler as Orlando, Nicki Kennedy as Angelica, and Marina De Liso as the voracious Alcina.

BERNHARD LANG – I HATE MOZART       COL LEGNO

Born in 1957 in Linz, Austria, Bernhard Lang received his early musical training there then studied philosophy, German language and literature, piano and composition in Graz. After finishing his piano studies he began studying composition with Polish composer Andrej Dobrowolsky, who introduced him to the techniques of new music. He also studied with Hermann Markus Pressl who taught him counterpoint and introduced him to the work of Josef Matthias Hauer. In 1999 he moved to Vienna, where he works as a freelance composer. He has held a professorship in composition at the Graz University of Music and Dramatic Arts since 2003. His music has been performed at the Steirische Herbst Festival, at the Moscow Alternativa Festival and the Moscow Modern Festival, Biennale Hannover, Tage Absoluter Musik Allentsteig I and II, Klangarten I and IV, Resistance Fluctuation Los Angeles, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Salzburger Festspiele, Wien Modern, Donaueschingen, Witten and many others. His adventurous and provocatively-titled opera, I Hate Mozart, written with librettist/director Michael Sturminger, was commissioned for the Vienna Mozart Year in 2006. Dealing with Mozart, his music and his character, this turbulent romp centres around a young, highly gifted conductor who uses a combination of charm and ambition to create for himself the image of a successful genius and furthers his career with an iron will. At the heart of this production lies its protagonists’ almost inevitable failure to do justice to the great composer. The music of Mozart, especially his arias, ensembles and instrumental works, serve as a basis for a departure into electronic, computer-generated soundscapes. Lang also uses a twenty-piece orchestra as well as an ensemble of singers and actors. This amazing work brings fresh insights to Mozart’s music and is joyously performed in this world premiere recording on DVD and two SACDs. Also now available is Ali N. Askin’s EISENHANS! (‘Iron John!’). Putting his trust in the weird, wild man, a child overcomes his fears and worries and, at the end of the day, emerges as the happy winner and gets the king’s daughter. Following the great success of Wolfgang Mitterer’s ‘Brave little tailor’, this second children’s opera production staged by the Wiener Taschenoper is now released on CD by Col Legno. Berlin composer Askin delights in merging many different sounds, from waltzes to musical-style ballads, into a fantastic listening experience as we accompany the king’s son as he plunges into the fantastic world of Iron John, where gold is real gold just as iron is real iron, where boys grow into real men, and where love is worthless unless it be faithful, too. Highly recommended.

PUCCINI'S HEROINES - MELANIE DIENER       MSM MSM0006

Giacomo Puccini’s talent and originality were outstanding and he has long been acclaimed for his melodic writing, dramatic harmonies and theatrical skill. Many of his compositions are in of the regular repertory of the world’s opera houses and some of arias have become part of modern culture. To celebrate the 150th anniversary Puccini’s birth, Michael Storrs Music has released this collection of arias for soprano, performed by one of the world’s leading sopranos. Melanie Diener studied in her native Germany and at the Indiana University before making her debut as Ilia in Idomeneo. She appeared at many opera houses and festivals, including the Vienna Staatsoper, the Metropolitan, Covent Garden and Bayreuth. Singing here with the City of Prague Philharmonic, conducted by Luciano Acocella, she gives intelligent and powerful interpretations of arias from Le Villi (Se Come Voi Piccina Io Fossi), La Rondine (Chi Il Bel Sogno Di Doretta), Manon Lescaut (In Quelle Trine Morbide), Suor Angelica (Senza Mamma) La Boheme (Donde Lieta Usci), Gianni Schicchi (O Mio Babbino Caro), Tosca (Vissi dArte), Turandot (Signore Ascolta) and Madama Butterfly (Un Bel Dí Vedremo).

JANACEK – THE EXCURSIONS OF MR BROUCEK DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4777387

Leoš Janáček’s only mature comic opera has a libretto by eight different writers based on the two satirical novels of the same name by Svatopluk Čech, and the author himself makes an appearance in a vision near the start of Act 3. Janáček worked on the opera from 1908 until 1917 and its first performance took place at the National Theatre, Prague, in 1920. Janáček originally intended a one-act opera, dealing with pub landlord Brouček’s journey to the moon, but then added a time travel story as the second part, a prologue and an afterword to to produce the final four-act version of the opera. Janáček’s remarkable score, with its superb choral writing and opulent orchestration, calls for bagpipes and an organ, both of which are used to great effect in one of the climaxes of the 15th-century time travel excursion. Only two other recordings of this challenging opera exist, so this new release of a live recording of semi-staged performance in London in 2007 is an invaluable addition to the catalogue. The double CD box set includes a booklet with the complete libretto in Czech, English, German and French. A great Czech cast is headed by the excellent tenor Jan Vacik in the title role, with Peter Straka, Zdenek Plech as the publican Wurfl, and two fine sopranos, Maria Haan and Martina Bauerová. In this exciting and authentic performance of Janáček’s witty but rarely recorded opera, the BBC Symphony Orchestra is under the baton of its chief conductor, Czech maestro Jirí Belohlávek. ‘It was all thrillingly done’ - The Guardian.

MENDELSSOHN - ELIAS       CARUS

Felix Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809 and began learning piano at an early age, giving his first  recital at nine and beginning to compose at ten. By the time he was fifteen he had written several string symphonies, piano pieces and songs, as well as an opera. By the time Mendelssohn came to write Elias (or Elijah) in 1847 he already had experience of writing Paulus (1836) as well as his Second Symphony, Lobegesang (1840), with its important vocal element. Elias became an overnight success and has remained a staple of the oratorio repertoire ever since its debut. This grand oratorio was first performed in 1846 at the Birmingham Music Festival. It depicts events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament, and was composed in homage to Bach and Handel, whose music Mendelssohn greatly loved. The work is scored for four vocal soloists (bass/baritone, tenor, alto, soprano), a full symphony orchestra (including trombones, ophicleide and an organ), and a large chorus singing usually in four, but occasionally eight or three (women only) parts. This excitingly dramatic work expresses a fervent belief in God, a belief which in the 19th century was no longer self-evident. Mendelssohn transposed the visible world of the Old Testament into numerous musical expressive possibilities in which Old Testament texts, including psalm texts and commentaries from the words of the Prophets, were shaped into biblical dramas. This double SACD features the excellent Frieder Bernius as conductor and continues Carus’s prizewinning series of Mendelssohn’s complete sacred works. The soloists are Letizia Scherrer (soprano), Renée Morloc (alto), Werner Güra (tenor) and Michael Volle (bass), with the Kammerchor Stuttgart and Klassische Philharmonie Stuttgart.

VERDI - FORZA DEL DESTINO         NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.111322-24

Maria Callas was born Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulos to Greek parents in Brooklyn, New York, and moved with her mother to Athens at the age of 13. She studied with the soprano Elvira de Hidalgo at the Athens Conservatory and made her professional debut at the Athens Opera in 1941, as La Tosca. Combining an impeccable bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts, Callas became the most famous singing actress of the post-war era. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria, such as Spontini’s La Vestale to late Verdi and the verismo operas of Puccini. I this 1954 Scala Milan recording of La forza del destino, Callas casts her Donna Leonora in the grand manner and her breath spans are of a truly notable length. She makes us conscious of every section of Leonora’s music, setting off the first scene in Act I with fitting simplicity. In the Act III duet with Padre Guardiano, Più tranquilla, Callas shows her just rendition of note values; each of them is sung as Verdi specifies, contained within a perfect legato and yet she injects the subtlest rubato so giving it life. Under Tullio Serafin’s inspired direction she sings the two famous arias, Madre pietosa vergine and Pace, pace mio Dio, with appropriate grandeur, on a tragic scale, underlining Verdi’s indications ‘come un lamento’ and ‘con dolore’. Other soloists include Richard Tucker (Don Alvaro),   Carlo Tagliabue (Don Carlo di Vargas) and Elena Nicolai (Preziosilla). Maria Callas also features in two other new releases of Verdi operas recorded in 1956 at La Scala, Milan: Il Trovatore (NAXOS HISTORICAL 8111280-81, with Giuseppe Di Stefano and Karajan) and Ballo in Maschera (NAXOS HISTORICAL 8111278-79, made before Callas undertook this role on stage, with Di Stefano and Tito Gobbi). These three outstanding recordings celebrate the work of a supreme artist in her dramatic and vocal prime.

MOZART - LUCIO SILLA         DYNAMIC CDS524

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s  three-act opera, Lucio Silla (Lucius Sulla), was written in Italy when Mozart was only sixteen and first performed at the Teatro Regio Ducal, Milan, in 1772. The libretto by Giovanni de Gamerra tells the story of a Roman dictator (Silla) who lusts after Giunia, the daughter of his enemy Caius Marius. Giunia, on the other hand, loves the exiled senator Cecilio, who is in exile. Silla’s sister Celia loves Cecilio’s ally, Cinna. For unclear reasons, Silla finally relents, allowing Cecilio and Giunia to be reconciled and Celia and Cinna to marry. History was not Mozart’s main concern and the rather unconvincing plot is fiction, although some of the characters are historical. Lucio Silla is not often performed but is considered to be musically the finest work that Mozart wrote in Italy, ranking with opera seria by the greatest masters of the time. Using the traditional structures of Neapolitan opera as a basis, in Mozart gave life to a style that was very advanced in both forms and contents: the choruses, the great number accompanied recitatives, the arias that were not necessarily scored with the ‘da capo’ structure represent the opera’s main novelties alongside wholly unusual, bold harmonic and melodic features. The use of various forms of solo aria - and the consequent abandonment of the single ‘da capo model - confirms the composer’s wish to find the structures best suited to the expression of various different emotional states. Alongside the characters of Neapolitan theatre, accentuated compared to the models, we find traces of an impassioned spirit, seeking to reach beyond conventional patterns. This double-CD set features a lively 2006 recording made at the Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, with the Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Tomás Netopil. The soloists are the Italo-German lyric tenor Roberto Saccà in the title role, Parisian soprano Annick Massis  (in scintillating form as Giunia),  mezzo Monica Bacelli (Cecelio), Veronica Cangemi, Julia Kleiter and Stefano Ferrari. This is a rare chance to hear Mozart’s early masterpiece in an impressive and vibrant performance.

VERDI – LUISA MILLER     DYNAMIC CDS523/1-2

Luisa Miller is an early period opera by Giuseppe Verdi with an Italian libretto by Salvatore Cammarano based on an intimate bourgeois drama, Kabale und Liebe (Love and Intrigue), by Friedrich von Schiller. Verdi composed the music while travelling between Paris, Busseto, Rome and Naples and the opera was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, in 1849, becoming the composer’s first real success since Ernani. The tragic story of love and intrigue is a gloomy one, with the three acts entitled ‘Love’, ‘Intrigue’ and ‘Poison’. Luisa Miller is an opera that abounds in splendid moments of music and one that occupies a central role in the evolution of Verdi’s dramaturgy and the opera has been staged many times since its initial. This double CD features a production staged at Teatro La Fenice di Venezia in May 2006, with the orchestra and chorus conducted by Maurizio Benini. Luisa Miller requires great technical gifts and vocal extension of its four leading roles. Luisa (Darina Takova) is portrayed now with delicate touches now with bold strokes, in a manner that anticipates the great heroines of the popular trilogy. Rodolfo, here interpreted by Giuseppe Sabbatini, has a very difficult mid-high tessitura and the classical boldness of the tenor is accompanied by openly elegiac accents that had rarely before been heard in the tenor roles created by Verdi. Other soloists include Alexander Vinogradov, Ursula Ferri, Arutjun Kotchinian and Damiano Salerno.

PUNCH AND JUDY – HARRISON BIRTWHISTLE        NMC D138

Sir Harrison Birtwistle, one of the most important contemporary British composers, has been hugely influential on a generation of musicians. Born in Accrington in Lancashire, he studied clarinet at the Royal Manchester College of Music in Manchester, where he met fellow composers Peter Maxwell Davies and Alexander Goehr, and at the Royal Academy of Music. He worked as a schoolteacher then won a Harkness Fellowship to continue his studies in the United States before deciding to dedicate himself to composition. His works of the 1960s culminated in the controversial chamber opera Punch and Judy, premiered at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1968, an event which caused Benjamin Britten and several other members of the audience to walk out in disgust. This remarkable opera with a libretto by Stephen Pruslin features unbridled savagery and weird subject matter, but through a process of stylised violence and ritual (Punch murders the unfortunate Judy no fewer than four times) the tragi-comic actions of a homicidal puppet are raised almost to the status of myth. This new double-CD is an Ancora reissue of the acclaimed recording by the excellent London Sinfonietta under David Atherton (previously released on Etcetera), with soloists including Phyllis Bryn-Julson, David Wilson-Johnson and John Tomlinson. Punch and Judy - together with Verses for Ensembles and The Triumph of Time – was the work that firmly established Birtwistle as a leading voice in British music and it remains as powerful and challenging as his more mature compositions. Re-mastered by David Lefeber, this reissue includes an essay about Stephen Pruslin and the full text of his libretto.

STOLEN NOTES – PARMA OPERA ENSEMBLE       MSM 0000

The Parma Opera Ensemble (POE) was formed in 1996; the impetus for the project being the clarinettist, Sergio Pelllegrini. The purpose of the group was to bring together the classic repertoire for chamber orchestra with a series of instrumental fragments, romanze da salotto and divertissement from nineteenth century opera for different instruments. The notion was to take famous arias and themes from the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Tchaikovsky and combine them, in an incomparable way, with the flourishing tradition of chamber opera asserted in the past century with the intent to offer merited recoveries. The uniqueness of the Parma Opera Ensemble's concept involves concertising in various ways ranging from a trio to a small orchestra. Since the debut, their concert activities have obtained optimal acceptance from the Italian and foreign music critics, and the POE has become an important presence in the panorama of the international concert scene. Their originality and the performing talents of this group has brought them worldwide attention at numerous music festivals and extensive guest appearances in the United States, Spain, France and South Korea. The Parma Opera Ensemble is based at the celebrated Teatro Regio in Parma; they are all key players in the opera orchestra. The Ensemble members are a selected group of extraordinary musicians who are active in the most illustrious Italian orchestras and Italian Chamber Orchestras. Each member, in addition to being part of the ensemble, is a talented soloist in their own right. Stolen Notes features arrangements of arias and overtures by Verdi played by the Parma Opera Ensemble with Annick Massis (soprano), Marco Berti (tenor), Dmitry Korchak (tenor), Francesco Meli (tenor), Alfredo Daza (baritone) and Giovanni Battista Parodi (bass).

MARCO BERTI – RARE VERISMO             MSM  MSM0002

The Italian tenor Marco Berti began his outstanding career with the Teatro alla Scala in performances of Lucia di Lammermoor, Beatrice di Tenda, La bohème, La rondine and Macbeth. His international reputation was established through a remarkable performance as Macbeth’s adversary, Macduff, in Luc Bondy’s production at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999. He made his Covent Garden debut in Simon Boccanegra and soon returned for acclaimed performances in Madama Butterfly and Il trovatore. Marco Berti has been the star of the Arena di Verona summer festival for many years, delivering memorable performances in a variety of roles, including: Isamaele in Nabucco, Don José in Carmen and Manrico in Il trovatore. He made his New York Metropolitan Opera debut two seasons ago in Madama Butterfly and future engagements include a new production of Carmen at Covent Garden, Macbeth at the Met, Aïda at the Liceu in Barcelona Tokyo, debuts as Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur in Florence and Calaf in Parma. His voice ranges from the soft-toned to the penetrating, powerful and effortless top notes and his significant vocal qualities and expressiveness characterise the classic Italian heavy lyric/dramatic tenor. His first solo album, Rare Verismo, is a selection of arias by composers who specialised in this genre. Verismo (meaning ‘realism’, from Italian vero, meaning ‘truth’) is the term for a style of Italian opera that started in 1890 with Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and lasted into the early twentieth century. The style is distinguished by realistic - sometimes sordid or violent - depictions of contemporary everyday life, especially among working class people. Berti is accompanied by the excellent Parma Opera Ensemble and the music is by the great Giacomo Puccini, Leoncavallo, Catalani, Alberto Franchetti and Riccardo Zandonai. Along with well-known arias from La Boheme the CD has rousing, Italianate excerpts from rarely performed operas such as Chatterton and Germania.

THE BEST OF GILBERT AND SULLIVAN       NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.111311-12

Arthur Seymour Sullivan is perhaps the best known of all English composers. He wrote many choral and orchestral works but is most remembered for his theatrical partnership with the librettist William Schwenk Gilbert. The somewhat neurotic W S Gilbert’s satirical silliness combined perfectly Arthur Sullivan’s wonderfully memorable music to produce a dazzling succession of triumphs, and together they transformed the earnest and orderly Victorian age into a topsy-turvy world that is all their own. Despite the couple’s personal quarrels their comic operas have stood the test of time, gaining a special place in the culture and affections of the English-speaking world. Whilst William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were both respected in their own right and during their own time, Gilbert as a playwright and Sullivan as a composer, their collaboration under the management of D’Oyly Carte proved an inspired combination in the late Victorian period. Gilbert’s fantastical plots together with Sullivan’s inventive settings have come to epitomise much of what we consider to be British culture in 19th Century. These excerpts featured in this double CD, from 1948-1954, are recorded as they were originally intended, in the great tradition of The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, and make a perfect introduction to this immortal partnership.

HOWARD HANSON – MERRY MOUNT        NAXOS 8.669012-13

Howard Harold Hanson (1896-1981) was one of the most important of American composers of his day as well as a conductor, educator, music theorist, and ardent champion of American classical music, promoting the work of such composers as Roy Harris and Jack Beeson. By 1930, he had composed in nearly every musical form except opera. Then the Metropolitan Opera in New York commissioned Merry Mount, which received its professional première conducted by Tullio Serafin in 1934, both live and on radio, receiving more than fifty curtain calls. Hanson’s collaborator, New York music critic Richard L. Stokes, based his libretto on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Maypole of Merry Mount, a grim story that was in turn based on an actual event in 1628 that focused on a violent encounter between business-oriented fur traders and the Pilgrims’ community at Plymouth, Massachusetts, where intolerant and self-righteous practitioners strongly resented the secular ‘adventurers’. Many of the characters have memorably preposterous names such as Wrestling Bradford, Praise-God Tewke, Plentiful Tewke, Peregrine Brodrib, Love Brewster, Desire Annable and Faint-Not Tinker. The composer described the music for his three-act opera as ‘warm-blooded…essentially a lyrical work [that] makes use of broad melodic lines as often as possible’. The Met gave nine performances of Merry Mount that season but despite the success of the opera there was no second-season revival and subsequent performances have been scarce, perhaps because Hanson’s late-romantic style became unfashionable. This double CD features a live recording made in 1996 at the Seattle Center Opera House to mark the composer’s centenary. It was directed by Joseph Crnko and features the excellent Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz. Singers include  the Seattle Symphony Choir as well as Lauren Flanigan, Walter MacNeil, Richard Zeller and Charles Robert Austin. This fine recording of Merry Mount shows that Howard Hanson’s only grand opera is a wonderfully passionate and richly tuneful experience.

WAGNER - TANNHAUSER               DYNAMIC IDIS - IDIS 6510/12

Richard Wagner’s remarkable three-act opera Tannhäuser, or Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg (Tannhäuser and the Singers’ Contest on the Wartburg) was inspired by the Germanic legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg. It deals with the struggle between sacred and profane love, and redemption through love, in a style that mixes mythological elements of German opera and the medieval history of French opera. Both the historical and the mythological are united in Tannhäuser’s personality; although he is a historical poet composer, little is known about him other than myths that surround him. Integrating French operatic style, the opera contains on-stage brass, but instead of using French brass instruments, Wagner opts for twelve German Waldhorns. The composer conducted Tannhäuser’s premier in Dresden in 1845, with his niece Johanna Wagner singing the part of Elisabeth. The revised ‘Paris version’ of the opera is the more frequently performed today. This triple excellent CD set features a historic performance recorded live in 1957, featuring the RAI Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Rome and Artur Rodzinski, one of the most popular conductors on the international scene between 1930 and 1958. Much admired by Toscanini, who appreciated his refined conducting technique, he was successful both in the United States (where he conducted in Cleveland, New York and Chicago) and in Europe. Rodzinski was also acclaimed in Italy, especially for conducting Russian and German works. This wonderful Tannhäuser also features an outstanding cast of Wagnerian singers, including Karl Liebl (Tannhäuser), Gré Brouwenstijn (Elisabethj) and Eberhard Wächter (Wolfram). Altogether, this is a thrilling performance of Wagner’s most voluptuous opera.

MARCHETTI - ROMEO E GIULIETTA             DYNAMIC CDS 502/1-2

The Italian opera composer Filippo Marchetti (1831-1902) was a contemporary of Ponchielli, Boito and Verdi. Despite having to compete with the latter’s overwhelming genius Marchetti still achieved a certain amount of success. He was not a prolific creator but after writing three unnoticed operas his Romeo e Giulietta (1865) was well received in Italy. His interpretation of the famous story even held up for a while against Gounod’s acclaimed version, assuring its composer a premiere at Milan’s prestigious La Scala in 1869 for his next opera, an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s tragedy Ruy Blas. After two more operas that had limited success, Filippo Marchetti largely gave up composition in favour of academic life. His reading of the Romeo and Juliet story provides a different perspective from the better-known operas based on this subject by Bellini, Gounod and Berlioz. The tragedy of the two lovers from Verona, in Marco Marcelliano Marcello’s libretto, creates a Verdian mood, with echoes from Traviata and Ballo in maschera. The vocal style is typical of a period of belcanto that has faded, having the forcefully - almost dramatic - lyrical accents heralding Verismo. Listen carefully and you will find several musical quotes, including the unmistakable one from Traviata. This splendidly produced double CD records the revival of Marchetti’s neglected masterpiece at the Martina Franca Festival. The Bratislava Chamber Choir and Orchestra Internazionale D’Italia are conducted by Andriy Yurkevych, with singers Mario Cassi, Serena Daolio (Giulietta), Giovanni Coletta, Dario Solari, Roberto Iuliano (Romeo) and Emil Zhelev. A fascinating comparison can be made with the first complete opera recording of the 1830 La Scala version of Vincenzo Bellini’s I CAPULETI E I MONTECCHI from the Martina Franca Opera Festival of 2005, with Patrizia Ciofi, Clara Polito and Federico Sacchi (DYNAMIC CDS 504/1-2).

FRANCOIS-ANDRE PHILIDOR - TOM JONES         DYNAMIC CDS509

The French composer François-André Danican Philidor (1726-1795) was the youngest son of André Danican Philidor, composer and music librarian, and half-brother of Anne Danican Philidor, also a composer. Of Scottish origin, the Danican family (Philidor being a nickname) produced a dozen musicians and composers - the best known being François-André. As a pageboy in the royal chapel at Versailles he studied music with André Campra and learned to play chess. In 1740 he went to Paris, where he earned a living by copying and teaching, although he was more interested in chess. He studied with and defeated France’s best player, Légal, and was soon recognised as the best single chess player of his age, writing a book on the subject that became the standard manual for a century. He also found time to write eleven opéras comiques, including Le Maréchal ferrant, Le Sorcier and Tom Jones (1765). After 1771 he spent much of his time in London, giving lectures on chess and producing his major choral work, the Carmen saeculare. Tom Jones is certainly one of his best operas and is a perfect example of 18th-century French Opéra-comique. The libretto was derived from Henry Fielding’s novel The History of Tom Jones, a foundling, while the music, with its dialogues, airs, ariettes, and ensembles delightfully embodies the elegant and caustic spirit of the Age of Enlightenment. This live world premiere recording features the Lausanne Opéra production of 2005, conducted by the brilliant Jean-Claude Malgoire. Soloists include Sébastien Droy in the title role, Sophie Marin-Degor (as Sophie), Marc Barrard (Squire Western) and Rodolphe Briand (Blifil). A rare treat that revives an unjustly neglected work by this intriguing composer.

WAGNER - PARSIFAL     DYNAMIC CDS 497/1-4

The great German composer Richard Wagner’s three act opera Parsifal is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the medieval (13th century) epic poem about the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the spear used to stab Jesus Christ during his crucifixion. Wagner first conceived the work in 1857 but it was not completed until twenty-five years later, the first production being in Bayreuth in 1882 (Wagner had previously conducted a private performance of the Prelude for his patron Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1880).The composer preferred to describe Parsifal not as an opera, but as ‘ein Bühnenweihfestspiel’ - ‘A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage’. For the first twenty years of its existence, the only staged performances (apart from eight private performances for Ludwig II at Munich in 1884 and 1885) took place in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, for which the work was conceived. Wagner (and later Cosima) refused to permit performances elsewhere in order to prevent Parsifal from degenerating into ‘mere amusement’ for an opera-going public, although concert performances were allowed to take place in various countries during this time. In 1913, Wagner’s centenary year, Bayreuth’s monopoly on the work was finally broken and since then the work has been freely staged throughout the world. This excellent four-CD box set features a recording made in 2005 of a performance at the Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, with conductor Gabor Ötvös and featured solists including Richard Decker (a moving and sensitive Parsifal), Matthias Hölle, Wolfgang Schöne, soprano Doris Soffel (outstanding as Kundry), the powerful baritone Mikolaj Zalasinski and Ulrich Dünnebach.

WEIGL - DIE SCHWEITZER FAMILIE         GUILD  GMCD 7298/9

The prolific Viennese composer and conductor Joseph Weigl (1766-1846) can be seen as a link between Mozart and Schubert. He was born in Eisenstadt and studied music under Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri before becoming Kapellmeister at the court theatre in Vienna in 1792. He wrote several operas, both in Italian and German, most of them being comic, as well as 18 ballets, 11 masses, two oratorios, 22 cantatas and much chamber music. He also directed many music performances and became a favourite at the imperial court. After composing his first Opera at the aged only 16 he went on to write many other stage entertainments, most notably Die Schweitzer Familie (The Swiss Family) and L’amor marinaro, from which Ludwig van Beethoven used a theme in the finale of his Trio for clarinets in B Major, op. 11. The Swiss Family became one of the most popular German-language Singspiels in the first half of the 19th century - more successful even than Beethoven’s Fidelio and some of the Mozart operas. Following its première in 1809 at the Vienna Kärntnertor Theatre, it was performed on stage almost everywhere between Paris and St. Petersburg as well as in Stockholm and Milan. After its apparently last production in Munich in 1918 it was not performed again until 2004. This fascinating world premiere recording features Tobias Müller-Kopp as a rich landowner, Count Wallstein and Petri Mikael Pöyhönen as his steward. Stephan Bootz and Olivia Vermeulen play a poor Swiss farmer and his wife, with Marília Vargas is their unhappy daughter, Emmeline, and Roman Payer portrays her lover, Jacob. The Chorus and Orchestra Dreieck are conducted in authentic style by Uri Rom.

VIVALDI - MOTEZUMA       DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON/ARVHIV PRODUKTION

The prolific composer Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in 1678 in Venice, Italy. Of the forty operas that Vivaldi wrote, only about twenty are known to survive. Although though the libretto for his opera, Motezuma, had survied, the music had been missing since its world premiere in 1733. Fortunately a fragment of the whole representing 12 of 22 arias was found among the archives of the Berliner Singakademie in 2002. After being seized by the Soviet Army at the close of World War Two, the archive emerged in Kiev in 1999 and was returned to Germany a few years later. As was common with ‘opera seria’, the score consists of long recitatives interspersed with arias. This splendid three-CD box set from Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv Produktion features the world premiere recording of this rediscovered work, one of Vivaldi’s most ambitious, colourful and exotic scores. The story is loosely based on the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés and the downfall of its former emperor Moctezuma (also ‘Montezuma’ - there are a variety of theories as to why the librettist adopted ‘Motezuma’), though the libretto includes a fictional love story between Moctezuma’s daughter and Cortés’s brother. The harpsichordist, conductor and Baroque music specialist Alan Curtis has assembled a fine cast of vocalists for this recording, including Vito Priante (Motezuma), Marijana Mijanovic (Mitrena) and Maite Beaumont (Fernando). Curtis also contributed to the meticulous editing and reconstructing of the music that was missing from the recovered manuscript, collaborating with leading Vivaldi experts to produce the new edition heard on this recording. This is remarkable discovery and all concerned should be congratulated for rescuing such an important opera from oblivion.

BRITTEN - THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA       PEARL GEMS 0231

Benjamin Britten two-act opera, The Rape of Lucretia, has an English libretto by Ronald Duncan based on André Obey’s play Le Viol de Lucrèce. The work was first performed at Glyndebourne on July 12, 1946, and featured Kathleen Ferrier’s operatic debut as Lucretia. Her character is wife to the Roman general Collatinus and is reputed to be the only chaste woman in Rome, making her an irresistible challenge to the loathed Etruscan Prince, Tarquinius. The rape drives Lucretia, her honour lost, to suicide. An interesting aspect of this opera is the telling of the story by a Greek Chorus - a tenor and a soprano. The story is set about 500BC, but the Chorus is Christian. Thus the pagan myth of Lucretia is juxtaposed with the Christian morals identified by the Chorus, who comment on the action ‘out of time’ (as in Greek tragedy). For both economic and aesthetic reasons, Britten devised this work, first performed a year after Peter Grimes, as a chamber opera utilising a small cast and an orchestra of only thirteen players. The pared-down textures enhanced the composer’s operatic vision and later inspired Albert Herring and The Turn of the Screw. This two-CD set features rare recordings made in Glyndebourne in 1946 and 1947, with a cast that includes Peter Pears and Owen Brannigan as well as the irreplaceable Kathleen Ferrier. The second CD also has a 1949 recording of the incidental music that Britten wrote for his friend, Ronald Duncan’s play, Stratton. This is an invaluable addition to the available recordings of one of the Twentieth Century’s most important composers.

IL TROVATORE/MANON LESCAUT - ROYAL SWEDISH OPERA   CAPRICE CAP 22051

The Royal Swedish Opera was founded in 1773 on the wishes of King Gustaf III, who decreed that all opera be sung in Swedish. The beautiful Opera House opened in Stockholm in 1782 but ten years later the King was assassinated. His death was immortalised by Giuseppe Verdi in A Masked Ball and the same composer wrote Il Trovatore, first produced in 1853. This has long been a popular work in the repertoire thanks largely to the wonderful melodiousness of the score. Jussi Björling made his debut at the Royal Opera House and returned in 1957 to take the part of Manrico in Il Trovatore, with the Norwegian soprano Aase Nordmo as Leonora and the superb baritone Hugo Hasslo as Count Luna. Luckily, a member of the choir placed a tape recorder in the wings at the request of the mezzo-soprano Margaret Bergström, who had the role of Azucena. Stefan Johansson, now head dramaturgist at the Opera, borrowed it for a radio broadcast in the 1980s and caused a sensation. Because the first scene is missing on this recording, there has been room for a bonus: Jussi Björling in all the des Grieux solos as well as the final scene with Hjördis Schymberg in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut - a 1959 recording of one of his last performances at the Opera. Björling is in terrific form and this two-CD set of rare recordings make up the first volume in a series called the Royal Swedish Opera Archives. In eight volumes, the Royal Opera and Caprice will present some of the finest ‘house recordings’ made during the years 1956-60 with soloists such as Björling, Schymberg, Nilsson, Sigurd Björling and Kerstin Meyer. Others so far in this invaluable series feature Der Rosenkavalier and Fidelio with Birgit Nilsson (CAP 22052), Samson et Dalila and Les Troyens (CAP 22054) and Aida, Lohengrin and Parsifal (CAP 22055).

JUDITH WEIR - BLOND ECKBERT          NMC D106

Born in Cambridge of Scottish parents, Judith Weir studied with John Tavener in London and at King’s College, Cambridge with Robin Holloway. Her interest in theatre, narrative and folklore has resulted in several full length operas as well as collaborations with the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. She has also composed a song cycle for Jessye Norman as well as music for Sir Simon Rattle and the CBSO and a series of chamber works for the Schubert Ensemble. Blond Eckbert, Judith Weir’s first opera, is based on Ludwig Tieck’s dark and complex tale of an elderly couple whose quiet life unravels as their fantastical past catches up with them. Eckbert and his wife Berthe live in seclusion in the Harz Moutains. One stormy night, Eckbert’s friend Walther arrives and, to while away the time, Berthe tells him her life story. Walther seems to know a great deal about Berthe’s early life and Eckbert’s suspicions grow, eventually leading him to murder Walther during a hunting expedition. Eckbert then revisits the fairy-tale scenes of Berthe’s childhood, accompanied by a magical singing bird, and learns the terrible truth about Walther, Berthe and himself. The music’s apparent simplicity, with echoes of Weber’s Freischütz, belies its underlying darkness. This excellent recording, originally released by Collins Classics in 1994, features the Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera, conducted by Sian Edwards, with soloists Nicholas Folwell, Anne-Marie Owens Christopher Ventris and Nerys Jones. This is a touching and beautiful work by one of Britain’s most accomplished composers.

CANTOLOPERA - MEZZO SOPRANO 3     BELLA MUSICA  BM 31.2401

Cantalopera is an impressive new anthology that gathers together some of the most famous arias in the opera repertoire. This is a stimulating musical itinerary through an art form that has characterised the history of Italian music for over two centuries and whose appeal continues to grow. Uniquely, Cantalopera gives you the opportunity to hear a complete performance model and then stand in for the soloists by singing to the accompaniment of a symphonic orchestra. This approach offers opera enthusiasts an occasion for entertainment as well as for testing their personal talent. Apart from being great fun, it can also be a valuable support to aspiring singers and a useful application tool for professionals, providing an in-depth teaching aid. On this CD in the series, the soloists to emulate and aspire to are the Italian Santina Lanza and Russian singer Galia Tchernova, and the Compagnia d’Opera Italiana are conducted by Antonello Gotta. The arias here are by Bellini, Ponchielli (from La Gioconda), Verdi (Don Carlo and Il Trovatore), Bizet (Carmen), Massenet (Werther) and Cilea (L’Arlesiana). The entire project consists of 140 arias by Italian and foreign composers, from Gluck to Mozart, from Gounod to Wagner, in addition to Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini. It provides a fascinating world view of opera that should appeal to opera lovers, students, teachers and professionals alike.

JOSEF FOERSTER - EVA           MARCO POLO 8225308-09

Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951) was born in Prague and studied at the Prague conservatory. He married the singer Bertha Lauterer in Hamburg and earned his living as an organist,  critic and teacher both there and in Vienna. He moved back to Czechoslovakia in 1939 and seven years later was the first person to be declared a National Composer. His varied compositions include five symphonies as well as other orchestral works, chamber music (including five string quartets and a popular wind quintet), concertos for cello and violin, and much liturgical music. The most famous of his six operas is Eva, first staged in 1899 and based on Gabriela Preissova’s sensational play, Gazdina roba (The Farmer’s Woman). Foerster had earlier reviewed the play, which tells the story of a socially respectable farmer’s wife who  scandalously leaves her husband to live unmarried with another man. The music is lyrical but Foerster doesn’t shrink from showing the harshness of country life as the tragic story unfolds. The soloists on this double-CD include soprano Iveta Jiríková in the title role, Kostyantyn Andreyev, Denisa Hamarová, Igor Tarasov, Elizabeth Batton and Roland Davitt. The Wexford Festival Opera Chorus and Cracow Philharmonic Orchestra are conducted by Jaroslav Kyzlink. This recording, made in 2004, is one of a series of unjustly neglected operas performed at the Wexford Festival, including productions of Saverio Mercadante’s La Vestale (Marco Polo 8.225310-11) and Walter Braunfels’ fairy-tale opera, Prinzessin Brambilla, first performed in Stuttgart in 1909 (Marco Polo 8.225312-13).

MOZART 250th ANNIVERSARY EDITION - OPERAS 1     WARNER 2564 62329-2

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, Jan. 27, 1756. He began composing minuets by the age of five and was already writing symphonies by the time he was nine, as well as being a virtuoso keyboard player and violinist. He went on to excel at every type of music in which he composed, helping to perfect the grand forms of symphony, opera, string quartet and concerto during the classical period in music. Mozart's operas in particular contain remarkable psychological insights and were central to the composer's creative life, representing the peak of his genius. In the 1780s, he wrote three unsurpassed operas with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte that deal with love in its many forms, from the humanely comic (The Marriage of Figaro) and mythically resonant (Don Giovanni) to the elegantly cynical (Così fan tutte). All three operas are included in this superb box set of nine CDs, issued to mark the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. They feature outstanding recordings made in the early 1990s by Daniel Barenboim with the RIAS Kammerchor and Berlin Philharmoniker. The first-class array of soloists includes Lella Cuberli (Fiordiligi in Cosi), Cecilia Bartoli (a delightful Cherubino in Figaro), Joan Rogers (Despina, Zerlina and Susanna), John Tomlinson (Don Alfonso, Leporello and Figaro), Waltraud Meier (Donna Elvira) and Andreas Schmidt (Count Almaviva). Other great value box sets in this desirable ANNIVERSARY EDITION series include OPERAS 2 (eight CDs: Warner 2564-62330-2) featuring Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus musicus Wien in some of Mozart’s less well known works: La finta giardiniera, Lucio Silla, and Il re pastore. The soloists are Thomas Moser, Edita Gruberova, Uwe Heilmann, Dawn Upshaw, Ann Murray and Thomas Hampson. OPERAS 3 (nine CDs: Warner 2564-62331-2) has four undisputed masterpieces: La clemenza di Tito, Die Zauberflöte, Idomeneo and Die Entfürhrung aus dem Serail. The soloists here are Philip Langridge, Lucia Popp (a wonderful Lucia), Ruth Ziesak, Ann Murray, Barbara Bonney (delightful as Pamina) and  Matti Salminen. Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts the Chor and Mozart-Orchester des Opernhauses Zürich.

EMMA BELL - HANDEL OPERATIC ARIAS           LINN CKD 252

The outstanding young British soprano Emma Bell studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where she won several awards, before joining the Glyndebourne Chorus in 1998, making her Glyndebourne Touring Opera debut in a performance of Handel’s Rodelinda. She subsequently repeated this role for the Glyndebourne Festival and her other performances have included Donna Elvira and Radamisto for Opera North and Almirena in Rinaldo for Grange Park Opera. She has also sung for Geneva Opera and the Komische Oper, Berlin, and has given recitals at the Bath, Buxton and Brighton festivals, as well as in the Wigmore Hall. Emma Bell made her début with the English National Opera as Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito and this new disc, issued in SACD format, coincides with her Royal Opera House debut as Leonore in Carl Nielsen’s Maskarade. She sings 11 arias representing the whole of Handel’s London operatic career, from his first (Rinaldo, 1711) to the last (Deidamia, 1741), showing his wide range of moods. Tracks include the heartbreaking ‘M’hai resa infelice’ (Deidamia), ‘Piangerò la sorte mia’ (Guilio Cesare) and ‘Se’l mio duol’ from Rodelinda, a role which Emma Bell is rapidly making her own. The excellent Scottish Chamber Orchestra is directed from the harpsichord by Richard Egarr. This impressive album shows that Emma Bell’s fresh and sensual voice is as much at home in the world of Baroque opera as it was for late Romantic lied in her acclaimed debut release last year of songs by Bruno Walter, Richard Strauss and Joseph Marx (LINN CKD 238). ‘Emma Bell sings Rodelinda with gorgeous tone and spectacular vocal control over the role’s well-nigh impossible range’ - The Guardian.