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Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (Remastered)
Erich Leinsdorf
Classical - Released January 1, 1967 | Sony Classical
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Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (Live)
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper
Opera - Released April 8, 2016 | Orfeo
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Verdi: Un ballo in maschera
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monté-Carlo
Opera - Released June 16, 2023 | PentaTone
Hi-Res
Booklet
Studio recordings of full operas are not so common anymore, but among the few positive side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was that it did spawn several. This one sounds a bit buttoned-up, perhaps because of the restrictions of the time; the album was made in the summer of 2021, and the contributions of the Transylvania State Choir were downloaded from afar (actually, this would be hard to tell by listening), but there is a lot that is distinctive about the performance of this Verdi opera, whose tragicomic quality has made it a special favorite in modern times. Verdi moved the action from Sweden to Boston to circumvent a censorship restriction; nowadays, the Swedish setting is generally preferred, but the curious American colonial setting somehow seems to fit the mixture of elements in the opera, loading political intrigue onto the old comic trope of the masked ball. The biggest news is the presence of tenor Freddie De Tommaso in the lead role of Riccardo. He has been bubbling under the surface of the opera scene, and with this recording, he takes a major step into the spotlight. Consider one of his big numbers, like "Forse la soglia attinse" in Act III, for an idea of why his performance is bringing to mind some of the greats who have recorded this opera. He is ably backed by a strong cast, including the rougher but powerfully dramatic Lester Lynch as Renato, making a compelling contrast with De Tommaso and Saioa Hernández as Amelia. This vocally strong Un ballo in maschera is well worth the attention of Verdi lovers.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (Live)
Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Opera - Released April 2, 2021 | Orfeo
The Naxos label had already released a DVD of a live 2008 performance at the Teatro Real in Madrid of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera under the direction of the great Spanish conductor Jesús López Cobos, who died in 2018. This release presents the audio recorded on the stage of the Vienna Opera in 2016 and marketed by the same label. This publication honours two great artists who passed away shortly after this performance: the baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Renato and Jesús López Cobos, who gives superb impetus to Verdi's masterpiece, at the helm of the Wiener Staatsoper Orchestra, a part of the Vienna Philharmonic.In April 2016, the great Russian baritone's voice was already damaged by illness, and he had to start heavy chemotherapy a few weeks after this series of performances, cancelling several of his contracts. However, he remained utterly committed to this role, in which he played a jealous man in a performance full of powerful despair. Polish tenor Piotr Beczała won great acclaim in the role of King Gustav III of Sweden, especially for his duet with Krassimira Stoyanova's splendid Amelia. As expected, Nadia Krasteva brings a visionary treatment to the spectacular role of the gypsy witch Ulrica. Israeli soprano Hila Fahima plays the charming page Oscar with an agility that is both casual and precise. An excellent reflection of what one of the world's greatest stages can offer on a daily basis. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (Live)
Roberto Abbado
Opera - Released September 16, 2022 | Dynamic
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Booklet
The composition of Un ballo in maschera caused Verdi many problems. What began as an opera called "Gustavo III" was subject to censorship by the Neapolitan and Roman authorities, so its libretto, location and title all changed. The subject, however, is still the murder of Riccardo (Gustavo) at the masked ball, couched in a musical language in which the seriousness of Italian opera is infused with French vivacity. The opera’s structure is carefully symmetrical in the great terzets, and the themes of duty, pleasure, drama and humour are rendered with masterful clarity. © Dynamic
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Quintessence Schubert: Complete Symphonies, Rosamunde
Staatskapelle Dresden
Classical - Released October 1, 2019 | Brilliant Classics
Booklet
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Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique
Varujan Kojian
Classical - Released January 1, 1982 | Reference Recordings CD
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Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique - Le roi Lear
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released June 1, 2010 | PentaTone
Hi-Res
Booklet
Even though Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique is one of the most familiar classical works, performances are often surprising for the variety of sonorities that can still be found in it and for the exciting ways it can be interpreted. Berlioz was the Romantic showman par excellence, and he made this piece a showcase for what the modern orchestra could do, from conventional playing to special innovative effects. These include the famous timpani chords at the end of the "Scène aux champs," the grotesque brass pedal tones in the "Marche au supplice," and the eerie use of col legno battuto in the "Songe d'une nuit de sabbat," among many others. Of course, the novel aspects of Berlioz's orchestration come off best in live performance, but the next best thing is this hybrid super-audio CD from PentaTone that captures Symphonie fantastique in all its hallucinatory strangeness and vividness. Marek Janowski and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra present the symphony and the King Lear Overture with exquisite polish, and the marvelous audio production practically gets inside the ensemble and allows each part to have its distinctive -- and sometimes disturbing -- place in the mix. Beyond the fabulous sound, this is also an incredibly gripping interpretation because Janowski conveys all the passion and impulsiveness of the drug-addled artist in the work's program. Indeed, the music is as hot-headed and deranged as the composer intended, and listeners will feel compelled to listen to the whole SACD in one sitting, so riveting is this live performance for its high energy and seemingly endless array of skillfully crafted sounds. Highly recommended.© TiVo
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique & Harold in Italy
Michel Plasson
Classical - Released October 2, 2006 | Warner Classics
Hector Berlioz was a master of program music, and for two of his most famous orchestral works -- Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy -- the program is an intrinsic part of the full appreciation of the music. As is so often the case in compilations such as this one, the liner notes fall extremely short. While it is not the responsibility of liner notes to provide a thorough history lesson, the scant three paragraphs describing the "story" of Symphonie fantastique and the bare mention of the idée fixe would do little to inform any novice listeners for whom a collection such as this is ostensibly marketed. Beyond the liner notes, the performances heard on the CD itself provide a satisfactory introduction to the orchestral works of Berlioz. The Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse under the direction of Michel Plasson is an energetic and capable group of musicians, but there are a few characteristics that prevent this from being a definitive recording. For one, the tympani almost always covers up the majority of the orchestra. The principal oboe's sound is sometimes quite shrill, not matching the warmer sound of the rest of the wind section. The ensemble does not always execute attacks in precise unison, and articulation is not as defined as it should be.© TiVo
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Verdi : Aida (Remastered)
Erich Leinsdorf
Classical - Released January 1, 1971 | Sony Classical
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5 de Diapason
« En 1970, neuf ans après la mythique version Solti, Leontyne Price, malgré un médium moins nourri, reste une Aïda d'anthologie, d'une irrésistible sensualité. Sous la baguette experte d'Erich Leinsdorf, à Londres, Grace Bumbry, séduisante et redoutable, Placido Domingo entre vaillance et abandon, Sherill Milnes, père inflexible, sont à sa hauteur.» (Diapason, mars 2018 / Didier Van Moere)
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Bernstein: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released January 13, 2017 | Naxos
Hi-Res
Booklet
This recording follows on a successful reading by the same forces of Bernstein's Symphony No. 3 ("Kaddish") of 1963. You can see why they started with the later work first, although the 1965 revision of the Symphony No. 2 ("The Age of Anxiety") actually postdates the earlier-numbered work. All three works share a common theme, namely the crisis of faith, but the oratorio-like "Kaddish" Symphony has a dramatic quality that makes its concerns explicitly. Here, Bernstein employed musical symbolism that takes a little bit of immersion (or study of the fine booklet notes by Frank K. DeWald) to grasp. The Symphony No. 2 was inspired by a lengthy W.H. Auden poem of the same name, consisting of pieces of a conversation among a group of New Yorkers in a bar. Bernstein does not represent it blow by blow, but tries to replicate the structure, using two sets of variations, a tone row (although not 12-tone structure), and diversions into jazz and pop along the way. It works once you get into it, and conductor Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra are greatly aided by the presence of French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. The Symphony No. 1, which Bernstein began to think about in 1939, when he was 21, is similarly hard to pin down: it uses Jewish melodic material only obliquely (the booklet quotes a specialist with the interesting claim that Bernstein used more of it than he thought he did), but it is suffused throughout with the spirit of the Lamentations that provide the final movement's text. These are sympathetic performances, worth the time of those interested in the work of one of the 20th century's still underrated composers (at least in the classical sphere).© TiVo
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Haendel: Opera Seria
Sandrine Piau
Classical - Released November 2, 2004 | naïve classique
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Berlioz: Works (Live)
Roger Norrington
Classical - Released April 8, 2022 | SWR Classic
Booklet
During his thirteen years as chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of SWR Sir Roger Norrington conducted and recorded an important part of Berlioz's core repertoire. The present boxed set brings together the Requiem, the opera Benvenuto Cellini (in a concert performance), the oratorio L'Enfance du Christ, the overture Les Francs-juges and of course the Symphonie fantastique. Norrington's style has caused a stir internationally with what has come to be termed "The Stuttgart Sound": a synthesis of historically-informed performance practice with the technical capabilities of a modern orchestra. Whether in Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner or Berlioz, Norrington seeks to capture the performance experience of the time, adjusting the orchestra’s size and seating plan to create an authentic sound without vibrato. Hector Berlioz had to surmount a variety of challenges before he was able to pursue his musical vocation. His father, a respected physician in the provincial South of France, was not readily willing to come to terms with his son's intention to quit his medical studies and turn instead to music. He therefore made all further financial support subject to Hector's climbing up the musical ladder at lightning speed. Alas, it didn't work so easily. Berlioz's road to success was tedious and marked by adversity and struggle, his personal life tumultuous. The uniqueness and originality of his musical style are no longer disputed, but this insight came at the end of a decades long process. © SWR Music
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique & Fantaisie sur la Tempête de Shakespeare
Sir Andrew Davis
Symphonies - Released July 1, 2019 | Chandos
Hi-Res
Booklet
Sir Andrew Davis was the music director of the Toronto Symphony from 1975 to 1988, and he has maintained strong ties with the group displayed here, even though the players in the main are not the ones he conducted back then. You might not think the world needs another reading of the Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14, but Davis' ease with the orchestra enables him to pull off a number of unusual orchestral effects. The real find here is the Fantaisie sur La Tempète de Shakespeare (Fantasy on Shakespeare's The Tempest), which is a symphonic poem movement, not incidental music. It is the last movement of Lélio, which was the immediate successor to the Symphonie Fantastique but is much less often performed. It is a charming collection of delicate orchestral displays complete with a choir singing words from The Tempest, or something like them, in Italian (Berlioz, who had just won the Prix de Rome, was in an Italian phase). The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, which has worked often with both Davis and the Toronto Symphony, achieves special grace here, and this little performance is worth the price of admission. The Symphonie Fantastique itself is more straightforward but has distinctive touches, including bell strokes in the "Dies irae" that will make you sit up and take notice, if not severely stress your expensive speakers. The Torontonians generally play well throughout, although the return of the idée fixe in the waltz movement (sample this) comes off more as an intrusion than as the desired fleeting thought. A fine product of Sir Andrew's old age.© TiVo
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Véronique Gens. "Tragédiennes"
Véronique Gens
Classical - Released May 1, 2006 | Warner Classics
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Les grandes heures du Bolchoï, Vol. 2: Les plus grandes valses
L'Orchestre National du Bolchoï
Classical - Released June 1, 1999 | Via Classic
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Verdi: I Vespri siciliani
Riccardo Muti/Cheryl Studer/Mario Chingari/Ferrero Poggi/Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano/Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Milano/Chris Merritt/Gior
Classical - Released November 12, 1990 | Warner Classics
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Antonio Vivaldi : Oracolo in Messenia
Fabio Biondi/Julia Lehzneva/Vivica Genaux/Ann Hallenberg/Romina Basso/Franziska Gottwald/Xavier Sabata/Magnus Staveland/Europa Galante
Classical - Released September 24, 2012 | Warner Classics
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Diapason d'or -
4 étoiles Classica
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Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, Le Carnaval romain, Le Corsaire
Orchestre Du Capitole De Toulouse
Classical - Released December 12, 2005 | Warner Classics
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