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Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527 (Live)

Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra

Opera - Released August 31, 2018 | Orfeo

Booklet
Saying that this is a great Don Giovanni, a great Furtwängler Don Giovanni, and one of the greatest Don Giovanni's of the twentieth century is hardly to exaggerate the importance of this recording. Made on July 27, 1953, at the Salzburg Festival, it preserves a performance by one of the best casts ever assembled for the opera -- Cesare Siepi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Grummer, Anton Dermota, Otto Edelmann, Erna Berger, and Walter Berry -- backed by the best orchestra for the opera -- the Vienna Philharmonic -- and led by surely the greatest German conductor of the twentieth century. Under Furtwängler, the singers and players create a Don Giovanni that is fiery, passionate, romantic, metaphysical, and occasionally hilarious. While some listeners might legitimately prefer a lighter or funnier performance of Don Giovanni, and other listeners might prefer a cleaner or clearer recording of Don Giovanni, anyone who loves the work or the conductor will love this performance and, despite its conspicuous blemishes, this recording. Indeed, for those who love Furtwängler, the question will be whether or not to get a third Furtwängler Don Giovanni. Already in circulation are two performances from the 1954 Salzburg Festival with mostly the same stellar cast, one a sound recording and one a video recording of surprisingly good quality. Of course, for the true Furtwängler aficionado, the opportunity to hear the fabled 1953 Don Giovanni will be irresistible so the question is essentially moot.© TiVo
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Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527

Charles Mackerras

Classical - Released August 27, 1996 | Telarc

Charles Mackerras' 1995 recording of Don Giovanni with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra & Chorus is intriguing largely because it includes both the original Prague version and the revised Vienna version of the middle of the second act. The Prague version ends the second CD and the Vienna version opens the third CD, making it easy for listeners to skip over whichever version they choose, or just play the discs straight through and listen to both. The performances on the whole, though, are not consistently strong enough to make this a particularly competitive reading of the opera. Several roles are very well taken. Bo Skovhus makes a charismatic and roguish Don Giovanni, with the dramatic skills to make the complex character fully convincing. His singing is powerful, and his tone is secure and ringing throughout his range. As Zerlina, Nuccia Focile is a wide-eyed but beguiling innocent, and she acts beautifully with her expressive voice, which is consistently warm and lyrical. Their chemistry makes "Là ci darem la mano" one of the album's highlights. Felicity Lott is dramatically effective as Donna Elvira, but her voice, which sounds marvelous when it's soaring, lacks power and sounds unsupported in its lower register. Christine Brewer's Donna Anna is inconsistent; for some stretches, her voice lacks substance and has a slightly grainy sound, but she persuasively pulls off her big moments. Jerry Hadley as Don Ottavio doesn't always sound entirely in control, and his lower register is often weak, but he handles "Il mio tesoro intanto" nicely. Alessandro Corbelli brings genuine comic gifts to Leporello, but he doesn't have the power necessary and his vibrato sometimes obscures the pitch. The playing of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is exemplary -- crisp and flexible -- and the use of natural horns and Classical-era trombones and timpani works well with the stylistically sensitive playing of the rest of the ensemble. The sound is vivid, and the discreet use of sound effects is convincing.© TiVo
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Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527

Lorin Maazel

Opera - Released January 13, 1987 | Sony Classical

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Mozart: Don Giovanni - The Sony Opera House

Lorin Maazel

Classical - Released January 13, 1987 | Sony Classical

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Don Giovanni (Intégrale)

Hans Rosbaud

Full Operas - Released July 19, 2007 | INA Mémoire vive

Booklet Distinctions 4 étoiles du Monde de la Musique
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Mozart: Don Giovanni by Wilhelm Furtwängler

Wilhelm Furtwängler

Opera - Released January 8, 2022 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

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Mozart: Don Giovanni

Freiburger Barockorchester

Opera - Released January 1, 2007 | harmonia mundi

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Mozart: Don Giovanni

Dimitri Mitropoulos

Opera - Released August 9, 1994 | Sony Classical

Distinctions 4F de Télérama - Choc de Classica
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Louise Bertin: Fausto

Les Talens Lyriques

Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Bru Zane

Hi-Res Booklet
The classical best-seller charts are unfamiliar environs for the Palazzetto Bru Zane label, which specializes in forgotten 19th century opera. However, this release achieved best-seller status in early 2024, and this is absolutely no surprise, for Louise Bertin's Fausto is a remarkable work. One wonders how long it will take programmers to present it in a cycle with Berlioz's and Gounod's versions of the Faust tale (and perhaps Arrigo Boito's); the work is colorful in the extreme and is sure to be a crowd-pleaser even though it closed after three performances in 1831 and was shelved for the next 190 years. Perhaps the opera mixed so many influences that audiences just did not know what to make of it. Bertin, who was 25 when the work had its premiere in Paris, wrote the libretto herself in Italian. It has all the trappings of Rossinian opera -- fortepiano-accompanied recitative, aria, scena, preghiera, cavatina, big multi-part finales ending with a fast stretta -- but the effect of the music is completely different, and the settings stand up to the weighty aspect of the material. It is as if Weber had written a Faust opera, sometimes even as if Beethoven had written one. The role of Faust is sung by a mezzo-soprano, which is how Bertin wrote it, although a tenor version also exists. This results in intriguing equal-status duets between Karine Deshayes as Fausto and Karina Gauvin as Margarita. Conductor Christophe Rousset catches the ambition and the drama; his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques uses historical instruments but wisely bulks up to an adequate size for the work. Palazzetto Bru Zane, as usual, does the opera justice sonically with a studio recording. This is a remarkable release, not only for lovers of 19th century opera or those interested in music by women, but for anyone.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Verdi: Macbeth

Luciano Pavarotti

Classical - Released January 1, 1993 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

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Rachel

Rachel Willis-Sørensen

Classical - Released April 8, 2022 | Sony Classical

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Mozart: Don Giovanni - opera in two acts K527

Daniel Barenboim

Classical - Released September 3, 2007 | Warner Classics

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Les Noces de Figaro (Intégrale)

Huub Claessens

Opera - Released January 1, 2000 | Accent

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Un jardin à l'italienne (Aria, Cantatas & Madrigals)

William Christie

Classical - Released September 8, 2017 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4 étoiles Classica
The six young singers of the Academy of Le Jardin des Voix, selected from several hundred candidates, offer us a musical journey through some of the finest pieces in the Italian repertory, from a Banchieri madrigal to Haydn’s Orlando paladino. Thanks to an outstanding training programme and the musical values transmitted by William Christie and Paul Agnew, here is a chance to discover both some splendid vocal gems and a group of new performers who honour them with talent, grace and humour. Sheer delight! © harmonia mundi
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Mozart Desperate Heroines

Sandrine Piau

Opera Extracts - Released September 29, 2014 | naïve classique

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
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Verdi : Ernani (Remastered)

Thomas Schippers

Classical - Released January 1, 1968 | Sony Classical

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Monteverdi : L'incoronazione di Poppea (Live)

William Christie

Classical - Released August 30, 2019 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
An echo of the luxuriant performance at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, where this recording was made, this new version of the Coronation of Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, conducted by William Christie (who had already recorded the piece once before, at a concert in Madrid, with production by Pier-Luigi Pizzi, in 2010) met with unanimous acclaim thanks to its exceptional musical execution. A distribution to die for, dominated by Sonja Yoncheva's voluptuous interpretation of the titular role, and fabulous instrumentation from the Arts Florissants, led by Christie, with no fancy tricks, from the vantage point of his harpsichord. These ingredients all add up to a very high quality production to mark the fortieth anniversary of the ensemble, which was founded in 1979. While Jan Lauwer's production was widely admired, this audio-only publication will seduce novices and connoisseurs alike. In this extraordinary opera, Monteverdi applies his genius to spoofing contemporary figures from behind a curtain of ancient history. This exceptional recording is a joyful demonstration of how Montverdi ennobled the nascent genre of opera, by writing for it a moving masterpiece that defies changing times and fashions. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Puccini: La Bohème by Sir Thomas Beecham

Thomas Beecham

Opera - Released January 1, 1956 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

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Il gioco della cieca. Madrigali, Canzoni & Villanelle per cantare, et sonare

Concerto di Margherita

Classical - Released February 4, 2022 | Arcana

Hi-Res Booklet
A young ensemble of instrumentalists and singers revives the precious historical practice of singers accompanying themselves (already brought back into currency by the soloist Vivabiancaluna Biffi), thus producing a wholly new sound in music usually assigned to unaccompanied voices. With Concerto di Margherita, self-accompanied singing becomes "collective" for the first time in our era, and is amplified in a shared gesture in which all the members of the group – playing and singing together with extraordinary coordination – produce a sonority unprecedented in this repertory. Created at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, the group (which is named after the Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga) performs as a consort of five voices, theorbo, harp, viola da gamba, guitar and lutes, inspired by the "Concerto delle dame" of Ferrara. The recording debut of Concerto di Margherita presents arrangements of a wide range of instrumental and vocal works (madrigals, villanellas and canzonas), drawing on music by De Wert, Gastoldi, Monteverdi and the "blind man’s buff" scene from Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (1580). © Arcana
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Verdi : La Forza del Destino (Remastered)

Thomas Schippers

Classical - Released January 1, 1965 | Sony Classical

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