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Verdi: Macbeth

Luciano Pavarotti

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

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Verdi: Don Carlos

Luigi Roni

Opera - Released January 1, 1979 | Orfeo

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Leontyne Price - Verdi and Puccini Arias

Leontyne Price

Classical - Released January 13, 2015 | RCA Red Seal

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Verdi

Ludovic Tezier

Classical - Released February 5, 2021 | Sony Classical

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or / Arte
It was time for Ludovic Tézier to finally provide his admirers with a recital. His performances as a Verdian baritone are impressive: Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, Falstaff, Giorgio Germont (La Traviata), Posa (Don Carlo), Le Conte De Luna (Il Trovatore), Renato (Un ballo in maschera), Iago (Otello). And almost all of these are reprised in this solo album. To this impressive list of stage roles, Tézier brings the welcome addition of arias from Ernani, Macbeth and Nabucco all accompanied by Frédéric Chaslin at the head of the orchestra of the Teatro Comunale in Bologna. It was in 1998 in Tel Aviv that the French baritone played his first Verdian role. He was thirty years old when he was Ford in a production of Falstaff. "There is an absolutely fascinating energy in Verdi, both for the audience and for the singers", he admits. "His roles are usually very challenging, but his music acts at the same time as a fountain of youth. Verdi is brimming with vitality, which is what allowed me to return to the stage just two days after my father's death". Now with a fully-matured voice, Ludovic Tézier is in demand all over the world for his Verdi roles. He is one of the best performers of Verdi's work, standing alongside the late Piero Cappuccilli who remains his great role model. This record offers timely confirmation of his stature. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart : La finta giardiniera

René Jacobs

Full Operas - Released October 9, 2012 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - Disque de la semaine France Musique - Choc de Classica
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Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (Remastered)

Erich Leinsdorf

Classical - Released January 1, 1967 | Sony Classical

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Verdi : La Forza del Destino (Remastered)

Thomas Schippers

Classical - Released January 1, 1965 | Sony Classical

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Monteverdi: Il terzo libro de madrigali

Rinaldo Alessandrini

Opera - Released October 30, 2020 | naïve classique

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
No one knows better than Rinaldo Alessandrini that Monteverdi's madrigals – to which he has dedicated a major part of his work and recordings over the past thirty years – were above all texts where the music was the servant, and not the mistress. This form of a cappella vocal polyphony, responding sensitively to the inflections of a highly expressive poetry, was born in the full flowering of Renaissance humanism and developed in the 17th century by composers such as Monteverdi, Marenzio and Gesualdo, before being supplanted by the opera. As the Italian maestro explains, in the Third Book of Madrigals, "we can already see how carefully the twenty-fiveyear-old Monteverdi chooses poetry, e.g. by Guarini and Tasso, which is capable of 'responding to the needs of the drama, of truth, humanity and emotionality, culminating at the end of his life in the lustrous triumph of his final works". This is the fifth collection of madrigals Rinaldo Alessandrini has recorded with Concerto Italiano, and it is the cornerstone of his quest for an intimate understanding of Monteverdi's repertoire – and all the music that came after it. These madrigals have "the power to allow the performers to read the human passions, perceive them empathetically, and restore them in the very finest dress" (Esteban Hernández Castelló). Their analytical yet sensitive approach leads to a precise intonation, a direct transmission of naked emotions, and the restoration of details we can only glimpse behind the words, revealing in all its beauty what lies hidden in the music: mirror images of the soul. © naive classique
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Verdi: Nabucco

Parma Teatro Regio Orchestra

Classical - Released November 19, 2013 | C Major

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Verdi: Arias

Sondra Radvanovsky

Classical - Released April 27, 2010 | Delos

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Monteverdi: Il terzo libro de madrigali

The Consort of Musicke

Classical - Released May 11, 1993 | Warner Classics

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Giuseppe Verdi : Luisa Miller

Katia Ricciarelli

Classical - Released January 1, 1980 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

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Atys

Christophe Rousset

Opera - Released January 5, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Backed by the Sun King despite a lukewarm audience reception at first, Lully's Atys (1676) went on to become one of the composer's most successful operas, with revivals at French court theaters as late as 1753. In modern times, however, it is a considerably rarer item due to the massive forces and time required. Christophe Rousset was in the pit as harpsichordist when conductor William Christie gave the first modern revival of the work in the late '80s. That experience marks this 2024 release, which made classical best-seller lists at the beginning of that year. That is not common for a hefty five-act Baroque opera, but even a bit of sampling will confirm why it happened: Rousset, from the keyboard, brings tremendous energy to the opera. He pushes the tempo in the numerous dances and entrance numbers, and the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and the singers of the Choeur du Chambre de Namur, all of whom have worked closely with Rousset in the past, keep right up. The singers in the solo roles are all fine; haut-contre Reinoud Van Mechelen in the title role and Ambroisine Bré as the goddess Cybèle, who sets the tragic plot in motion, are standouts. The sound from the increasingly engineering-expert Château de Versailles label is exceptionally clear in complex textures, and the sensuous cover art (representing, it is true, not the Roman mythological figure of Atys but Hippomène and Atalante) is a bonus. In the end, this is Rousset's Atys, and that is a very good thing.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Céphale et Procris

Reinoud Van Mechelen

Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Psyché

Christophe Rousset

Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Écho & Narcisse

Hervé Niquet

Classical - Released August 25, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Broken Branches

Karim Sulayman

Classical - Released May 5, 2023 | PentaTone

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Programs mixing Eastern and Western materials are common enough, and even those showing the deep interwovenness of East and West, such as those of Jordi Savall, have become more common. Still, it is hard to top this release by tenor Karim Sulayman and guitarist Sean Shibe for sheer ambition. The booklet notes by Olivia Giovetti amplify the idea in a dozen different ways, with extensive reference to Edward Said and to the Arabic ancestry of the guitar, but the basic premise is that "shoehorning things into a forced binary of 'East' and 'West' eliminates a spectrum of identities more slippery than settled." Nearly everything here cuts both ways, from a Dowland song accompanied by guitar in the role of the lute (oud), to Sephardic and Arab-Andalusian songs, to a popular song by vocalist Fairuz that draws on Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez. One key idea is that musical borrowings are always filtered through the borrower in a kind of imperfect recollection, something explicitly affirmed by Benjamin Britten in connection with his Songs from the Chinese. Many of these strands converge in the Sufi Dance of Jonathan Harvey, a work that the album offers as underrated; listeners will be ready to agree. One might not necessarily choose these players as interpreters of the individual works here, but the album, as a whole, is compelling and thought-provoking.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Satie: Gymnopedies

Denis Pascal

Classical - Released December 2, 2022 | La Musica

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama - Choc de Classica
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Casta Diva - Operatic arias transcribed for trumpet

Matilda Lloyd

Opera - Released April 28, 2023 | Chandos

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Five years after her solo debut recording, Direct Message, which programmed 20th and 21st century works for trumpet and piano, trumpet player Matilda Lloyd departs the traditional repertoire (aside from the two Arban arrangements from the Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet). Instead of following more well-worn routes, Lloyd elects to present a program of Romantic period opera arias, mostly in arrangements for trumpet and chamber orchestra (undertaken here by the Britten Sinfonia under Rumon Gamba) by William Foster, who worked closely with Lloyd on this project. Lloyd's skill as a musician is evident throughout, though the two Arban tracks most clearly allow her abilities to shine. The arrangements throughout are good, though how much they add to the performances rather than transcriptions and transpositions is up for debate. Lloyd notes with excitement the decision to include two pieces by Pauline Viardot, and one of the highlights here is the treatment of Viardot's Havanaise. This is certainly a trumpet release aimed at a wider audience than trumpet and brass circles, and it has already found success on the retail market. Chandos delivers just the right atmosphere from the Church of St. Augustine, Kilburn, in London. The future is bright for this trumpeter, and one looks forward to where her path may take her. © Keith Finke /TiVo
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Rameau : Zaïs

Christophe Rousset

Full Operas - Released September 3, 2015 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - Choc de Classica - Choc Classica de l'année
In 1745, the King of France granted Jean-Philippe Rameau the title of ‘Composer to the Court’, coupled with a healthy pension. This new period produced pieces of a much lighter character, with Rameau working alongside the librettist Louis de Cahusac, and the resulting collaborations are now counted amongst the Burgundian musician’s greatest masterpieces. Zaïs was presented on the stage of the Royal Academy of Music in 1748. This heroic ballet offers French music some of its most beautiful movements, both vocally and instrumentally. The entire work is a meditation on its famous opening chaos, and succeeds, surprisingly, through its theatrical stamp and in the audacity of the writing. The plot is, perhaps, tenuous – a lover (Zaïs) is in the throes of affection for his beloved (Zélidie), determining to cherish her – which serves as the pretext for endless entertainment, dancing, and the work’s magical character. Today, it remains surprising that a work as sumptuous as Rameau’s Zaïs is neglected in favour of the Indes Galantes or Hippolyte et Aricie. It is paradoxical, then, that in 1970 Gustav would combine the small amount of French music he truly appreciated with a reassessment of the beauties of this work. Gustav created a fascinating recording with La Petite Bande Sigiswald Kuijken (STIL), which has now become a true rarity, despite its questionable vocalists. Happily for us, Christophe Rousset, who cherishes Rameaus’s older work, has dedicated himself to it, and offers us this gorgeously captured rendition, with French singers working under the direction of his sharp and witty leadership. The opening of the Les Talens Lyriques recital is far more vivid than anything that has been achieved in over twenty years for L’Oiseau-Lyre, in which the Ouverture immediately sets the tone. Rousset completely captures the brilliance of the score, and his imagination – which here seems insatiable – liberates his singers, who are boundlessly invested in this work; complicit in a musical resurrection. An enchantment of sorts? No. A whirlwind, rather. © Qobuz