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Wagner: Le vaisseau fantôme (Diapason n°615)

George London

Opera - Released June 28, 2013 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

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Wagner : Der fliegende Hollander (Le Vaisseau fantôme)

Matti Salminen

Opera - Released September 1, 2011 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
In preparation for the Wagner bicentennial in 2013, Marek Janowski and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester and Rundfunkchor Berlin began an ambitious project of recording the composer's ten major operas for Pentatone with Der fliegende Holländer in 2010. The recording's strongest points are the stellar performances by the orchestra and chorus; there's real fire and passion in their playing and singing. This is not Wagner's most dramatically coherent opera, but Janowski manages to keep the momentum going and the big moments are genuinely stirring. The leads are mostly very fine but not consistently memorable; the general lack of real distinction keeps this from being a contender as a top-ranked recording of the opera. Daland has been a signature role for Matti Salminen, who delivers the strongest performance among the leads; his characterization is sharply and vividly realized, and while his noble voice shows its age, it's appropriate for the role. As the Dutchman, Albert Dohmen has a vocal quality not sufficiently differentiated from Salminen's, and although his singing is never less than adequate, he fails to convey the character's mythic dimensions. Ricarda Merbeth as Senta has a voice that's large enough for the part but that's somewhat hard and inflexible, and that fails to generate much sympathy for her character. Robert Dean Smith usually sounds strained as Erik, except in his relatively rare quiet passages. The singer who makes the strongest and most lingering impression is Steve Davislim in the small role of the Steersman. The sound is clean, full, and nicely nuanced.© TiVo
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Richard Wagner : Der Fliegende Holländer - Pierre-Louis Dietsch : Le vaisseau fantôme ou le maudit des mers

Marc Minkowski

Classical - Released November 4, 2013 | naïve classique

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
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Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer, WWV 63 (Live)

Bayreuther Festspielorchester

Opera - Released March 14, 2006 | Orfeo

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone Editor's Choice
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Nina Stemme sings Wagner (Live 2003-2013)

Nina Stemme

Opera Extracts - Released November 17, 2017 | Orfeo

Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - 5 étoiles de Classica
These are on-stage live recordings of various great Wagnerian moments of the great Swedish dramatic soprano Nina Stemme (born in 1963) made between 2003 and 2013, right during the opera singer’s time of glory, at the prime of her ability – it’s worth pointing out that a dramatic soprano’s voice, as opposed to a “classic” lyric soprano, reaches her full prime rather late in her musical life, considering the extravagant muscular stress required for the roles of Isolde, Sieglinde or Brünnhilde. The orchestra of the Vienna State Opera is conducted by either Seiji Ozawa or Franz Welser-Möst – at the time when they succeeded each other as Music Director of this honourable and particularly traditionalist institution. And let’s not forget that Nina Stemme won the Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Prize in 1993, and gained international recognition as Isolde at Glyndebourne in 2003, the year of the first recordings presented here. Since then, she has played all the legendary female icons such as Elektra, Turandot, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, and many other major roles in Bayreuth. A stellar career fully recognised in this album. © SM/Qobuz
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Paradise Lost

Anna Prohaska

Classical - Released April 10, 2020 | Alpha Classics

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The gestation of this project lasted two years. Anna Prohaska and Julius Drake finally concentrated their research on the themes of Eve, Paradise and banishment. Some songs were obvious choices, such as Fauré’s Paradis, in which God appears to Eve and asks her to name each flower and animal, or Purcell’s Sleep, Adam, sleep with its references to Genesis. But Anna Prohaska also wished to illustrate the cliché of the woman who brought original sin into the world and her status as a tempter who leads man astray, as in Brahms’s Salamander, Wolf’s Die Bekehrte or Ravel’s Air du Feu. In Das Paradies und die Peri, Schumann conjures up the image of Syria’s rose-covered plains. Bernstein also transports us to the desert with Silhouette.. John Milton’s seventeenth-century masterpiece Paradise Lost was the inspiration for Charles Ives and Benjamin Britten, also featured in this very rich programme that constitutes an invitation to travel and reflection. © Alpha Classics
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Wagner/Liszt : Transcriptions

Tanguy de Williencourt

Solo Piano - Released October 13, 2017 | Mirare

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
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Parsifal

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released May 29, 2011 | Challenge Classics

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En concert à Bercy

Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine

French Music - Released January 27, 1999 | Epic

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Le Vaisseau fantôme (Intégrale)

Wolfgang Sawallisch

Classical - Released March 3, 2010 | Myto Historical

Distinctions 4 étoiles Classica
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Wagner: Götterdämmerung

Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released June 30, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.

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Wagner: Parsifal

Jonas Kaufmann

Classical - Released March 1, 2024 | Sony Classical

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica
The world was due for a major new recording of Wagner's Parsifal, with some years having elapsed since the monster, four-hour work had seen a fresh one. There are a number of attractions to this one, recorded live at the Vienna State Opera in 2021. First is the production, designed and directed from house arrest in Russia by Kirill Serebrennikov. The version was controversial at the time, and subsequent events have made it timely. Serebrennikov transplants the tale to a modern prison, with characters in tracksuits and the like; the complex witch Kundry is (believe it or not) a photojournalist. None of this affects the singing, which is done straight, but the release graphics give one an idea. The major draw for many listeners, and probably the one that put the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2024, will be the presence of star tenor Jonas Kaufmann, in fine form in the title role (and album listeners get to avoid the flashback staging designed to circumvent that fact that the 50-something Kaufmann was playing a young man). The instrumental work from the Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper is very strong. However, what really puts this performance in the history books is the performance of mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca as Kundry. This was apparently her first appearance in a Wagner opera, but in the top-volume material in Act III, she is fully Kaufmann's equal. Some may find that she carries the whole production, with a rising line of intensity running through the whole giant structure. In any event, even listeners who own the Parsifal of Herbert von Karajan or one of the other classic readings will want to check this recording out.© James Manheim /TiVo
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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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Pancrace Royer: Surprising Royer, Orchestral Suites

Les Talens Lyriques

Symphonic Music - Released May 5, 2023 | Aparté

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Beyond the neglect of French Baroque music in general, it is a bit hard to understand why composer Pancrace Royer was almost completely unknown until Christophe Rousset came along to champion him, first in harpsichord music and now, with these suites of music drawn from operas, in orchestral music. In the 18th century, Royer was quite well known and admired among others by Rameau, whose music he helped along considerably. Royer certainly inhabited Rameau's stylistic world, but from the evidence here, his music is distinctive and merits the adjective "surprising" that Rousset has attached to it. It is colorful, given to unexpected turns of harmony, and vivid in its evocation of the exotic scenes of French opera. Sample the "Air pour les turcs" ("Air for the Turks") from Zaïde, reine de Grenade, with its crackling percussion. Royer challenged his orchestra with virtuoso ensemble writing in the likes of the "Premier et second tambourins" from Almasis, and Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques step up with precise, vigorous readings that one imagines would have made the composer overjoyed. The inclusion of two alternate versions for movements from Zaïde is also unusual and gives insight into the compositional thinking of the day. Essential for specialists and enthusiasts interested in the French Baroque, this album is a lot of fun for anyone, with only overdone church sound detracting from the overall effect. © James Manheim /TiVo
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David & Jonathas

Gaétan Jarry

Classical - Released June 9, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Céphale et Procris

Reinoud Van Mechelen

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

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
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Psyché

Christophe Rousset

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

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Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra

Munich Radio Orchestra

Classical - Released October 6, 2023 | BR-Klassik

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One might react to this album with initial annoyance and ask whether it is really necessary to hear orchestrated versions of Schubert's supremely pianistic songs. It may come as a surprise, then, to find that most of these Lieder with Orchestra were arranged by great composers. They include Benjamin Britten, Jacques Offenbach, and Max Reger, who took on the job because, he said, he hated to hear a piano-accompanied song on an orchestral program. Perhaps the most surprising name to find is that of Anton Webern, but his arrangements are not the minimal, pointillistic things one might expect; he wrote these arrangements as a way of studying Schubert's music, and they are quite straightforward. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish the arrangers simply by listening to the music; Schubert's melodic lines tend to suggest distinctive solutions. Perhaps Reger's are a bit more lush than the others, although his version of Erlkönig, D. 328, is one of the few numbers here that just doesn't work (there is no way to replicate the percussive quality of the accompaniment). As for the performances as such, Benjamin Appl is clearly an important rising baritone, and he has a wonderful natural quality in Schubert. An oddball release like this might seem an unusual choice for a singer in early career, but he contributes his own notes, and he seems to have undertaken the project out of genuine enthusiasm for the material. At the very least, he has brought some intriguing pieces out of the archives and given them highly listenable performances. The Munich Radio Orchestra, under the young Oscar Jockel, is suitably restrained and keeps out of Appl's way. This release made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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A Golden Cello Decade, 1878-1888: Dvořák, R. Strauss, Bruch, Le Beau

Steven Isserlis

Classical - Released November 4, 2022 | Hyperion

Hi-Res Booklet