by Ralph P. Locke

A list of the most memorable opera and vocal recital recordings of the year.

Conductor John Nelson in rehearshal for “Les Troyens.” Photo: Gregory Massat.

Most delightful opera recording of the year:

I didn’t expect that Wagner could ever charm me so, but listening to the CD release of a historic 1962 concert performance of his comic masterpiece Die Meistersinger sung in Italian was a captivating experience. Some of the best Italian or Italian-trained singers of the day—including Giuseppe Taddei, Renato Capecchi, and Boris Christoff—participated, under the baton of Lovro von Matačić. Their voices are nearly always firm and clear, and they sound for all the world as if they are truly conversing.

Best Wagner recording of a serious kind:

I have heard three Lohengrin recordings in the past year or two, but the best of them is, yes, another historic re-release: from the Bayreuth Festival 1967. The young Heather Harper is utterly magnificent as Elsa, and she is matched point for point by the young James King as the Swan Knight. The proceedings are under the confident hand of Rudolf Kempe. My review here.

Best early-opera recording:

Some tough competition here. I loved an opera by Leonardo Vinci (no relation to the artist!), Didone abbandonata, and was swept away by one singer—Rosa Bove—on a recording of Paisiello’s Zenobia in Palmira. But the palm goes to Nicola Porpora’s Germanico in Germania, featuring an astounding cast headed by countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic and soprano Julia Lezhneva

Best twentieth-century opera:

Is it an opera or a musical comedy? It has witty spoken dialogue between the musical numbers, but then so does Mozart’s Magic Flute, which is an opera for sure. Or is it a piece of propagandistic theater in defense of unionization and collective bargaining—and perhaps revolution? It’s all of these things and more, because I am talking about Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock (1937), which finally got its first complete recording, with the original orchestration—recorded live at the Saratoga Festival, under John Mauceri. Ginger Costa-Jackson is splendid as The Moll, and Christopher Burchett adds gravity and sass from his first appearance as Larry Foreman, two-thirds of the way into the work. The rest of the youngish cast enters into the spirit of the work with precision and gusto. Arts Fuse review

Best French-opera recording:

No question, the event of the year for lovers of French opera was the world-premiere recording of Fromental Halévy’s La reine de Chypre, using an edition scrupulously prepared by the Center for French Romantic Music (whose headquarters are in a palazzo in Venice!). The cast is headed by two singers who I hope will find their way to the Met sooner rather than later: Véronique Gens and Cyrille Dubois. Staging this opera would require expensive and complex sets, but you can stage it in your own mind as you listen to this spirited rendering. Don’t miss the duet for the tenor and baritone that ends Act 2 and that perhaps served as a model for a similar duet in Verdi’s La forza del destino. Arts Fuse review

Best young singers to greet my ears:

Stratospheric coloratura tenor Maxim Mironov (in Bellini’s Bianca e Gernando), and, in discs of arias, soprano Joyce El-Khoury and tenor Michael Spyres. El-Khoury and Spyres even join in one duet on his CD and in another duet on hers. If I were running an opera company, I’d hire both singers in an instant.

Mixed feelings:

John Nelson leads a brisk and persuasive reading of Berlioz’s epic-length Les Troyens, and the cast members put their lines across wonderfully. (It helps that most of them are native French-speakers). But I found Joyce DiDonato’s voice here too edgy for comfort. Until I noticed that the recording comes with a DVD containing more than an hour of excerpts from the work, recorded in concert (i.e., acted out, but without costumes, sets, or much stage action). Being able to watch DiDonato’s dramatic intensity from moment to moment made me forget utterly whatever doubts I had about her vocal production. Interesting how different one’s reactions to an opera performance can be, with and without seeing!

Ralph P. Locke is emeritus professor of musicology at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. Six of his articles have won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music. His most recent two books are Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections and Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart (both Cambridge University Press). Both are now available in paperback, and the second is also available as an e-book.