Ralph P. Locke
The world-renowned tenor Ivo Židek leads a spirited cast, and reminds us how involving opera can be when sung by native speakers.
The new “Portrait” package contains five hours of music by Bizet that is mostly unknown to music lovers and music lovers. Plus one of his best operas, a one-act written just before “Carmen”: 1872’s “Djamileh,” which is set in a harem.
The skillful Mark Elder leads a fine cast, including the superb Peruvian tenor Iván Ayón-Rivas.
Two-plus hours of delight for anybody interested in Baroque opera, or willing to try it.
Pietro Auletta’s “L’Orazio” (1737), with substitute arias by other composers, gets a first-rate performance from the renowned Valle d’Itria Festival.
Ferruccio Busoni’s century-old (or -young) Doktor Faust, inspired by Christopher Marlowe and other pre-Goethe sources, offers a fascinatingly hellish ride.
A renowned 18th-century master struts his stuff, helped by a skillful young Italian tenor, in an opera first performed in Russia.
Conductor Jane Glover, marvelous soloists — including superstar countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen — and a superb chorus and orchestra invigorate one of Handel’s last and greatest works.
Another excellent recording from the “Rossini in Wildbad” festival, with spellbinding vocal performances by Congolese tenor Patrick Kabongo and other powerful young singers.
Any opera lover will find much to admire and enjoy in this work, based on a famous 27-strophe poem by Friedrich Schiller that Schubert set in its entirety to music.
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