Opera
Halka struts its stuff, impressively, in this new recording with an all-Polish cast conducted by internationally renowned Gabriel Chmura.
With its wide-ranging textual and musical materials, this “church parable” stands as one of Benjamin Britten’s most striking creations.
The performance shows generally high competence and comfort, no surprise given that the work is a longtime staple in Croatia: indeed, it is the single most-performed opera in the entire repertory of the Croatian National Theater.
I don’t recall encountering a recent Baroque recording that is sung with such a fine balance of smoothness and character.
This new recording would be a great, and inexpensive, way to enter the sound world of Rossini’s mature operas.
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s delightful 1906 comic opera, via the first recording of the version heard at the work’s premiere.
I felt at times that I was listening to the Italian equivalent of a Broadway musical, though a serious rather than jolly one.
A delightful recording — and the first ever! — of arias from Hasse’s and Gluck’s operas about Tigranes and Cleopatra of Pontus. Plus four arias by Vivaldi for that same Cleopatra.
August Enna’s colorful and vividly melodramatic score does justice to the robust exoticism of H. Rider Haggard’s novel.
This world-premiere recording of Gluck’s Demofoonte is stylishly performed, under the experienced hand(s) of conductor/harpsichordist Alan Curtis.
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