Classical Music
Rossini’s Zelmira is a powerhouse opera that features two coloratura tenors and equally demanding roles for soprano and mezzo.
A world-star soprano, in her magnificent prime at age 36, offers her first recital CD, and you can participate in its online “launch.”
Lovers of Baroque opera will welcome this release: the first recording — and a very accomplished and communicative one —of an important opera by a pioneer and master.
Antônio Carlos Gomes’s Lo Schiavo (The Slave) receives its first major recording — and stakes its claim in the repertory.
Author Ethan Mordden serves up plenty of entertaining yarns, sometimes as exaggerated as the genre to which they pay homage.
This is a conductor and ensemble that have the measure of Max Bruch’s style and voice well in hand.
This San Francisco Symphony release proves to be a fitting send-off for music director Michael Tilson Thomas; there’s much to admire in the Seattle Symphony’s playing of Carl Nielsen’s first two symphonies; fiery energy from both violinist Arabella Steinbacher and the excellent Münchener Kammerorchester make their new disk a gem.

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