” Opera Rara

Opera Album Review: Hot News — Award-Winning First Recording of a Major Contemporary of the Young Verdi

November 25, 2023
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The whole recording reminds me that numerous forgotten but extremely accomplished nineteenth-century works can provide rich satisfactions when performed as well as this

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June Short Fuses – Materia Critica

June 2, 2022
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Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.

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Listening During Covid, Part 4: Fascinating Vocal Adventures from Different Times and Places

January 21, 2021
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I may be in quarantine, but music can transport me back to the Middle Ages, or to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, or, via Donizetti, to an imagined India.

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Opera Preview: Donizetti’s “The Pariah” — One of the Most Significant Opera Releases of the Past Few Years

January 10, 2021
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The long-forgotten Il paria (1829), a work that Donizetti himself prized more highly than many of his other works, has now been reconstructed by a scholarly team and given a splendid recording.

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Opera Album Review: Ermonela Jaho, a Soprano We Need Today

September 19, 2020
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A world-star soprano, in her magnificent prime at age 36, offers her first recital CD, and you can participate in its online “launch.”

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Opera Review: A Major Opera by Donizetti — Heard for the First Time!

December 10, 2019
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One of Donizetti’s strongest and most original works, has finally been reconstructed and recorded by superb forces under the remarkable Mark Elder.

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CD Reviews: Jonas Kaufmann’s “L’Opera” and Michael Spyres’ “Espoir”

October 17, 2017
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Two great tenor discs have recently been released

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Classical CD Reviews: Joyce El-Khoury’s “Echo” and Matt Haimovitz’s “Troika”

September 24, 2017
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Soprano Joyce El-Khoury sings spectacularly in her new disc, Echo.

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