Ralph P. Locke
I don’t recall encountering a recent Baroque recording that is sung with such a fine balance of smoothness and character.
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.
This world-premiere recording of Gluck’s Demofoonte is stylishly performed, under the experienced hand(s) of conductor/harpsichordist Alan Curtis.
Cross-gender disguises and comic banter liven up the melodrama in this presentation of Antonio Cesti’s famous opera, thanks to a spirited and virtuosic traversal by a mostly Italian cast.
The composer of Les huguenots and L’Africaine was already an accomplished master at age 26, as this first-rate recording reveals.
At this point in his career, Mayr is contributing to the development of the musicodramatic conventions that would set the stage for the masterpieces of Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi.
Attention is being paid today to talented composers who have been sidelined or disdained because of their race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Reynaldo Hahn qualifies on several counts.
Just in time for Passover: another fine world-premiere Rossini recording, the 1827 French version of his Moses-in-Egypt opera.
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