[ Warner Classics Home of Opera / 3 CD Box Set ]
Release Date: Friday 20 January 2017
1001 Classical recordings you must hear before you die (1901-1950)
"a very characteristically Karajan performance, deeply committed and full of beautiful things. The casting is excellent."
(Gramophone)
Pelléas et Mélisande, often perceived as an opera of understatement and half-lights, is transformed by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra into an intense, but still mysterious drama of seething passions. As the powerful yet tortured Golaud, José van Dam is heard in perhaps his greatest role, while the poetic Richard Stilwell as his half-brother Pelléas falls under the spell of Frederica von Stade, enigmatically sensuous as Mélisande.