PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Tchaikovsky: Mazeppa (complete opera) Nikolai Putilin / Sergei Aleksashkin / Larissa Diadkova / Irina Loskutova / Viktor Lutsiuk / Viacheslav Luhanin / Vladimir Zhivopistsev / Nikolai Gass [ Philips / EuroArts / DVD - released 8/Jun/2005 ] Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa . Now available on Philips DVD, in anamorphic widescreen and DTS 5.1 digital surround sound. |
NOEL COWARD
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Coward: Bitter Sweet (complete operetta) Valerie Masterson, Martin Smith & Donald Maxwell / Sadler's Wells opera, Michael Reed [ Jay Productions / 2 CD Box Set - released 16/Aug/1999 ] Bitter Sweet is an operetta in three acts, with book, music and lyrics by Noël Coward. The story, set in 19th-century and early 20th-century England and Austria-Hungary, centres on a young woman's elopement with her music teacher. |
GEORG FRIDERIC HANDEL
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Handel: Acis and Galatea (Complete opera) Norma Burrowes, Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Martyn Hill, Willard White / The English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner [ Archiv / 2 CD - released 8/Mar/1986 ] "A joy ... glorious singing." International Music Guide |
FRANZ LEHAR
Lehar: The Merry Widow (complete operetta recorded in 1988) Opera Australia / Joan Sutherland, Ron Stevens, Ann-Maree McDonald / Richard Bonynge (cond) [ ABC Universal DVD / DVD - released 1/Mar/2011 ] The sparkling story concerns a national crisis in the picture-postcard country of Pontevedro, as the recently-widowed Hanna Glawari appears to be in danger of marrying a foreigner. |
GIOACCHINO ROSSINI
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia [The Barber of Seville] (complete opera recorded in 2009) Royal Opera House / Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Florez, Pietro Spagnoli / Antonio Pappano (cond) [ Erato / Warner Classics DVD / 2 DVD - released 10/May/2010 ] G - "This very likely is the strongest Barber cast I've ever seen. DiDonato, wheelchair or not, is a dream Rosina, vocally flawless and always in good taste." (10/10 ClassicsToday.com) |
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake (complete ballet) The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mark Ermler [ Conifer / 3 CD Box Set - released 20/Nov/1993 ] |
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Op 71 (highlights from the ballet) The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mark Ermler [ Conifer / CD - released 20/Nov/1989 ] "The orchestra respond idiomatically to Tchaikovsky dance music and with obvious familiarity and love. Ermler has a natural feeling for springing rhythms and moulding rubato persuasively." (Gramophone) |
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty Op 66 (complete ballet) The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mark Ermler [ Conifer / 3 CD Box Set - released 20/Nov/1990 ] "The orchestra respond idiomatically to Tchaikovsky dance music and with obvious familiarity and love. Ermler has a natural feeling for springing rhythms and moulding rubato persuasively." (Gramophone) |
PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Op 71 (complete ballet) [with Arensky: Variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky] The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mark Ermler [ Conifer / 2 CD Box Set - released 20/Nov/1989 ] "The orchestra respond idiomatically to Tchaikovsky dance music and with obvious familiarity and love. Ermler has a natural feeling for springing rhythms and moulding rubato persuasively." (Gramophone) |
ADOLPHE ADAM
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Adam: Giselle [complete ballet] Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Richard Bonynge [ Decca / 2 CD - released 19/Apr/2012 ] "Richard Bonynge's performance on Decca restores Adam's original and is a bit more strongly characterised, while the Decca sound has a slightly sharper and brighter profile." (Three Stars penguin Guide) |
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Britten: Curlew River Peter Pears, John Shirley-Quirk, Harold Blackburn, Bryan Drake, English Opera Group, Benjamin Britten [ Decca Records / CD - released 2/Jan/1989 ] "Curlew River - A Parable for Church Performance (Op. 71) is an English music drama, with music by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by William Plomer. |
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Britten: Tthe Burning Fiery Furnace Peter Pears, John Shirley-Quirk, Robert Tear, Stafford Dean / English Opera Group, Benjamin Britten [ Decca / London / CD - released 18/Nov/1990 ] This recording remains unique and carries that special authority only the composer himself can bring to his recordings. |
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Britten: The Turn of the Screw (Complete opera recorded in 1994 with libretto) Philip Langridge, Felicity Lott, Sam Pay, Eileen Hulse, Phyllis Cannan, Nadine Secunde / Aldeburgh Festival Ensemble, Steuart Bedford, conductor [ Collins Classics / 2 CD Box Set - released 25/Aug/1994 ] "The cast could hardly be bettered, with Felicity Lott an involving Governess and Philip Langridge mesmerising as the ghostly Quint. The whole enterprise… is a worthy counterpart to the composer's own" BBC Music |
ANDRE PREVIN
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Previn: A Streetcar Named Desire (complete opera) Renee Fleming, Rodney Gulfry, Elizabeth Futral / San Francisco Opera, Andre Previn [ Deutsche Grammophon / 3 CD Box Set - released 21/Mar/1998 ] "The greater part of Previn's success has to do with his respect for, and understanding of, the music of Williams's text. Librettist Philip Littell has done an excellent job of adapting it, condensing it, mindful of how opera, by its very nature,... |
FRIEDRICH SMETANA
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Smetana: The Bartered Bride (Highlights recorded in German in 1962) Pilar Lorengar, Gottlob Frick, Fritz Wunderlich / Bamberger Symphoniker / Rudolf Kempe [ EMI Classics Electrola Collection / CD - released 24/Aug/1987 ] "There, as elsewhere, Pilar Lorengar is better than in any other recording I have heard. Her quick vibrato, which later in her career tended to widen and give a feeling of unsteadiness, is here beautifully controlled and she sings warmly." MusicWeb |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Verdi: Otello (complete opera recorded in 1992 at Covent Garden) Royal Opera House, Covent Garden / Placido Domingo, Kiri te Kanawa, Sergei Leiferkus / Sir Georg Solti [ Opus Arte DVD / DVD - released 1/Jan/2008 ] G : - "The great work and the great performance; and, crucially, both gain from the filming. …is deeply impressive, and moving, to see how completely Domingo lives his role Te Kanawa too shows herself alive to every suggestion of her music and... |
VERDI / DONIZETTI / BIZET / BELLINI / ROSSINI / THOMAS
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Opera Gala Placido Domingo, Thomas Hampson, Ruth Ann Swenson / Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra, Eugene Kohn [ EMI Classics / CD - released 1/Aug/1996 ] 'An opera gala with a difference. Instead of cherry-picking the usual highlights, it gives us arias and duets in the context of complete scenes, which affords the added novelty of the stars taking on supporting roles they would never usually sing' |
RICHARD WAGNER
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Wagner: The Mastersingers Of Nuremberg (Complete opera in English) Norman Bailey, Derek Hammond-Stroud, Noel Mangin, Sadler's Wells Chorus & Orchestra, Reginald Goodall [ Chandos Opera in English / 4 CD Box Set - released 30/Jun/2008 ] "An ensemble singing an ensemble opera: that is perhaps the performance's greatest strength, but there are many moments when it rises far above that… Whether you were around or not, do listen to this supremely humane account of a supremely humane... |
GIACOMO PUCCINI
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Puccini: La Boheme (complete opera) Renata Scotto, Alfredo Kraus, Carol Neblett, Sherrill Milnes, Paul Plishka / Ambrosian Opera Chorus / National Philhrmonic / James Levine [ EMI Classics for Pleasure / 2 CD - released 20/Jul/2006 ] "Scotto sings a lovely "Si, mi chiamano Mimi", and her phrasing is always beautiful...no one newly smitten by the opera will find this performance of it disappointing." (Gramophone) |
UMBERTO GIORDANO
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Giordano: Andrea Chenier (Complete opera recorded in 1976 with libretto) Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo, Jean Kraft, Sherrill Milnes / National Philharmonic Orchestra, James Levine [ RCA Opera Series / 2 CD Box Set - released 20/Feb/1977 ] "for Scotto's sake and to a slightly lesser extent for Domingo's, I think I would choose RCA" Gramophone This set is currently unavailable |