This is a fine selection of Nino Rota's film scores , with 'La Strada' and 'Il Gattopardo'. The 'La Strada' is , in fact, a seven movement suite from the ballet which Rota adapted for the stage using his filmscore. Rota's ability to both supply big tunes and provide ironic comment in his scores is in evidence here. Gianluigi Gelmetti gets big, bold playing from his Monte Carlo orchestra. He gets committed playing that suits the pieces here, especially the splendid 'Il Gattopardo'. The sound is warm and big scale, particularly for the 'Waterloo' and 'War and Peace' items.

Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) is one of Mozart’s five great repertoire operas alongside Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and Die Zauberflöte. A typical ‘Singspiel’, a form in which all the dialogue is spoken rather than sung, it was a great success during Mozart’s lifetime and to this day has not lost any of its magic. Mozart was twenty-six when he wrote this opera, which was commissioned by a Viennese Theatre and premiered in 1782.

If today no one questions the greatness of Mozart, the most famous composer in Europe at the end of the 18th century was probably Antonio Salieri. For many years court composer of the Austrian Emperor, Salieri wrote an enormous amount of music, some of the best of which remains that composed for the theatre. Les Danaïdes was premièred at Paris’s Opéra on 26th April 1784 and met with a triumphant success. The present recording, qualitatively very high also from a technical point of view, dates from 1983 and features an extraordinary Montserrat Caballé in great vocal form. Gianluigi Gelmetti conducts the renowned RAI Orchestra.

Thousands of music enthusiasts are drawn each year to the Schwetzingen Festival in the time-honored walls of the beautiful Rokokotheater, an ideal place for Rossini's farse, his light one-act operas from the early part of his career. These operas already contain all the elements with which Rossini later took the music world by storm: melodic inventiveness, ingenious connections between sung lines and orchestral accompaniment, musical humor and emsembles using breathtakingly fast parlando singing. The witty and ironical relaization of these musical comedies by Michael Hampe and conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti with a great ensemble of singers was met with enthusiastic approval and makes the present recordings milestones in the still young Rossini videography and the very rare productions in this genre.

Thousands of music enthusiasts are drawn each year to the Schwetzingen Festival in the time-honored walls of the beautiful Rokokotheater, an ideal place for Rossini's farse, his light one-act operas from the early part of his career. These operas already contain all the elements with which Rossini later took the music world by storm: melodic inventiveness, ingenious connections between sung lines and orchestral accompaniment, musical humor and emsembles using breathtakingly fast parlando singing. The witty and ironical relaization of these musical comedies by Michael Hampe and conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti with a great ensemble of singers was met with enthusiastic approval and makes the present recordings milestones in the still young Rossini videography and the very rare productions in this genre.

Thousands of music enthusiasts are drawn each year to the Schwetzingen Festival in the time-honored walls of the beautiful Rokokotheater, an ideal place for Rossini's farse, his light one-act operas from the early part of his career. These operas already contain all the elements with which Rossini later took the music world by storm: melodic inventiveness, ingenious connections between sung lines and orchestral accompaniment, musical humor and emsembles using breathtakingly fast parlando singing. The witty and ironical relaization of these musical comedies by Michael Hampe and conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti with a great ensemble of singers was met with enthusiastic approval and makes the present recordings milestones in the still young Rossini videography and the very rare productions in this genre.

Thousands of music enthusiasts are drawn each year to the Schwetzingen Festival in the time-honored walls of the beautiful Rokokotheater, an ideal place for Rossini's farse, his light one-act operas from the early part of his career. These operas already contain all the elements with which Rossini later took the music world by storm: melodic inventiveness, ingenious connections between sung lines and orchestral accompaniment, musical humor and emsembles using breathtakingly fast parlando singing. The witty and ironical relaization of these musical comedies by Michael Hampe and conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti with a great ensemble of singers was met with enthusiastic approval and makes the present recordings milestones in the still young Rossini videography and the very rare productions in this genre.

Hänssler Classics is committed to recording all the works of Wolfgang Rihm, one of the most prolific and intriguing German composers to emerge in the late twentieth century, and this CD is the third installment in the Rihm Edition. The composer shows remarkable assurance in his first symphony, written in 1969, when he was 17. It's a serial piece, and its roiling turbulence and unpredictable juxtapositions make it very much a product of the defiant modernism that dominated music in postwar Europe.

Based on Voltaire's tragedy, this is a story of innocence wronged, set against a backdrop of Turks at war with Syracuse. Amenaide, the daughter of Argirio, leader of the senate, is in love with the exiled knight Tancredi. Argirio offers Amenaide's hand in marriage to Orbazzano, the leader of a rival faction, as a token of reconciliation. Amenaide resists this, and sends a letter to Tancredi, who has returned to Syracuse and is in hiding. The letter is intercepted, and it is mistaken as an invitation to the Turk Solamir to enter Syracuse. All are appalled, even the disguised Tancredi. Amenaide is sentenced to death for treachery, but Argirio allows a champion to fight for her vindication. Although still believing her guilty, Tancredi (still disguised) does so. He bests Orbazzano, saves Amenaide, and sadly prepares to leave Syracuse for good.

For "La forza del destino", Verdi created one of his most famous melodies, the "fate" motif that permeates the whole of the score. Music and action alternate in masterly fashion between large-scale crowd scenes and intimate interiority, in that way illustrating Verdi's real theme: the manner in which fallible human beings are destroyed by a cruel fate.

This is a wonderful performance, one of the finest in this Tutto Verdi series of the complete operas. Conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti is an unlikely looking gentleman at first glance but at his first wave of the baton one realizes he is a master. His upbeat tempi have a big sweep that gives the opera the brilliance Verdi intended. The tenor, Francesco Meli (Riccardo), is a young fresh voice, powerful and sensitive; the baritone, Vladimir Stoyanov is beginning to take over from the venerable Nucci in the series.