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Seiji Ozawa, Berliner Philharmoniker, Saito Kinen Orchestra - Orff: Carmina Burana; Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (2004/1989,2002)

Posted By: Vilboa
Seiji Ozawa, Berliner Philharmoniker, Saito Kinen Orchestra - Orff: Carmina Burana; Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (2004/1989,2002)

Seiji Ozawa, Berliner Philharmoniker, Saito Kinen Orchestra - Orff: Carmina Burana; Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (2004/1989, 2002)
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | Latin, Deutsch | LinearPCM, 2 ch | DTS, 6 ch | 7.64 Gb (DVD9) | 134 min
Classical | Philips

This DVD presents Seiji Ozawa conducting two great choral masterpieces, beloved by audiences around the world. Orff's Carmina Burana, boisterous and lyrical, sets medieval songs in a celebration of life's pleasures. Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony, concludes with the uplifting 'Ode to Joy', a timeless plea for universal brotherhood.

Charles Mackerras, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (2000)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Charles Mackerras, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (2000)

Charles Mackerras, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (2000)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 598 Mb | Total time: 131:47 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Telarc | # CD-80544 | Recorded: 1999

Mackerras’s series of opera recordings, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, has a character very much its own, deriving from his natural feeling for the dramatic pacing of Mozart’s music and the expressive and allusive nature of its textures, as well as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s sensitivity and responsiveness to him. These are not period-instrument performances (except in that natural horns and trumpets are used, to good effect), but Mackerras’s manner of articulation, and the lightness of the phrasing he draws from his strings, makes it, to my mind, a lot closer to a true period style than some of the performances that make a feature of period instruments and then use them to modern ends (I am thinking less here of British conductors than some from Europe).

James Levine, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming - Mozart: Don Giovanni (2005/2000)

Posted By: Vilboa
James Levine, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Bryn Terfel, Renee Fleming - Mozart: Don Giovanni (2005/2000)

James Levine, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Bryn Terfel, Renée Fleming - Mozart: Don Giovanni (2005/2000)
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | Italiano | LinearPCM, 2 ch | DTS, 5 ch | Dolby AC3, 6 ch | 5.90 Gb + 5.31 Gb (2xDVD9) | 180 min
Classical | Deutsche Grammophon | Sub: Italiano, English, Deutsch, Francais, Espanol, Chinese

Mozart’s darkest operatic masterpiece with a superb cast featuring Renée Fleming and Bryn Terfel, masterfully conducted by James Levine with Franco Zeffirelli’s beautiful staging.
Bryn Terfel, giving his first Don Giovanni at the MET, received rave reviews for both his singing and his dramatic performance – as the Los Angeles Times puts it: “Terfel is exquisite as the Don, raping and pillaging his way through Europe: His voice, diction and acting are perhaps the best in the role since Cesare Siepi.”

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Chor - Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste (2002)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Chor - Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste (2002)

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Chor - Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste (2002)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 607 Mb | Total time: 65:13+69:39 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Philips | # 470 293-2 | Recorded: 1999

Gardiner illuminates Alceste's subtle colors and inflections, assisted by von Otter, whose perceptive performance as Alceste is one of emotional sincerity and spot-on vocal accuracy. Despite being a watershed between baroque and classical opera - and a major influence on Mozart, Berlioz and even Wagner -Gluck (1714-87) is still best known today for one opera. Orfeo ed Euridice might be a masterpiece but it's one that has tended to overshadow his other fine achievements.

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir - Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste (2000)

Posted By: ArlegZ
John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir - Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste (2000)

John Eliot Gardiner, English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir - Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste (2000)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Français (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | (DTS, 5 ch) | 133 min | 7,68 Gb (DVD9)
Classical | Label: EMI Classics | Sub: English, Français, Deutsch | Recorded: 1999

Rebelling against the increasingly formulaic operas of the time, Christoph Willibald Gluck's "reformist" opera Alceste (1767) was a successful attempt to return to a purer form of musical drama. It is highly appropriate that this 1999 production of the revised 1776 Paris version should be conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, with the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, the same forces responsible for many fine Bach performances equally emphasizing character and text. In setting the tragic story of the profound love between Queen Alceste and her husband King Admète, Gluck provided a score of austere, rending beauty.

Donald Runnicles, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Vincenzo Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi (2000)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Donald Runnicles, Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Vincenzo Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi (2000)

Donald Runnicles, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Jennifer Larmore, Hei-Kyung Hong - Vincenzo Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi (2000)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 580 Mb | Total time: 75:50+50:02 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Teldec | # 421472 | Recorded: 1998

For one of Bellini's less popular works, I Capuleti has seen a remarkable number of recordings, with some of the starriest stars in the operatic firmament taking part. A self-recommending and self-damning bastardized version from the 1960s in which the role of Romeo was transposed from mezzo to tenor (by Claudio Abbado) can still be found with Giacomo Aragall as Romeo, Renata Scotto (or Margarita Rinaldi, in another pirate) as Giulietta, and Luciano Pavarotti as Tebaldo. Muti's set with Gruberova and Baltsa manages to be both exciting and sterile at the same time, a couple of other entries have come and gone (where is the Sills?), and the only competition for this current release is RCA's with the marvelous, expressive Vesalina Kasarova as Romeo and the pretty, fragile Giulietta of Eva Mei. But for my ears, this one, handsomely led by Donald Runnicles, takes the lead.

Ivor Bolton, Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra - Gluck: Alceste (2015) [Blu-Ray]

Posted By: Vilboa
Ivor Bolton, Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra - Gluck: Alceste (2015) [Blu-Ray]

Ivor Bolton, Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra - Gluck: Alceste (2015) [Blu-Ray]
BluRay | BDMV | MPEG-4 AVC Video / 15000 kbps / 1080i / 29,970 fps | 147 min | 21,1 Gb
Audio: Français / LPCM Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz / 2304 kbps / 24-bit
––––––
BluRay-rip | AVC | MKV 1920x1080 / 6215 kbps / 29,970 fps | 147 min | 8,84 Gb
Audio: Français / PCM / 2ch / 48.0 KHz / 24 bits
Classical | EuroArts | Sub: Spanish, French, German, English

The 300th anniversary of Christoph Willibald Glucks birth in 2014 was celebrated at the Teatro Real in Madrid with a new production of Alceste (French version), staged by Krysztof Warlikowski and starring Angela Denoke as Alceste. Alceste is Glucks most programmatic example of his quest for purer expression and deeper meaning. All its elements show a conscious effort to recreate the tragic origins of opera: its staunch dramatic unity, austere musical form, use of the chorus as a fundamental part of the story and, above all, its anachronistic but devoted adaptation of Euripides' tragedy.

Edward Gardner, Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Opera de Paris - Donizetti: L’Elisir d’amore (2008)

Posted By: Vilboa
Edward Gardner, Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Opera de Paris - Donizetti: L’Elisir d’amore (2008)

Edward Gardner, Orchestre du Théatre National de l'Opéra de Paris - Donizetti: L’Elisir d’amore (2008)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Italiano | LinearPCM, 2 ch | Dolby AC3, 6 ch | DTS, 5 ch | 7.52 Gb (DVD9) | 133 min
Classical | BelAir | Sub.: Francais, English, Deutsch, Espanol

Transposing the plot to the Italy of the 1950s, director Laurent Pelly (La Fille du Régiment in London and New York, with Natalie Dessay) offers us an absolute jewel, beautifully crafted and shot through with poetry. American Heidi Grant Murphy sings Adina, accompanied by tenor Paul Groves as Nemorino. “Doctor” Dulcamara is masterfully played by the up-front Ambrogio Maestri and Laurent Naouri‘s Belcore is delightfully repulsive. Appointed music director of the English National Opera in 2006, young British conductor Edward Gardner conducts the Paris Opera Orchestra.

Sylvain Cambreling, Staatskapelle Berlin, Paul Groves, Vesselina Kasarova - Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust (2000)

Posted By: Vilboa
Sylvain Cambreling, Staatskapelle Berlin, Paul Groves, Vesselina Kasarova - Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust (2000)

Sylvain Cambreling, Staatskapelle Berlin, Paul Groves, Vesselina Kasarova - Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust (2000)
PAL 16:9 (720x576) VBR | Français | LinearPCM, 2 ch | Dolby AC3, 6 ch | 7.60 Gb (DVD9) | 146 min
Classical | Arthaus Musik | Sub: English, Deutsch, Nederlands

This imaginative staging of Berlioz's dramatic symphony for chorus, soloists and orchestra relies heavily on the moving of massed choirs across a large stage. It has vivid lighting effects–rather too many of them using strobes–and monolithic multi-purpose sets, in particular a revolving glass drum which functions both as cinema screen and rostrum for singers, so that the final ride to Hell, for example, is sung by Mephistopheles and Faust above a cavalcade of projected horses, like the inside of a zoetrope. The three main soloists have voices on a scale that can compete with these flashy production values–White and Kasarova, in particular, sing at a level of intensity that would swamp anything less; the climactic seduction trio has rarely been sung so well or with such an overpoweringly polymorphous eroticism. Cambreling marshals his forces effectively, giving full rein to the work's showstoppers like the "Hungarian March" but not neglecting the subtler less kinetic Gluckian side of Berlioz's vocal writing. (Roz Kaveney)

James Levine, The Metropoliten Opera Orchestra - Wagner: Parsifal (2002/1992)

Posted By: Vilboa
James Levine, The Metropoliten Opera Orchestra - Wagner: Parsifal (2002/1992)

James Levine, The Metropoliten Opera Orchestra - Wagner: Parsifal (2002/1992)
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | Deutsch | LinearPCM, 2 ch | Dolby AC3, 6 ch | DTS, 5 ch | 6.39 + 7.82 Gb (2xDVD9) | 264 min
Classical | Deutsche Grammophon | Sub.: Deutsch, English, Francais, Espanol, Chinese

Wagner's stage festival in the recording of a production from the Metropolitain Opera New York. The title role is brilliantly starred by Siegfried Jerusalem, and as Kundry you can experience Waltraud Meier, who is outstanding in her performance and singing. Bernd Weikl, Kurt Moll and Franz Mazura stand by the two main roles and make this DVD - one of the few recordings of the opera on this medium - a must for every opera lover.