|
Untitled Document
|
|
|
BEST OF OPERA, VOL. 2 |
|
|
Composer: |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amilcare Ponchielli, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Jacques Offenbach, Alfredo Catalani, Georges Bizet, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Gioachino Rossini |
Artist: |
Graciela Alperyn, Giacomo Aragall, Jussi Bjorling, Maya Boog, Joanna Borowska, Priti Coles, Francesco Ellero d' Artegna, John Dickie, Maria Dragoni, Miroslav Dvorsky, Sonia Ganassi, Miriam Gauci, Thomas Harper, Maria Pia Ionata, Raoul Jobin, Kristjan Johannson, Kaludi Kaludov, Ingrid Kertesi, Monika Krause, Giorgio Lamberti, Risto Lauriala, Herbert Lippert, Andrea Martin, Lauritz Melchior, Peter Mikulas, Nelly Miricioiu, Jozsef Mukk, Patrizia Pace, Ewa Podles, Lily Pons, Rosa Ponselle, Yordy Ramiro, Donna Robin, Angelo Romero, Helge Rosvaenge, Bidu Sayao, Roberto Servile, Gladys Swarthout, Renata Tebaldi, Georg Tichy, Alan Titus, Eduard Tumagian, Ramon Vargas, Jonathan Welch, John Brownlee, Luba Orgonasova, Kurt Azesberger, John McCormack, Ian Caddy, Alida Ferrarini, Louise Homer, Nellie Melba, Antonio Scotti, Dorothy Kirsten, Giuseppe Valdengo, Salvatore Baccaloni, Anna-Lisa Bjorling, Lina Bruna-Rasa, Carlo Galeffi, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Gabriele Sima, Mercedes Capsir, Lionello Cecil, Pia Tassinari, Ina Souez, Luise Helletsgruber, Audrey Mildmay, Licia Albanese, Beniamino Gigli, Tatiana Menotti, Afro Poli, Feodor Chaliapin, Frida Leider, Richard Tauber, Elisabeth Schumann, Leonard Warren, Erna Berger, Jan Peerce, Nan Merriman, Maggie Teyte, Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, Ebe Stignani, Camilla Rota, Eleanor Steber, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tiana Lemnitz, Frederic Jagel, Mario Basiola, Giuseppe Nessi, Maria Caniglia, Italo Tajo, Lucrezia Bori, Ida Conti, Aristide Baracchi, Natale Villa, Lina Pagliughi, Renato Girolami, Bo Skovhus, Janusz Monarcha, Frances Alda, Luisa Tetrazzini, Pasquale Amato, Josephine Jacoby, A. Regis Rossini, Mirella Freni, Peter Schreier, Karita Mattila, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Thomas Allen, Margaret Price, Agnes Baltsa, Fedora Barbieri, Nazzareno de Angelis, Hellen Kwon, Ruth Ziesak, Reinald Werrenrath, Robert Easton, Titta Ruffo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Ernesto Dominici, Hilde Gueden, Charles Kullman, Toti Dal Monte, Vittoria Palombini, Tito Schipa, Giovanni Martinelli, Natale de Carolis, Roberto Frontali, Silvano Carroli, Ann-Christine Biel, Kerstin Avemo, Benno Ziegler, Aulikki Rautavaara, Constance Willis, Conchita Supervia, Landon Ronald, Rohangiz Yachmi, Peter Koves, Franco de Grandis, Kurt Rydl, Wilfried Gahmlich, Hjordis Schymberg, Alzbeta Michalkova, Carlo Forti, Fabio Previati, Carmen Gonzales, Ivan Urbas, Boaz Senator, Doina Palade, Vicente Sardinero, Marcel Rosca, Donald George, Barbara Dever, Mark Rucker, Pietro Spagnoli, Maria Zamboni, Grace Moore, Solange Michel, Michel Dens, Martha Angelici, Jennie Tourel, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Zinka Milanov, Nicola Moscona, George Cehanovsky, Giuseppe de Luca, Giacinto Prandelli, Giovanni Inghilleri, Fernando Corena, Piero De Palma, Melchiorre Luise, Ildebrando Santafe, Patrice Munsel, Studio pianist, Alan Opie, Dusolina Giannini, Joseph Schmidt, Vladimir Kubovcik, Marian Vach, Ladislav Neshyba, Jan Rozehnal, Alma Gluck, Jan Durco, Lucienne van Deyck, Marina Mescheriakova, Elvira Casazza, Dario Zani, Robert Merrill, Peter Mattei, Hillevi Martinpelto, Stanislav Benacka, Guiseppe Campora, Nell Rankin, Amelita Galli-Curci, Flora Perini, Ana Maria Martinez, Elisabeth Norberg-Schulz, Andrea Piccinni, Jozef Spacek, Nelly Boschkowa, Robert Szucs, Jozef Abel, Jiri Sulzenko, Richard Novak, Ladislav Hallon, Danilo Rigosa, Ann Liebeck, Dalia Schaechter, Rannveig Braga, Ivica Neshybova, Peter Oswald, Pavol Maurery, Peter Subert, Jitka Saparova, Henk Lauwers, Ludwig van Gijzegem, Kazmer Sarkany, Laszlo Orban, Ferenc Korpas, Riccardo Ferrari, Antonio Marceno, Monica Trini, Ana Tomkovicova, Maria Stahelova, Helena Hanzelova, Lotte Leitner, Maria Huder, Adelio Zagonara, Gino Conti, Ingvar Wixell, Mario Del Monaco, Aldo Protti, Dario Caselli, Donato di Stefano, Victoria De los Angeles, Marcello Giordani, Sunhae Im, Martha Lipton, Thelma Altman, Salvatore Cottone, Stefano Secco, Maria Callas, Rolando Panerai, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, Angelo Mercuriali, Tito Gobbi, Franco Calabrese, Alvaro Cordova, Maria Amandini, Gianni Poggi, Paolo Silveri, Giulio Neri, Armando Benzi, Piero Poldi, Heddle Nash, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, Veronique Gens, Gerhard Husch, Judith Halasz, Michelle Breedt, Michael Roider, Alexander Klinger, Orsolya Safar, Richard van Allan, Boris Christoff, Nicolai Gedda, Renato Bruson, Indra Thomas, Kristine Jepson, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, Valerian Ruminski, Mario Sammarco, Diana Soviero, Leopold Simoneau, Soile Isokoski, Raffaele Arie, Anna Maria Canali, Ede Gandolfo Marietti, Ines Marietti, Francesco Albanese, Ugo Savarese, Mariano Caruso, Mario Zorgniotti, Alberto Albertini, Gino Bianchi, Franco Rossi, Giulio Mogliotti, Marlis Petersen, Hermann Prey, Juliane Banse, Lucia Popp, Elizabeth Campbell, Edna Thornton, Fritz Wunderlich, Elisabeth Soderstrom, Raimo Sirkia, Giuseppe Noto, Johanna Gadski, Geraldine Farrar, Birgit Nordin, Norman Cordon, Rina Gigli, Ruth-Margret Putz, Bernarda Fink, Werner Gura, Matteo Peirone, Lucia Danieli, Mario Borriello, Renato Ercolani, Luisa Villa, Mario Carlin, Plinio Clabassi, Enrico Campi, Norberto Mola, Anna Maria Rota, Giuseppe Conca, Lisa Otto, Hao Jiang Tian, Bruna Rizzoli, Roberta Peters, John Bolton Wood, Ivo Vinco, Fiorenza Cossotto, Sesto Bruscantini, Irene Eisinger, Lawrence Tibbett, Enrico Caruso, Colin Mawby, Antonietta Stella, Lucy Isabelle Marsh, Elvira Galassi, Luisa Mandelli, Adriana Lazzarini, Giuse Gerbino, Giorgio Casciarri, Marcos Fink, Vittorio Tatozzi, Matti Hirvonen, Nicola Zaccaria, William Dickie, Franco Ricciardi, Richard Tucker, Giuseppe Modesti, Dino Fedri, Dora Labbette, Stella Andreva, Robert Alva, John Reardon, Giorgio Tozzi, Lucine Amara, William Nahr, Thomas Powell, George del Monte, Lado Ataneli, Elsie Baker, Silvio Maionica, Giuseppe Zampieri, Arturo la Porta, Tommaso Frascati, Leonardo Monreale, Lidia Grandi, Silvana Celli, Santa Chissari, Andrea Mineo, Hui He, Anna-Kristiina Kaappola, Luigi Alva, Igor Chichagov, Bruno Sbalchiero, Konstantin Wolff, Dermot Troy, Magnus Staveland, Daniel Behle, Manuel Spatafora, Carlo Badioli, Anna Moffo, Eraldo Coda, Giuseppe Morresi, Teresa Berganza, Cesare Valletti, Mario Zanasi, Marie Collier, Lea Roberts, Forbes Robinson, Rene Moller, Christa Mayer, Marcel Boone, Graciela Oddone, Joachim Buhrmann, Anna Grevelius, Inga Kalna, Sarah M'Punga, Ji-Min Park, Simone del Savio, Sonia Zaramella, Franco Ventriglia, Daniela Mazzuccato, Giulio Fioravanti, Dino Formichini, Vito Tattone, David Kelly, Daniel Schmutzhard, Isabelle Druet, Alois Muhlbacher, Christoph Schlogl, Philipp Potzlberger, Clemens-Maria Nuszbaumer, Christian Koch, Stuart Burrows, Rhydderch Davies, Michael Langdon, Ronald Lewis, Howell Glynne, David Tree, Noreen Berry, Robert Bowman, Josephine Veasey |
Conductor: |
Peter Schreier, Landon Ronald, Christoph Poppen, Wilfrid Pelletier, Eugene Goossens, Pietro Cimara, Victor De Sabata, Cesare Sodero, Rene Jacobs, Josef A. Pasternack, Oliviero De Fabritiis, Gabriele Santini, Lawrence Collingwood, Will Humburg, Gaetano Merola, Markus Lehtinen, Nathaniel Shilkret, Richard Hayman, Pietro Mascagni, Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan, Michael Halasz, Konrad Leitner, Antonello Gotta, Lodovico Zocche, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, Argeo Quadri, Marcus Creed, Lawrence Renes, Pietro Cimini, Alberto Erede, Victor Trucco, Giulio Setti, Steven Mercurio, Klaus-Peter Hahn, Izler Solomon, Lorenzo Molajoli, Giuseppe Antonicelli, Walter Goehr, Walter B. Rogers, Rosario Bourdon, Fritz Busch, Umberto Berrettoni, Dino Olivieri, Renato Cellini, Thomas Fey, Sixten Ehrling, Tamas Gal, Selmar Meyrowitz, Franco Ghione, Frieder Weissmann, John Pritchard, Eckhard Weyand, Keith Clark, Oliver Dohnanyi, Bjarte Engeset, Nils Grevillius, Ondrej Lenard, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Arnold Ostman, Ettore Panizza, Christian Pollack, Alexander Rahbari, Ricco Saccani, Tullio Serafin, Johannes Wildner, Leopold Hager, Joseph Rescigno, Charles Rosekrans, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Carl Schuricht, Carlo Maria Giulini, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Percy Pitt, Jonel Perlea, Barry Wordsworth, George W. Byng, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Antonino Votto, Colin Davis, Thomas Beecham, Leo Blech, Bruno Seidler-Winkler, Andre Cluytens, Vincenzo Bellezza, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Jean Morel, Alfredo Antonini, Roberto Paternostro, Giacomo Spadoni, James Robertson, Ivan Anguelov, Wolfgang Grohs, Mikko Franck, Heinz Wallberg, Patrick Summers, Heinz Fricke, Nicola Rescigno, Kurt Peter Eichhorn, Vladimir Ghiaurov, Otmar Suitner, Shao-Chia Lu, Giovanni Reggioli |
Choir: |
BRT Philharmonic Chorus , New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, RTE Chamber Choir, RTE Philharmonic Choir, Slovak Philharmonic Chorus, Hungarian Festival Chorus, Royal Opera House Chorus, Covent Garden, Favres Solisten Vereinigung, Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Robert Shaw Chorale, Milan La Scala Chorus, Rome Opera House Chorus, Stockholm Royal Opera Chorus , Opera Australia Chorus, Studio chorus, Drottningholm Theatre Chorus, Hungarian Festival Choir, Hungarian Radio Chorus, Jaak Gregoor Choir, Paris Opera-Comique Chorus, RCA Victor Chorus, Santa Cecilia Academy Chorus, Rome, Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Bratislava Children's Choir, CETRA Chorus, Columbus Boychoir, Catania Teatro Massimo Bellini Chorus, Slovak Chamber Choir, Culwick Choral Society, Bray Choral Society, Dublin County Choir, Dun Laoghaire Choral Society, Cantabile Singers, Goethe Institut Choir, Capella Vocalis Boys Choir, Musica Sacra, Phoenix Singers, RAI Chorus, Turin, Philharmonia Chorus, RIAS Chamber Chorus, Bratislava National Opera Choir, Cologne Chamber Choir, Compagnia d'Opera Italiana Chorus, Covent Garden Opera Chorus |
Orchestra: |
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Victor Orchestra, Zagreb Festival Orchestra, Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, MGM Studio Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Rosario Bourdon Orchestra, Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden, Budapest Failoni Chamber Orchestra, Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia, Stockholm Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Royal Opera Orchestra , Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, New Symphony Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, RCA Victor Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice, Belgian Radio and Television Philharmonic Orchestra, RAI Symphony Orchestra, Turin, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Drottningholm Court Theatre Orchestra, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ireland National Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Concert Symphony Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, Josef Pasternack Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Catania Teatro Massimo Bellini Orchestra, Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra, Rome Opera House Orchestra, Nils Grevillius Orchestra, Montreal Opera Orchestra, CSR Symphony Orchestra, Bratislava, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugene Goossens Orchestra, Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Staatskapelle , Tapiola Sinfonietta, Irish Army No. 1 Band, Richard Hayman Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Mozart Orchestra, Wurttemberg Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, Failoni Orchestra, Budapest, Berlin State Opera Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Milan La Scala Orchestra , Concerto Koln, Dresden Staatskapelle, Studio orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra , Paris Opera-Comique Orchestra, Santa Cecilia Academy Orchestra, Rome, Europa Symphony, Moscow State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bratislava, NHK Chamber Soloists, Berlin Akademie fur Alte Musik, German Radio Saarbrucken-Kaiserslautern Philharmonic Orchestra, Compagnia d'Opera Italiana Orchestra, Dalasinfoniettan, Covent Garden Orchestra, Covent Garden Opera Orchestra |
Lyricist: |
Giuseppe Giacosa, Ludovic Halevy, Henri Meilhac, Francesco Maria Piave, Domenico Oliva, Emanuel Schikaneder, Ranieri Calzabigi, Cesare Sterbini, Antonio Ghislanzoni, Lorenzo Da Ponte, Tobia Gorrio, Luigi Illica |
Label: |
Naxos |
Catalogue No.: |
8.553167 |
Format: |
CD |
Barcode: |
0730099416726 |
|
The Best of Opera Vol. 2
Christoph Willibald von Gluck was a figure of great importance in the
operatic reforms of the second half of the eighteenth century that ensured a
greater degree of dramatic realism, notably with his Orfeo ed Euridice of
1762, based on the traditional story of the legendary Greek musician Orpheus and
his beloved Eurydice, bitten by a snake and taken down to the Underworld, from
where, by the power of his music, Orpheus seeks to rescue her. The reported
success of this venture varies. In Gluck's opera, however, Orpheus fails to
observe the command of Pluto, God of the Underworld, not to look round to see if
Eurydice is following him. He looks round and she dies, only to be revived by
Amor, providing the opera with the necessary happy ending. In the famous second
act aria Che farò senz'Euridice Orpheus laments the apparent loss of his
beloved.
Mozart belongs to a slightly later generation. He realised his ambitions as a
composer of opera primarily during the last ten years of his life, spent in
Vienna. Here he won his first success with a German opera, Die Entführung
aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio). Four years later, in 1786,
he embarked on his first collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte in the Italian
comic opera, Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), based on a play
from the Figaro trilogy by Beaumarchais in which the servant Figaro helps to
best his master, Count Almaviva. There is a sparkling overture and in the first
act aria Non più andrai Figaro makes fun of the amorous page Cherubino,
whose affections have turned towards the Countess.
The last collaboration between Mozart and da Ponte was Cosi fan
tutte (They all behave the same way), a satire on the fickleness of women,
staged in Vienna relatively briefly in 1790, the year of the death of the
Emperor Joseph II. The lovers Ferrando and Guglielmo resolve to test the loyalty
of their betrothed, Fiordiligi and Dorabella by pretending to go away to the
wars and returning in disguise, each to make overtures to the other's girl,
finally with some success. In the beautiful trio Soave sia il vento (Gently
blow the wind) the two girls, and the cynical master of the plot Don Alfonso,
bid the two men farewell, as they leave, supposedly for the war.
Mozart's German opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) was the last
to be staged in Vienna, in the autumn of 1791, the year of the composer's death.
The masonic plot, by the actor-manager Emanuel Schikaneder, centres on the
ordeals to be undergone by Tamino, a prince, in his search for truth and love in
the shape of his Pamina. Tamino is accompanied by the peasant bird- catcher
Papageno, a rôle taken originally by Schikaneder himself, who announces his
trade and identity in Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja (I am the bird-
catcher).
The French composer Jacques Offenbach, son of a Cologne cantor, became a
master of light opera in mid-nineteenth century Paris, not least with his parody
of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of
Hoffmann) was first staged in 1881, the year after its composer's death and is
based on stories by E.T.A.Hoffmann. The famous Barcarolle, a gondolier's
song, sets the scene in the third act in Venice, where Hoffmann is attracted to
the beautiful courtesan Giulietta.
In 1875, Georges Bizet had shocked Paris with his excursion into realism in
the opera Carmen, set in exotic Seville, where the gypsy Carmen seduces
and then discards the soldier Don José, who, in despair, murders her. Carmen's Habanera,
L' amour est un oiseau rebelle (Love is a treacherous bird) charms her
lover, in true Spanish fashion.
Earlier traditions in Italian opera were continued at the beginning of the
nineteenth century by Gioachino Rossini, who enjoyed phenomenal success in the
second decade of the century, followed by a period of further triumph in Paris,
ended by the change of régime there in 1830. Best known of all arias from his
many operas is Figaro's Largo al factotum, from Il Barbiere di
Siviglia, in which the barber Figaro, in a work based on the first of the
Figaro plays of Beaumarchais, announces his aptitude for any task that may come
to hand.
From the 1840s onwards Verdi came to dominate Italian opera. In La
traviata, derived from a play by the younger Alexandre Dumas, he depicts the
fated love affair of the young Alfredo and Violetta, a popular courtesan, who is
later persuaded by the young man's father to reject him and finally dies in his
arms, after he has learned the truth too late. Their early happiness as lovers
is declared in Un dì felice (A happy day).
La traviata was first staged in 1853. Rigoletto, first staged in
1851, dealt with a harsher subject, the curse of a father, whose daughter has
been wronged, on the court-jester Rigoletto, who has abetted the Duke in his
amorous episodes and eventually loses his own daughter, seduced by the Duke and
then murdered by those Rigoletto had hired to kill his master. The Duke' s La
donna è mobile (Woman is fickle) expresses his view of the sex and is heard
with particular dramatic effect when Rigoletto thinks he has had the Duke
killed, only to hear his voice singing his favourite song.
Verdi wrote his opera Aida, set in ancient Egypt, for the new Cairo
opera- house, where it was staged in 1871. The story is one of love and
jealousy, in which Radames, loved by Aida and victorious over her people, the
enemies of Egypt, is brought to his death, in which she joins him. The
victorious general Radames returns from battle to a triumphal march, an
opportunity for theatrical display.
Alfredo Catalani is best known for his opera La Wally, a work that
deals with the rivalry of the lovers of the woman of the title, Hagenbach and
Gellner. La Wally refuses her father's command to marry the latter, a decision
declared in her first act aria Ebben? ne andrò lontana (Now, let me go).
She and her chosen lover die eventually in an avalanche.
The Dance of the Hours from Amilcare Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda
is the best known excerpt from the work, an entertainment provided by Alvise
Badoero for his guests in the third act of a plot of some complexity, in which
Alvise's wife Laura is La Gioconda's rival for the love of a Genoese prince,
Enzo Grimaldi. All ends predictably unhappily, with the death of La Gioconda and
of her mother.
Operatic realism of another kind was embraced by Giacomo Puccini at the end
of the century. In Che gelida manina (How cold your little hand is), from
La Bohème, the poet Rodolfo first touches the little hand of Mimi, his
neighbour in the Latin Quarter of Paris, where he and his artist friends have as
little money as she. Mimì timidly seeks a light for her candle and then drops
her key on the floor, as the candle flickers out. The two become lovers, but
misundertandings intervene, only to be ended when Mimì is on her consumptive
deathbed.
Un bel dì vedremo (One fine day), from Madama Butterfly, is the
story of the desertion of a young Japanese geisha by the American naval
lieutenant whom she has married and who is the father of her son. He leaves,
only to return with an American wife, and she, in despair at the disappointment
of her long hopes, kills herself. Before Pinkerton's return, however, she had
continued to hope that all would be well, as in this optimistic aria.
Another wronged woman, the singer Tosca, is at the heart of the opera of that
name. She seeks to save her lover, the painter Cavaradossi, who has been
arrested for complicity in the escape of a political prisoner. Allowed the
chance to save her lover by giving herself to the corrupt head of police Scarpia,
she agrees, but murders him once he has signed what seem the necessary papers.
Scarpia had, in fact, deceived her and left orders for Cavaradossi's execution,
which she Witnesses, before leaping to her death from the battlements of the
prison. In Vissi d'arte (I have lived for art), she protests in prayer
her innocence, having given her life, in a way that might seem theologically
unsatisfactory, for her art and for love.
Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut, derived from the novel by the Abbé
prévost, centres on the sad fate of Manon herself, who elopes with the young
Chevalier Des Grieux, only to desert him for the rich old Géronte. Her betrayal
of the latter leads to arrest and transportation to the inhospitable American
desert, where she dies in her lover's arms. In Donna non vidi mai (Never
did I see such a woman) Des Grieux is first struck by the beauty of Manon, while
in the Intermezzo of the third act Manon's imprisonment in Le Havre
before her transportation is reflected.
|