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Favorite Opera Recording.
#1
Favorite Opera Recording.
I am sure this will be a short thread with few participants, but being popular isn't everything.

My favorite opera recording is of:

Il barbiere di Siviglia
(The Barber of Seville)
by Gioachino Rossini
Conducted by Giuseppe Patanè, and featuring Cecilia Bartoli.

This is a great recording of this comic opera, with all of the performances good, with great sound. It achieves the manic quality that this sort of opera requires. I listen to this recording more than to any other complete opera.

What used to be my favorite was:

Madama Butterfly
(Madame Butterfly)
by Giacomo Puccini
Conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and featuring Mirella Freni.

This is also a great recording, and widely regarded as the best ever recording of Madama Butterfly. This is a very realistic, and tragic, opera. Certainly, if this is your favorite, I will not object to your choice. You must have at least some good taste.

"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
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#2
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
Il Barbiere is fantastic, so is Mozart's Il Nozze di Figaro.

One of my favorite recordings is a 1980-ish recording of L'Italiana in Algieri by the Stuttgart Opera. Funny as hell.
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#3
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
I had a lot of fun with this one in high school and college. Actually, I auditioned with it for college, among other auditions. From The Medium:





And the one I've always wanted to pull off, from the Magic Flute, the Queen of the Night aria (maybe the most difficult aria for a coloratura soprano ever written) (and don't watch her face; it's a bit creepy):



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#4
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
The (centenary) Wagner Ring by Chéreau, Boulez conducting, here's a recording of the last part

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ww4JHkloa8

On a less gloomy note, I really like baroque music though, and this I find very nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFN5TZ-0...962BB8A7BC
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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#5
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
Quote:And the one I've always wanted to pull off, from the Magic Flute, the Queen of the Night aria


She's magnificent!
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#6
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
(February 13, 2015 at 1:09 am)rexbeccarox Wrote: (and don't watch her face; it's a bit creepy):

Well, she is supposed to be an evil scheming one, isn't she? Smile

But jeez the singer is a machine!
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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#7
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
(February 13, 2015 at 2:55 am)Alex K Wrote: The (centenary) Wagner Ring by Chéreau, Boulez conducting, here's a recording of the last part

As much as I like Boulez, I have to ask, no love for the Solti version?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkOiKy6sXfM

Other than that, my favourite recording is

Don Giovanni
by W.A. Mozart
Cond. Wilhelm Furtwangler (1954 Salzburg Festival recording):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsPtq4RkVk

And yes, to find that this excellent performance was not only filmed, but in colour, is nothing short of a miracle.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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#8
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
I don't know it really, shall check it out! While I liked the chereau production itself, I'm not a big fan of the whole abstract "director's theater" that got started in that time.

I didn't know that there were furtwängler films of such quality!
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

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#9
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
Lotte Lehmann's version of Der Ring
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#10
RE: Favorite Opera Recording.
I just remembered Renee Fleming's birthday is tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Renee!
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