DONIZETTI
Don Pasquale (complete opera) / Il campanello di notte (one act opera) Alfredo Mariotti, Anna Maccianti, Alberto Rinaldi, Ugo Benelli / Coro e Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino / Ettore Gracis [ Deutsche Grammophon Opera House / 2 CD - released 1/May/2006 ] "This welcome issue provides a good introduction to two of Donizetti's lighter compositions and at bargain price" (MusicWeb May 2006) |
DONIZETTI
L'elisir d'amore (Complete opera) Barbara Bonney, Gasta Winbergh, Bernd Weikl, Rolando Panerai. Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Gabriele Ferro [ DG Opera House / 2 CD - released 1/Jul/2005 ] 'A performance that bubbles along as brightly and affectionately as the music itself' BBC Record Review |
VERDI / PUCCINI / PONCHIELLI / SPONTINI
Anita Cerquetti - Recital Anita Cerquetti (soprano) / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavazzeni [ Decca SBS Australian Eloquence / CD - released 1/Jun/2019 ] A famous Decca operatic recital, long unavailable, celebrating the thrilling voice and short-lived career of a soprano who set operatic stages alight in the late 1950s. |
W. A. MOZART
Fernando Corena: Arias for Bass Fernando Corena (bass) / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino / Orchestra of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden [ Decca Australian Eloquence / CD - released 20/Sep/2015 ] "'Corena sings with a fine, resonant, clean tone. His production is easy and completely natural, and his diction, phrasing and general musicianship are most praiseworthy" (Gramophone) |
VERDI / MEYERBEER / LEONCAVALLO / PUCCINI / BOITO / etc
Opera Recital Giuseppe di Stefano (tenor) / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino / Bruno Bartoletti [ DG Spotlight / CD - released 24/Aug/2006 ] 'His voice is of faultless beauty and remarkable expressive power; it possesses the velvety richness which we have not experienced since the days of Gigli and Lauri Volpi', wrote an eminent American critic in 1948 following Giuseppe Di Stefano's... |
DONIZETTI
Lucia di Lammermoor (Complete opera) [Recorded 1953] Maria Callas / Giuseppe Di Stefano / Tito Gobbi / Raffaele Arie / Coro e Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino / Tullio Serafin [ EMI Classics / Brilliant Classics Opera Collection / 2 CD - released 20/Feb/2010 ] 'Here is certainly some of the finest singing of our time, and there is one moment in the repeat of Spargi d'amaro when the voice is recorded with all the actuality of 3-dimensional sound. It is startling.' Gramophone 1954 |
THE THREE TENORS
Three (3) Tenors In Concert 1990 [The original recording] Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Zubin Mehta [ Decca Records / CD - released 12/Dec/1999 ] On the evening of July 7, 1990, an `impossible dream' came true: the three greatest tenors of the day joined forces with an orchestra of 200 musicians against a backdrop of the majestic scenery of ancient Rome. |
DONIZETTI
L'elisir d'amore (Complete opera) Hilde Gueden, Giuseppe di Stefano, Fernando Corena / Orchestra e coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli [ Decca Heritage Masters / 2 CD - released 20/Sep/2011 ] "Hilde Gueden's Adina is properly coy and sweetly sung, Giuseppe di Stefano an affecting Nemorino, but Fernando Corena's Dulcamara steals the show." (BBC Music) |
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Rossini: Armida (complete opera recorded live in 1952) Maria Callas, Francesco Albanese, Mario Filippeschi / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Live Remastered / 2 CD - released 1/Feb/2019 ] Rossini is a pillar of bel canto opera, but he was less central to Callas's art and career than Bellini and Donizetti. She performed two of his comic works - Il barbiere di Siviglia and Il turco in Italia - and in 1952, with her mentor Tullio Serafin... |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: La Traviata (complete opera recorded in 1962) Joan Sutherland, Carlo Bergonzi, Robert Merill / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino / Sir John Pritchard [ Decca Australian Eloquence / 2 CD - released 15/Mar/2012 ] "Sutherland's performance puts lovely things in the listener's way at every stage" (Gramophone) |
VINCENZO BELLINI
Bellini: Norma (complete opera recorded in 1994) Jane Eaglen (Norma), Vincenzo La Scola, Eva Mei, Dimitri Kavrakos / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Riccardo Muti [ Warner Classics The Home of Opera / 2 CD - released 1/Oct/2012 ] |
GAETANO DONIZETTI
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (Complete opera) [Recorded 1953] Maria Callas, Nicolai Gedda, Robert Massard / Coro e Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Tullio Serafin [ Warner Classics Maria Callas Remastered / 2 CD - released 20/Oct/2014 ] 'Callas's Lucia is a great performance of the part and, especially in the Mad Scene, we hear some of the finest singing of our time. Credit is also due to Tullio Serafin for his admirable direction of the opera and to the engineers for the excellent... |
VERDI
Il trovatore (complete opera recorded in 1990) Luciano Pavarotti, Shirley Verrett, Antonella Banaudi, Leo Nucci / Orchestra e Coro di Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Zubin Mehta [ Decca Operas / 2 CD - released 15/Mar/2012 ] "Verrett's portrayal, always one of her best roles, is given here with more feeling and involvement than anyone else in the cast." (Gramophone) |
PUCCINI
Il Trittico (Suor Angelica, Il Tabarro, Gianni Schicchi) Fernando Corena, Robert Merrill, Mario del Monaco & Giulietta Simionato / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Lamberto Gardelli [ ALTO / 2 CD - released 25/Nov/2013 ] For the first time on only 2 discs |
Beethoven,
Fidelio, Der Konsul, Euryanthe, Der fliegender Holländer, Aido, Andrea Chénier, Der Troubadour, Die Dubarry, Eva Inge Borkh, Orchester der Städtischen Oper Berlin, Orchester des Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchester der Opéra de Mont [ ORFEO / CD - released 10/Oct/2006 ] |
AMILCARE PONCHIELLI
Ponchielli: la Gioconda (complete opera recorded in 1958) Anita Cerquetti, Franca Sacchi, Mario del Monaco, Cesare Siepi, Giulietta Simionata / Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavazzeni [ Decca SBS Australian Eloquence / 2 CD - released 1/Jun/2019 ] 'To compare Anita Cerquetti's Gioconda with Callas's is a revelation. Cerquetti brings to the role intelligence, musicianship, and an appealing voice' High Fidelity |
DONIZETTI / BELLINI / VERDI / PUCCINI
Virginia Zeani: The Decca Recitals Virginia Zeani (soprano) / Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Roma, Franco Patané / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavaz [ Decca Australian Eloquence / 2 CD - released 20/Jul/2016 ] "she has an excellent sense of rhythm (witness the finale to the Traviata Act I) and she has what all too few sopranos even attempt on more than an occasional phrase: a steady legato" (Gramophone) |
DONIZETTI / BELLINI / VERDI / PUCCINI
Virginia Zeani: Operatic Recital Virginia Zeani (soprano) / Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Roma, Franco Patané / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Gianandrea Gavaz [ Decca Most Wanted Recitals Vol. 50 / CD - released 20/Sep/2014 ] |
THE THREE TENORS
MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Three (3) Tenors In Concert 1990 [The original recording] Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Zubin Mehta [ Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Original Masters / CD - released 12/Dec/1999 ] This is a special collector's Mobile fidelity gold CD edition. |
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Verdi: Ernani (complete opera recorded in 2022) Francesco Meli, Roberto Frontali, Vitalij Kowaljow, Maria José Siri / Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, James Conlon [ Naxos / 2 CD - released 16/Feb/2024 ] Victor Hugo's 1830 stage drama Hernani won overwhelming admiration, and over a decade later Verdi's attention was drawn to it as an operatic vehicle that would give him opportunities for full dramatic unity. |