The #1 Opera Album

Giacomo Puccini (Artist), Giuseppe Verdi (Artist), Léo Delibes (Artist), Georges Bizet (Artist), Umberto Giordano (Artist), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Artist), Richard Wagner (Artist), Gioachino Rossini (Artist), Alfredo Catalani (Artist), Jacques Offenbach (Artist), Ruggiero Leoncavallo (Artist), Charles Gounod (Artist), Gaetano Donizetti (Artist), Pietro Mascagni (Artist), Antonin Dvorak (Artist), Richard Bonynge (Artist), Herbert von Karajan (Artist), Alberto Erede (Artist), Lamberto Gardelli (Artist), Giuseppe Patane (Artist), John Mauceri (Artist), Zubin Mehta (Artist), Charles Dutoit (Artist), Gyorgy Fischer (Artist), Riccardo Chailly (Artist), Istvan Kertesz (Artist), Leone Magiera (Artist), Evelino Pido (Artist), Gianandrea Gavazzeni (Artist), Renée Fleming (Artist), Cecilia Bartoli (Artist), Luciano Pavarotti (Artist), Jussi Bjorling (Artist), Renata Tebaldi (Artist), Leo Nucci (Artist), Angela Gheorghiu (Artist), Mirella Freni (Artist), Gino Quilico (Artist), Gregory Cross (Artist), Joan Sutherland (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 27, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Decca
• ASIN: B000059RXO
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,916 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #1 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Languages > Czech
  • #2 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Classical (c.1770-1830) > Vocal & Song > General AAS
  • #3 in Music > Classical > Historical Periods > Classical (c.1770-1830) > Vocal & Song > Romances

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Carmen, opera: Act 1. Prelude

2. La Traviata, opera: Brindisi. Libiamo, ne' lieti calici

3. La bohème, opera: Che gelida manina

4. Lakmé, opera: Flower Duet. Dôme épais le jasmin

5. Fedora, opera: Amor ti vieta

6. Carmen, opera: Habanera. L'amour est un oiseau rebelle

7. Nabucco, opera (Nabucodonosor): Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. Va pensiero

8. Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), opera, K. 492: Dove sono

9. Rigoletto, opera: La donna è mobile

10. Lohengrin, opera, WWV 75: Bridal Chorus. Treulich geführt ziehet dahin

See all 19 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), opera, WWV 86b: The Ride of the Valkyries

2. Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), opera, K. 492: Voi che sapete

3. Pagliacci, opera: Recitar!... Vesti la giubba

4. La bohème, opera: O soave fanciulla

5. Il Trovatore, opera: Anvil Chorus. Vedi! le fosche

6. Manon Lescaut, opera: Donna non vidi mai

7. Don Giovanni, opera, K. 527: Là ci darem la mano

8. Mattinata ('L'aurora di bianco vestita'), song for voice & piano (or orchestra)

9. Faust, opera: Soldiers' chorus

10. L'elisir d'amore, opera: Una furtiva lagrima

See all 21 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The labels that are now gathered under the Universal Classics umbrella have a pretty impressive scorecard in the area of classical compilations. We've seen The Greatest Opera Show on Earth, The Yellow Guide: Classical Music, Best of the Millennium, and now there's The No. 1 Opera Album. But that's no surprise, since Universal has some of the finest interpreters in its catalogue to draw from. This two-CD set (at the price of one), for example, brings together the likes of Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Luciano Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, and many more. Yet the other key to a successful compilation is canny anthologizing, and here again, you have a nice selection to give you a smattering of opera's heavyweights from the Italian, German, and French repertory (there's even a step outside the standard framework with an aria from Dvorák's lovely Rusalka). Ranging from 1959 to 1997, the choices from back catalogue will doubtless be the entry ticket for many into this grandest of the arts. --Sarah Chin

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

167 of 171 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb collection of Opera favourites!, October 31, 2001

By 

Sally Burnell (Kent, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The #1 Opera Album (Audio CD)

I was raised in a large family headed by a single parent, my mother, who was widowed while pregnant with my brother. She had few moments of peace and quiet trying to raise the four of us in a small house. But Saturday afternoons, starting at 1:00, she demanded time for herself to listen, on the radio, to the Metropolitan Opera, live from Lincoln Center in New York, hosted by Milton Cross. This album nostalgically brings back to me those quiet Saturday afternoons, with the Opera on the radio, my mother sitting in her favourite chair reading.
None of us cared for Opera in those days. It wasn't until years later, watching a simulcast of Puccini's "La Boheme" on PBS that was also being broadcast on the radio, that I began to appreciate what my mother loved for all those years. To finally see the action, and to read the subtitles, made me realise how wonderfully romantic Opera really was, and this album is "mother's milk" to my ears. It's literally the best of the best of Opera arias and overtures, and now I regard this music with many fond memories of my childhood.
Also, if you are, like me, of the generation that was raised on Looney Tunes cartoons, you will recognise how many clever and downright hilarious send-ups they did of Opera, if you were listening to the music while watching the cartoons. Those cartoons were as much for the adult audiences as they were for children, and many of us received our earliest introductions to serious music through those classic cartoons. You will hear many of those arias and overtures that Warner Brothers used in those days in their cartoons. I only wish they would do something like that again so that today's children would not regard Classical Music as some kind of collosal bore.
If you've never listened to Opera, this is the album to get to introduce yourself to it. This features the very best of many composers and styles of Opera, and should be an essential part of any good music lover's library. I highly recommend this album for anyone who's either intimately familiar with Opera or who has never before listened to it. It's well worth your while to acquire this CD.

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good sampler for opera newbies or just a CD of favorites, April 6, 2001

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The #1 Opera Album (Audio CD)

I have plenty of opera, but I wanted this CD for my favorites all in one place. There were three particular arias that made this a very good choice; the tenor duet from the Pearl Fishers (Les Pecheurs De Perles: C'est Toi... Au Fond Du Temple Saint), Montserrat Caballé doing Turandot and Lucia Popp in Mozart's Don Giovanni.

This is really a very well-thought-out assembly of opera. You can't go far wrong with this cd.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prepare yourself, August 15, 2002

By 

Paul J. Bellantoni (Cheshire County, NH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The #1 Opera Album (Audio CD)

You must prepare yourself for the journey you are about to embark upon with this album. From the moving deliverance that only Pavarotti can give, to the remarkable Orchestration, right to "The Flower Duet" this album will never let you down. Whether you use it as background music as you prepare your favorite Italian recipe, or as a background to a wonderful evening this album has it all. It is flawless in its execution, has all of your current favorites and what soon will become your new favorites.
Buy it for yourself, buy it as a gift, but just buy it- you will only regret not owning it sooner.