Customer Reviews

100 Best Opera Classics

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A collection of 100 individual arias and ensembles from the EMI catalogue of complete opera recordings made between 1955 and 2003. It includes a wide selection from popular operas by Italian, Austrian, German, Russian and French composers. The French are especially well represented unlike most such anthologies. And a few more obscure contributions are thrown in, like an aria from Catalani's La Wally. A judicious balance of musical periods and styles, and the very best singers of the last half of the last century. And remarkably, the whole collection of 6 CDs, over 7 hours of music, is being sold for the cost of only 1 CD !

What can one say but "Bravo!" to EMI's 6-CD box set "100 BEST OPERA CLASSICS." The title says it all.

This is the perfect collection for both the committed opera follower or the mildly interested or newbie. Or for anyone who wants to know what the fuss over opera is all about. This music is guaranteed to tell you -- to delight and inform at the same time.

All the major classics are here --"Voi che sapete" from Mozart's FIGARO, "Un bel di vedremo" from Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY, "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's PAGLIACCI ... and that is listing only three of the 20 tracks on disc one. Plenty more where that comes from, and all of it worthwhile. You get a fine sampling of great moments from Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Gluck, Beethoven, Bizet ... the list goes on. I would bet you could not name a classic opera that is not represented with its best known aria. I'll bet you'll find a few selections on these six discs that surprise even you.

In any case, I'm glad I purchased my collection. So what if I already own full productions of many of these pieces. Like a lot of the finer things in life, one can never get enough opera.

Buy this. Enjoy this. You will be the better for it.

--SONNET CLV--

This is a great collection for someone who knows they like opera music but don't know where to start. This will probably be all the opera I will ever need now.

For those new to opera, this set is an excellent provider of a wide variety of operatic works, rendered by artists well known even to non-opera officionados.

The music is wonderful. HOWEVER, only the first disc has the correct song titles and artists. The other five discs have most of the same song titles and artists as Disc #1, although the music on each disc conforms to what is listed in the catalog. When we attempted to rip the music onto our "Windows Media Player", where we keep all our music stored to play through our hi-fi system, we could copy only the first disc. All the other discs had those same song titles and artists (although the music was different) and the program reported only that the song was already copied. Apparently your quality control was off work that day.

Have you had other such complaints? One wouldn't know about this if one were to simply play the discs on a CD player. They would seem to be fine. Is there any recourse for those of us who have a computer-based hi-fi system?

This collection is good both for beginners and pros. A great gathering of high quality performannces by best singers of the past century. Good for those who want to become more familiar with opera music, good for those, who want to have a great number of most famous arias in one place :)I wish they would include Slavic (Russian, Polish, Chech) music, then the collection would be close to perfect :)

Recordings are of very good quality and you can't go wrong for the price. This set gives you a wide range of different opera pieces and also has a wide range of notable singers.

We didn't know much about opera, but decided it was about time that we learned. So we ordered a bunch of opera "compilation" CDs from Amazon. This was one of them. Keeping in mind that we are just-learning opera newbies, so far, this CD seems to be worthwhile. I'm sure more knowledgeable opera fans will have better suggestions to offer, but we, at least, were not disappointed with this CD. Then again, we have nothing against which to compare this (or any other opera CD we bought). So please take this review with a grain of salt!

While this is an impressive collection of Opera Classics, do not purchase this set. The recording fidelity is terrible. The CD data tracks are totally unpopulated: No Song Title, No Artist Information, etc. I tried to play the CDs using my Windows Media Player and the recording is so bad my software was contaminated every time I tried to play them. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!