Customer Reviews

Duets to Die For

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This collection comes highly recommended : it is just gorgeous and beautiful music, every note. Why it does not appear at the top of all favourite lists, baffles me! If you love opera, and superb singing : treat yourself to this cd.

This is one of five themed compilations devised by Opera Rara from their complete recordings of the more recherché operas of the first forty or so years of the 19C. These works will be mostly unfamiliar to anyone other than the aficionado or specialist with the exception of one or two names such as Donizetti's "Anna Bolena" or Rossini's "Otello". The music is often highly dramatic in a somewhat formulaic manner with lots of vicious coloratura and declamatory passages involving unfaithful/jealous/desperate lovers and implacable husbands or fathers in situations where the question of their honour behoves them to behave totally irrationally. As the singers are often drawn from the same pool and the anthologies from the same stock of recorded operas, this one review will probably do to give you the curious, prospective buyer the requisite flavour, regardless whether you are listening to "Tyrants and Lovers", Villains by Necessity", "The Cruel Madness of Love", "Like a Woman Scorned" or "Duets to Die For" - you get the picture from their collective titles.

I do not mean to sound cynical or dismissive of the singing and playing on offer here, as they are really stellar. The usual team is conductor David Parry, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir and sometimes the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the LPO, RPO, the Royal Opera, the Scottish Opera and, occasionally, conductors James Judd and Maurizio Benini et al. In other words, no scratch bands but top notch outfits that play wonderfully. As so much of the music is unfamiliar, there is a huge novelty attraction to hearing forgotten or neglected operas which often contain superb numbers even if their quality as a whole is uneven - and these selections cream off the best for our pleasure. As a result, you may do just as Opera Rara intended and find yourself buying the complete recordings even though they are often pricey - unlike these samplers. Hence I have bought the "Bianca e Falliero" (and not been disappointed; it's vintage Rossini), Donizetti's "Rosmonda d'Inghilterra" (stunning performances from Fleming, Ford and Miricioiou) and Mercadante's "Orazi e Curiali" - my favourite of all, being a felicitous mix of early Verdi, late Donizetti and a dramatic voice all Mercadante's own. I already knew the delightful music in "the other 'Otello'" from the earlier Carreras/Caballé/Masterson recording but the plums here are enough to sell it to you.

In addition to all that, the singing, with very few exceptions, really is first rate. Nor is it all canary-fancier stuff with artists of the vocal weight and dramatic instincts of such as Miricioiou, Fleming, Bruce Ford, Della Jones, Yvonne Kenny and Diana Montague. It is like a role call of specialist bel canto singers mostly from the English-speaking world but there are lighter, pretty voices such as those of Raúl Giménez and the versatile, pure-toned Majella Cullagh. The big exception for me is the unbearable whine of William Matteuzzi, cruelly exposed and juxtaposed with the virile tones of Bruce Ford, and I find Janet Eaglen's big, unwieldy voice to be an acquired taste but generally this is a vocal feast. Fortunately, Matteuzzi's excursions are limited. Artists such as sonorous bass Ildebrando d'Arcangelo and rich-toned mezzo "Southern Belle Canto" Jennifer Larmore, now big international stars, are a bonus.

You have to be an admirer of this genre of singing but if you are you will find these discs to be inexhaustible sources of pleasure. Recording quality and production values are impeccable. Texts are not provided but there are résumés and full background notes to help you appreciate the scenarios.

I haven't seen this CD although I have heard excerpts of several of the operas sampled on this compilation and those I have heard are up to the usual high Opera Rara standard. Not super-starry but usually reliably musical in recovering neglected works. And this is an attractive collection of highlights. Unfortunately the reason I haven't bought it is because I assume that, like most if not all of Opera Rara's compilation discs, the texts and translations have been cut. Maybe the next reviewer could clarify?