Brush Up Your Shakespeare: Opera

Showing posts with label Opera. Show all posts

Opera: Giuseppe Verdi: Macbeth, Thomas Schippers, 1964

The legendary Italian baritone Giuseppe Taddei, born in Genoa on 26 June 1926, passed away in Rome on 2 June. Equally adept at singing dramatic and comic roles, especially in bel canto scores, Mr. Taddei was one of the finest Verdi singers of the Twentieth Century. His Metropolitan Opera début, in his calling-card role of Falstaff, came in 1985, nearly fifty years after Mr. Taddei's professional début. Mr. Taddei possessed one of the most beautiful natural baritone voices of the Twentieth Century, a voice preserved on many standard-setting recordings. Voix-des-arts.blogspot.com

Giuseppe Verdi
Macbeth

Macbeth: Giuseppe Taddei
Lady: Birgit Nilsson
Banco: Giovanni Foiani
Macduff: Bruno Prevedi
Malcolm: Piero De Palma
Una dama: Dora Carral
Un medico: Giuseppe Morresi

Orchestra e Coro dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Roma
Thomas Schippers 1964

Thanks to DrBarbaro at Avax for this share

Download:
CD 1: Part 1 & Part 2
CD 2: Part 1 & Part 2
Scans

Opera: Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream, 2007,

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): A Midsummer Night's Dream - Richard Hickox - City of London Sinfonia
Opera | Contemporary | 2CD | EACRip | APE+LOG+CUE | Covers| 532MB
Label: Virgin | Year of release: 2007 | DDD

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Opera in three Acts
Libretto: From the play by Shakespeare adapted by Britten and Pears

Oberon: James Bowman
Tytania: Lillian Watson
Puck: Dexter Fletcher
Lysander: John Graham-Hall
Demetrius: Henry Herford
Hermia: Della Jones

City of London Sinfonia
Richard Hickox

Amazon review:

As soon as you hear the glissandi double basses at the opening of this opera you will enter the world of Titania and Oberon.Britten captures this other worldliness by making Oberon a counter-tenor,a vocal quality both strange and powerful in this magical world. Childrens voices add to the atmosphere of delicacy; Puck circles the world and Titania -a high lyric soprano idles away with some of the most heart moving arias.
Britten's use of a small orcheatra creates all the varied colour needed for the fairy world and that of the mechanicals.
Midsummer Night's Dream is one of the best 'stories' there is and in the hands of Britten becomes even more 'fantastic'.I can't recommend it highly enough to someone who has never tried a Britten opera...you will be amazed!

Tracklist:
Disc: 1
1. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Introduction: The wood, deepening twilight / Over hill, over dale
2. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Oberon is passing fell and wrath
3. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Well, go thy way
4. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. How now my love?
5. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull
6. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Welcome wanderer... I know a bank
7. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Is all our company here?
8. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Through the forest have I gone
10. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius
11. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. Come, now a roundel and a fairy song
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. You spotted snakes with double tongue
13. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 1. What thou seest when thou dost wake
14. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. Introduction: The wood
15. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. Are we all met?
16. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. I see their knavery
17. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. Be kind and courteous to this gentlemen
18. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. Hail, mortal, hail!
19. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. I have a reas'nable good ear in music
20. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. How now, mad spirit?
Disc: 2
1. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. Flower of this purple dye
2. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. Puppet? Why, so?
3. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. This is thy negligence
4. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. Up and down, up and down
5. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 2. On the ground, sleep sound
6. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Introduction: The wood, early next morning / My gentle Robin, seest thou this
7. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Helena! Hermia! Demetrius! Lysander!
8. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. When my cue comes, call me
9. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Have you sent to Bottom's house?
10. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Now, fair Hippolyta
11. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. If we offend, it is with our good will
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show
13. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. In this same interlude it doth befall
14. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. O grim-look'd night, O night with hue so black
15. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. O Wall, full often hast thou heard my moans
16. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. You ladies, you whose gentle hearts do fear
17. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. This lanthorn doth the hornèd moon present
18. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams
19. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Come, your Bergomask
20. A Midsummer Night's Dream, opera, Op. 64: Act 3. Now the hungry lion roars

Download:
http://www.fileserve.com/file/YmbTqg7/BrittenMidsummer.part1.rar
http://www.fileserve.com/file/RpCykrX/BrittenMidsummer.part2.rar
http://www.fileserve.com/file/K8msQq2/BrittenMidsummer.part3.rar

Thanks to B12Kinney for this share

Opera: Rossini - Otello (Malibran Version)

Otello
Composed by Gioachino Rossini
Performed by Italian International Orchestra
with Patrizia Ciofi, Simon Edwards, Gregory Bonfatti, Daniele Gaspari
Conducted by Paolo Arrivabeni

Since Verdi's Otello is one of my favorite operas I must admit that I was reticent about listening to Rossini's version of Shakespeare's tragedy. I was quite mistaken. Otello is one of Rossini's finest operas and is as different from Verdi's Otello as Norma is from Aida.

This recording by Dynamic does not use the original tenor role that Rossini composed for the character of otello but uses the soprano variation I'm assuming Rossini wrote later for the great prima donnas, Pasta and then for Maria Malibran ( the Maria Callas of the ninetenth century).
The only place I had to adust myself with a female voice for Otello was in the confrotation between Otello and Desdemona before he strangles her. It was difficult keeping tract of which character was singing. If I spoke Italian or was seeing this performance I'm sure this would not be a problem, my ears soon adjusted.

I have three wonderful things to say about this recording. First the sound quality surpasses that of any live cd I have heard, almost on a studio level. Second the singers are on an equal level-Superb. Third, the more I listen the more I fall in love with the music. Desdemona's willow song is, in my opion, one of the most haughting arias in opera. This does not lessen Verdi's and Boito's great accomplishment. I believe that Rossini's Otello was Italian opera's first tragic ending. Still, much of the public was not ready for a violent ending with no redeeming value. So Rossini also wrote a alternative happy ending for Otello's first performance in Rome. This cd has both endings.

The bel canto in this recording is breathtaking, the melodies enchanting, the music of the drama moving. So I learned something, Rossini could compose tragic operas with the best of them. If you love opera, buy this recording. Viva Verdi and Rossini. -Amazon Customer Review

3 CD's, 320kbps, 400MB Single Link:

http://www.fileserve.com/file/DWvUZ5s

No password

Found at La Gazzetta Belcantista

Opera: Falstaff -Verdi, Fischer-Dieskau, Leonard Bernstein

Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Falstaff, Conducted by Leonard Bernstein

Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his twenty-six operas to be a comedy. It was also the third of Verdi's operas to be based on a Shakespearean play, following his earlier Macbeth and Otello.

Disc 1:
01. Falstaff!...Olà!
02. Sei pollisei scellini
03. Ma è tempo d´assottigliar l´ingegno
04. L´onore! Ladri!
05. Alice...Meg... Nannetta
06. Fulgida Alice! Amor t´offro...
07. In due parole L´enorme Falstaff
08. Pst,pst, Nannetta
09. Del tuo barbaro diagnostico
10. Siam pentiti e contriti
11. (Alice è mia!)
12. Signore, v´assista il cielo!
13. C´è a Windsor una dama
14. È sogno O realtà

Disc 2:
01. A2-P2-Presenteremo un bill
02. Fra poco s´incomincia la commendia
03. Alfin t´ho colto, raggiante fior...
04. Quand´ero paggio del Duca di Norfolk
05. Mia signora!
06. C´è!...C´è!...Se t´agguanto!
07. A3-P1-Ehi! Taverniere!
08. Revenza. La bella Alice
09. Sarai la Fata, Regina delle Fate
10. A3-P2-Dal labbro il canto estasiato vola
11. Una, due, tre, quattro
12. Ninfe! Elfi! Silfi!
13. Alto lá!
14. Ogni sorta di gente dozzinale
15. Facciano il parentado

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/387083950/KCMC149.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/387084513/KCMC149.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/387086020/KCMC149.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/387086108/KCMC149.part4.rar

MP3 at 320kbps

Thanks to the wonderful Ibiza for this upload!