
Here are the caveats: The picture is really murky; there are subtitles in Japanese that you can’t turn off (you can add English, German, Spanish,
Verdi’s second opera, a comedy, was a dismal failure at its premiere, so much so that the composer later said that he considered giving up
When Franco Zeffirelli’s film version of La traviata opened in Paris in 1983, 800,000 movie-goers went to see it in six weeks. It was eventually
Of Georg Solti’s two recordings of the Verdi Requiem, I slightly prefer this later one, though I realize that this isn’t received wisdom. The Decca
This Requiem has long been overshadowed by Serafin’s 1939 recording with Gigli and Pinza; hearing this 1959 set after many years, it stands up beautifully
London’s Royal Opera House’s new record label mines the gold in its archives, among which there can be few treasures that for musical excellence and
Here, in a lavishly Hollywood-worthy (or Franco Zeffirelli-worthy) production by set and costume designer Giovanni Agostinucci, is a star-turn Traviata that will please almost everyone.
I approached this with the knowledge that the world not only does not need another recording of Verdi’s Otello–there already are a surprising number of
Taped on July 17, 1951 in really bad sound, with a shockingly ill-rehearsed, ragged chorus and presented under the uninteresting leadership of Oliviero de Fabritiis,
Il Corsaro was Verdi’s 12th opera, but it seems earlier: it lacks any of the dramatic urgency or in-depth characterization of, say, Macbeth, and it