tenor

Boulez Parsifal Melodram C

Jed Distler

Wieland Wagner’s stripped-down, minimalist Bayreuth Festival staging of his grandfather’s Parsifal finally met its aural equivalent when Pierre Boulez first conducted the opera in 1966,

NPR does Britten’s War Requiem

David Hurwitz

This recording won a Grammy (or so I’m told). God knows why. So if you collect Grammy-winning classical music recordings (i.e., discs that have won

Bach Magnificat etc/Rilling Hanssler C

Jed Distler

Bach’s Magnificat radiates spiritual joy and compositional daring, qualities Helmuth Rilling broaches but never quite embraces in his new recording of this popular work. This

Berlioz/L’Enfance du Christ/Dutoit/Decca

David Vernier

It’s unfortunate that relatively few listeners will ever have heard Berlioz’s “other” masterpiece, the oratorio L’Enfance du Christ. Admittedly somewhat disjointed in its overall musical

forza live myto C

Dan Davis

Here’s another routine night at the opera, enshrined for posterity. Well, not quite routine since Myto puts the Overture between Acts 1 and 2. Did

Il Fonte della Salute – Fux – cpo C

Robert Levine

This early German Baroque work is composed in what is known as the “sepolcro” tradition, which appears to be a cross between a Passion Play

Goodall Valkyrie/Chandos C

Jed Distler

Starting with The Valkyrie, Chandos launches its long-awaited edition of the English National Opera’s live Ring Cycle from the 1970s, conducted by Reginald Goodall and

La Gioconda – Arangi-Lombardi – Naxos C

Robert Levine

This bizarrely plotted potboiler almost never fails if the singing has enough thrills, and this set, the first Gioconda ever recorded, is certainly thrilling. The

THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS OF ENRICO CARUSO VOL. 2

Jed Distler

Volume 2 of Naxos’ complete Caruso bridges the great tenor’s last European recordings into his first American sessions for Victor. Caruso’s 1904/5 New York recordings