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The #1 Opera Album
(more) »rank: 4060by: Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Léo Delibes, Georges Bizet, Umberto Giordano, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Gioachino Rossini, Alfredo Catalani, Jacques Offenbach, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Charles Gounod, Gaetano Donizetti, Pietro Mascagni, Antonin Dvorak, Richard Bonynge, Herbert von Karajan, Alberto Erede, Lamberto Gardelli, Giuseppe Patane, John Mauceri, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, Gyorgy Fischer, Riccardo Chailly, Istvan Kertesz, Leone Magiera, Evelino Pido, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Luciano Pavarotti, Jussi Bjorling, Renata Tebaldi
: :The labels that are now gathered under the Universal Classics umbrella have a pretty impressive scorecard in the area of classical compilations. We've seen The Greatest Opera Show on Earth, The Yellow Guide: Classical Music, Best of the Millennium, and now there's The No. 1 Opera Album. But that's no surprise, since Universal has some of the finest interpreters in its catalogue to draw from. This two-CD set (at the price of one), for example, brings together the likes of Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Luciano Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sir Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, and many more. Yet the other ...
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Sogno
(more) »rank: 2027by: B. / Cogliati, D. Zambrini, Tullio / Servillo, Giuseppe Ferro, Patrick / Servillo, Giuseppe Abrial, Ennio / Bardotti, S. Morricone, Ennio / Quarantotto, Lucio Morricone, Mauro / Bocelli, Andrea Malavasi, Guido Corti, Eros Ramazzotti, Cecilia Chailly
: essential recording:Andrea Bocelli's Sogno ('Dream') is a pop album of entirely original compositions that evoke traditional and modern influences. Bocelli himself describes the CD as secular Italian traditional melodic music with a contemporary twist. The album's 14 tracks include 'The Prayer,' a Bocelli and Celine Dion duet produced by David Foster; 'Come un Fiume Tu,' an intriguing collaboration with soundtrack maestro Ennio Morricone; 'O Mare e Tu,' a duet with Dulce Pontes; and 'Sogno' (the first single excerpted from the album), a light-as-a-feather, emotional composition sung by Bocelli with his typical vocal emphasis, which has made him famous around the ...
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The Ultimate Puccini Collection
(more) »rank: 25074by: Giacomo Puccini, Herbert von Karajan, Riccardo Chailly, Stephen Barlow, Tullio Serafin, Lorin Maazel, Sir Edward Downes, Giuseppe Patane, Zubin Mehta, Alberto Erede, John Mauceri, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa, John Alldis Choir, Luciano Pavarotti, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Bologna Community Theater Orchestra, Ettore Bastianini, Carlo Bergonzi, Renato Cesari, Fernando Corena, Cesare Siepi, Renata Tebaldi, Gianna D'Angelo, Saint Cecilia Academy Orchestra, Franco Corelli, Alfredo Mariotti, Regine Crespin, Royal Opera House Orchestra Covent Garden, London Symphony Orchestra, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra, Rome Opera House Orchestra, Pilar Lorengar, Berlin Philharmonic Brass Ensemble, Mirella Freni, Rolando Panerai, Jussi Bjorling, Leontyne Price, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
: essential recording:Ordinarily, it pays to be wary of collections such as these, which often promise a lot but deliver a mishmash of disconnected excerpts. This disc, however, is something of an exception: you really do get just about all of Puccini's best arias, which is possible, because he didn't write so many operas that choosing the best moments becomes a matter of the producer's personal taste. Also, Puccini's operas are so popular that every major label has excellent complete recordings of all of them, so in making this compilation it was possible to cast from strength: all the singers here ...
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Pavarotti: Greatest Hits
(more) »rank: 29819from: Decca
: essential recording:Ordinarily, it pays to be wary of collections such as these, which often promise a lot but deliver a mishmash of disconnected excerpts. This disc, however, is something of an exception: you really do get just about all of Puccini's best arias, which is possible, because he didn't write so many operas that choosing the best moments becomes a matter of the producer's personal taste. Also, Puccini's operas are so popular that every major label has excellent complete recordings of all of them, so in making this compilation it was possible to cast from strength: all the singers here ...
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The Greatest Opera Show on Earth
(more) »rank: 59004from: Polygram Records
: :This really is a remarkable collection, and anyone even remotely interested in opera is bound to be vastly entertained by it. Almost everything and everyone is here, albeit in small doses: Tebaldi, Pavarotti (a lot), Bjoerling, Bartoli, Sutherland, Solti, Karajan, Troyanos, Gheorghiu, Nucci; the composers are Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, and all the other usual suspects. There are plenty of fine compilation sets on the market, and this is one of the best. One can only hope that it whets listeners' appetites for whole operas. --Robert Levine
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Rossini - La Cenerentola / Bartoli, Dara, Matteuzzi, Corbelli, Pertusi, Chailly
(more) »rank: 38369by: Gioachino Rossini, Riccardo Chailly, Cecilia Bartoli, William Matteuzzi, Michele Pertusi, Gloria Banditelli
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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Cecilia Bartoli - A Portrait
(more) »rank: 33930by: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gioachino Rossini, Giulio Caccini, Guiseppe Giordani, Alessandro Parisotti, Ion Marin, Christopher Hogwood, Riccardo Chailly, György Fischer, Lesley Schatzberger, Cecilia Bartoli, The Academy of Ancient Music
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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Midnight Adagios
(more) »rank: 124599from: Decca
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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The #1 Tenor Album
(more) »rank: 57266from: Decca
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
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Essential Puccini
(more) »rank: 85062from: Decca
: essential recording:We live in a golden age for Rossini singing, and this recording offers considerable proof of it. Although she occasionally strays into overdone vocal mannerisms, Cecilia Bartoli is a fetching Cenerentola with the right combination of pathos and triumph. William Matteuzzi offers an ardent Don Ramiro, while Alessandro Corbelli's Dandini is appropriately hilarious. Chailly keeps things moving in the right direction. For anyone who requires the most up-to-date recorded sound along with good, idiomatic singing, this recording is a natural. --Sarah Bryan Miller
