Great Operatic Arias - Sir Thomas Allen
CHAN 3118

Gounod
1 Faust Valentin's Aria 'Even the bravest heart may swell'
Rossini
2 The Barber of Seville Figaro's Cavatina
'I am the barber everyone wants, I am!'
Mozart
3 The Marriage of Figaro Count Almaviva's Recitative and Aria 'You've won the case already' -
'Must I be made to suffer'
Wagner
4 Tannhäuser Wolfram's Aria
'With dark foreboding twilight casts her shadows'
Tchaikovsky
5 The Queen of Spades Yeletsky's Aria 'You seem unhappy, my beloved'
Thomas
6 Hamlet Drinking Song
'Oh wine, deliver me from sadness'
with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
Verdi
7 Luisa Miller Miller's Scena and Aria
'Stop!' You shall listen' - 'Marriage is sacred' -
'I was right to be suspicious'
with Brindley Sherratt, bass
Wagner
8 Tannhäuser Wolfram's Aria
'Turning my gaze upon this proud assembly'

Bizet
9 The Pearl Fishers Zurga's Recitative and Aria: 'The storm has died away'
Britten
10 Billy Budd Billy in the Darbies: 'Look! Through the port comes the moonshine astray'
Johann Strauss
11 Die Fledermaus (The Bat) Watch Duet: 'Though I'm somewhat out of practice' with Janice Watson soprano
Lehár
12 The Merry Widow Cavalryman Duet: 'Hello, here's a soldier bold' with Janice Watson soprano
Rodgers
13 Carousel Billy Bigelow's Soliloquy: 'I wonder what he'll think of me!'
Korngold
14 Die Tode Stadt (The Dead City) Fritz's Song 'In visions, illusions' with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir

London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Parry 

Recorded in Blackheath Halls, London -23-26 October 2003
Producer - Brian Couzens, Sound engineer - Ralph Couzens, Assistant engineer - Michael Common  

Opera

'Opera that speaks your language: that's the trumpet-call for the Chandos/Peter Moores Foundation's worthy and often revelatory series of complete opera and selected arias in English. And seldom is it spoken so seductively and eloquently as by the salty, sensuous and word-lively voice of Thomas Allen. This anthology of some of Allen's greatest roles, from Mozart to Richard Rodgers, is real fan-club fodder - and more. The disc, with its accompanying booklet generously packed with photos and enhanced by Rodney Milnes' elegant and illuminating commentary, bears all the marks of a lovingly engineered and produced artefact, with

commitment and affection ringing out of every track.'

The Financial Times
'The Allen baritone is in full, eloquent form, with a ring of mature authority and faultless diction.'

The Guardian
'As always, Allen was a supremely intelligent recitalist, matching sound with sense, probing the meaning of a text without fracturing the vocal line.' 
 
The Times 
 'Allen had the perfect measure of expressive pace and scale…a most artful balance between the intimate and the rhetorical.'

The Sunday Telegraph 
‘David Parry and the LPO accompany splendidly. A delicious disc.’  
6 January 2009