Mercadante's Virginia
With Susan Patterson, Stefano Antonucci, Paul Charles Clarke, Charles Castronovo, Andrew Foster-Williams, Mark Le Brocq and Katherine Manley; Geoffrey Mitchell Choir; London Philharmonic conducted by Maurizio Benini.
9 March 2010
Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers (highlights) features Barry Banks,
Jennifer Larmore,
Alastair Miles and
Alan Opie.
MusicalCriticism.
com
'Following on from her acclaimed first recital disc for Chandos' Opera in English series, Brewer now offers an even greater mix of music in the second volume. Handel, Gluck and Mozart rub shoulders with Wagner, Beethoven and Korngold, while the Anglo-American repertoire is represented by Britten and Richard Rodgers, and the disc is completed by Menotti, Dvorák and Lehár.'
BBC Music Magazine 'Chandos have certainly fielded a handsome cast... (for) this generous selection of highlights sung here in David Parry's elegant translation.'
BBC Music Magazine
'... another classy Opera Rara release that puts us - and the long-neglected Mercadante - in its debt.'
Ricci's Corrado d'Altamura
The sixth opera in the Essential Opera Rara series with Dimitra Theodossiou, Dmitry Korchak and James Westman in the main roles, and the Philharmonia conducted by Roland Boer.
Donizetti's Parisina
with Carmen Giannattasio, José Bros, Dario Solari, Nicola Ulivieri and Ann Taylor with the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Parry.
The Guardian
'Opera Rara are not about to exhaust the canon of their favourite composer, Donizetti. Even so, their regular revivals of his more obscure works do not often turn up something as good as Parisina, presented under David Parry's stylish baton in this concert performance... It was Donizetti's favourite among his operas. This performance showed why.'
View the newly published Reginald Goodall pages:
Opera North’s production of Verdi’s Don Carlos in the Spring of 2009 was received extremely enthusiastically and recorded for the Opera in English series. The CD features Julian Gavin, Janice Watson, Alastair Miles, William Dazeley, Jane Dutton and John Tomlinson.
The Times
'(Richard Farnes) has already proven his Verdian credentials, but this is possibly his finest achievement yet: Verdi's questing search for humanity matched by playing of sometimes shockingly intimate tenderness. Distill the epic into the personal and you have the elusive essence of Verdi: both on stage and in the pit, this show is dripping with it.’