Boito: Mefistofele

René Pape (Mefistofele), Joseph Calleja (Faust), Kristine Opolais (Margherita), Karine Babajanyan (Elena), Heike Grötzinger (Marta), Andrea Borghini (Wagner), Rachael Wilson (Pantalis) & Joshua Owen Mills (Nerèo)

Bavarian State Orchestra, Omer Meir Wellber, Roland Schwab

Pape revels in the grotesque vocal grandeuer of his suited and booted Mefistofle , with Joseph Calleja offering a thoughtful, sweet-toned Faust, painfully aware of the wrong turs he takes on... — BBC Music Magazine, March 2017, 3 out of 5 stars/4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 2nd Dec 2016
Catalogue No: 739304
Label: C Major

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Boito: Mefistofele

Recorded at Bayerische Staatsoper München, 2015
René Pape (Mefistofele), Joseph Calleja (Faust), Kristine Opolais (Margherita), Karine Babajanyan (Elena), Heike Grötzinger (Marta), Andrea Borghini (Wagner), Rachael Wilson (Pantalis) & Joshua Owen Mills (Nerèo)
Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Omer Meir Wellber (conductor) & Roland Schwab (stage director)

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Piero Vinciguerra, set designer

Renée Listerdal, costume designer

Michael Bauer, lighting designer

Stefano Giannetti, choreographer

Best-known today as the librettist of Verdi’s final Shakespearean masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff, the multitalented Arrigo Boito was also a fine composer in his own right. Hugely ambitious in scope, and some 20 years in the making, his first (and only completed) opera, Mefistofele, sets out to encompass nothing less than the whole of Goethe’s vast poetic drama Faust (part I and II), and is considered the very central work of his phase between Verdi and Puccini.

Making his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper, director Roland Schwab (a protégé of the legendary Ruth Berghaus) plays devil’s advocate by setting the opera in a nightmarish atmosphere. “The exceptional solistic cast” (ORF) features René Pape, Joseph Calleja, Kristine Opolais and Karine Babajanyan.

Picture format: 1080i High Definition

Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Region code: 0 (worldwide)

Subtitles: Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese

Booklet notes: English, German, French

Running time: 140 mins

No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)

Reviews

March 2017

Pape revels in the grotesque vocal grandeuer of his suited and booted Mefistofle , with Joseph Calleja offering a thoughtful, sweet-toned Faust, painfully aware of the wrong turs he takes on his road to eventual salvation.

February 2017

René Pape’s Mefistofele is restrained and autocratic…Calleja is also far less camp than has become the norm for Faust, to the opera’s benefit. Both men are in seriously good voice. As is Opolais, who lavishes no small weight of tone on the part…this release is a good first calling post for Boito’s drama

Opera Now February 2017

Omer Meir Wellber conducts a thinking man’s version of the score, and René Pape matches him as a sardonic, measured protagonist. Joseph Calleja is at his stylish best as Faust, Kristine Opolais is dramatically convincing but vocally scratchy as Margherita.

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Boito: Mefistofele

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