Penguin Guide Rosette Winners

“There might be flaws in this long-awaited CD release of the original performance, but few of them come from Goodall's thrilling grasp of Wagner's late comic opera. Compelling, joyous, often magnificent, Goodall displays a great sense for overall dramatic architecture and a spaciousness that highlights detail.” The Times, 5th July 2008 ****

“The performance is greater than the sum of its parts: individual roles may have been more lustrously sung on disc, but it is hard to think of a more satisfying team than Norman Bailey (a noble Sachs, earthy and poetic), Alberto Remedios (a liquidly sung, golden-toned Stolzing), Derek Hammond-Stroud, (a pernickety, word-perfect Beckmesser), Margaret Curphey (occasionally lemony-tinted, but radiant on the top line of the quintet) and Gregory Dempsey (a David who really sings the notes). Goodall’s towering achievement shines through the sometimes boxy recording.” Sunday Times, 13th July 2008 ****

“Avid Wagnerites have been clamouring for the commercial release of these two performances for ages. Broadcast on Radio 3, from Sadler's Wells and the Royal Opera House respectively, they have cult status among postwar British Wagner interpretations, and each also represents a significant moment in its company's history. Reginald Goodall's English-language performances in 1968 marked the start of a 15-year-long Wagnerian golden age, as far as Sadler's Wells (later English National) Opera was concerned. Bernard Haitink's Meistersinger - the high point of his tenure as Covent Garden's music director - was broadcast in July 1997, on the eve of the house's closure for refurbishment. Stylistically, they are antithetical. Goodall's at times overwhelming performance is at once extremely slow and phenomenally intense, while Haitink is swift, mercurial and altogether more relaxed. Goodall never lets us forget that Meistersinger is a parable of poetic creativity, and there is an overriding sense of metaphysical resonance and elation in his interpretation. Haitink, meanwhile steers us through an urbane social comedy, before anchoring the work in the final scene, when Walther (Gösta Winbergh) gives the song's first performance, as Sachs (John Tomlinson) gazes contentedly on. Goodall has marginally the more consistent cast, the product of his determination to train an ensemble of house singers. Bailey's nobly introverted Sachs has claim to being the most beautiful on disc, and few Walthers have ever matched Remedios in poetic fervour. Winbergh, very much his equal in vocal ease and beauty, is more impulsive and also, tellingly, more obviously aristocratic. Goodall has the better Eva in the ecstatic Margaret Curphey, while Haitink's Nancy Gustafson is having an off night. On the other hand, Thomas Allen's subtly characterised Beckmesser, for Haitink, is preferable to Derek Hammond-Stroud's snarling caricature on the Goodall set.” The Guardian, 11th July 2008 ****

“Goodall's understanding of what every beat of this core means, and his successful communication of that to his personally trained cast, is a thing of wonder. Climaxes are immense; timers may tell us it's slow, but the pulse never flags.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2008

“It's eminently listenable, capturing the musical and spiritual glow of Goodall's orchestra and voices, masterfully embodying the comedy's entwining pain and laughter. …this is not only something very special, but (for Anglophones) strikingly accessible. Pure gold!” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2008 *****

“Quite a revelation. The radio recording captures the atmosphere thrillingly. [Bailey] was an outstanding Sachs, firm and focused...Hammond-Stroud is a delightfully characterful Beckmesser, pointing the humour infectiously...It is striking that not one of the singers has even the suspicion of a wobble.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***

“The set is a triumph of scholarship, musicianship and managerial enterprise. At the price, it is irresistible.” Gramophone Magazine

“one of the most sparkling and totally successful live opera recordings available...Abbado's brilliance and sympathy draw the musical threads compellingly together with the help of superb, totally committed playing from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“Any frisson between the lovers is supplied by Rolando Villazón's impassioned, impulsive, gloriously sung Rodolfo. Fellow Bohemians Marcello and Schaunard are lively and quick-witted, though Colline tends to wobble in his "coat" aria. Nicole Cabell sings with gusto in Musetta's irresistible waltz song. Without short-changing the moments of extreme tenderness and pathos, De Billy conducts with youthful ardour and an acute feeling for the score's variegated colours. All the more frustrating, then, that Netrebko's Mimì bears only a sketchy resemblance to Puccini's "soave fanciulla".” The Telegraph, 21st June 2008

“There is...some fine singing to be heard, all from Rolando Villazón, whose Rodolfo is irresistibly ardent and sustained on a wonderfully burnished tone. But Anna Netrebko, the other half of the much-vaunted dream pairing, is detached and profoundly unmoving as Mimi; there's no colour in the voice and no dramatic credibility in her relationship with Rodolfo, although the way in which the recording spotlights each voice destroys all theatricality anyway. The coarse-grained efforts of the Musetta (Nicole Cabell) and the Marcello (Boaz Daniel) to grab their share of the spotlight only make things worse. Some of the tempos that Bertrand de Billy adopts suggests he was trying to get things over as soon as possible.” The Guardian, 23rd May 2008 **

“It is succulently dramatic – a tribute both to the stars’ power and the conductor Bertrand de Billy’s dramatic ability to steer the score at the drop of a note from uproarious jollity to the shiver that spells death. Villazón, of course, comes up to the mike first, bustling through the opening garret scene with an electricity that immediately separates him from Boaz Daniel’s Marcello and the other bohemian chums. Villazón’s Rodolfo radiates Latin heat throughout: every mood, from ripping bravado through tender concern to abject loss, is vigorously yet tastefully conveyed. Frailty may not be Netrebko’s middle name, but she dampens her force sufficiently to be fairly convincing...Finding the right balance between Mimì’s ill health and a diva’s lung power is never easy: Netrebko comes closest in her impressive D’onde lieta in Act III.” The Times, 16th May 2008 ****

“Vividly recorded, vigorously conducted and sung by a distinguished cast still in their relatively youthful prime … This is a recording which takes its place alongside the acknowledged 'classics'. ” Gramophone Magazine, June 2008

“As Rodolfo, Rolando Villazón is magnificent, by turns ardent and angry and there's a stream of bright golden tone in a ringing 'O soave fanciulla'.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2008 ***

“Vividly recorded, vigorously conducted and sung by a distinguished cast still in their relatively youthful prime, it presents the score with an appeal that will be readily felt by newcomers and with a freshness that will make those of riper years feel… well, feel young again.
Act 1 moves quickly up to Mimì's entry. The vigour is not brash or wearing; there are moments of respite, but it is conducted as a symphonic unit, a first-movement allegro giocoso. The love music takes its natural pace, though it adds a silent beat immediately following Mimì's solo and another before the start of 'O soave fanciulla'.
The Second Act registers clearly as a symphonic scherzo, or, in this arrangement where you play the first CD without a break, as an extended Mozartian finale. The various elements – the main solo group, the Christmas Eve crowd, the children (in splendidly disciplined high spirits), the stage band – are all well defined and the great ensemble runs its joyful course so that we can almost feel ourselves to be part of it.
Among the singers, it is important that Marcello has the presence and gaiety to be the life and soul and Boaz Daniel has all of that. Stéphane Degout as Schaunard may be a little too like him for the purposes of the recording but is lively and stylish. The Colline, Vitalij Kowaljow, is less effective. The lovers Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón are a famous pair and deservedly so. His voice is richly distinctive, his style genial and ardent. Netrebko is pure-toned and ample in climaxes. As Musetta, Nicole Cabell shows many of the qualities of a well cast Mimì – might Netrebko (a little solid and sturdy in vocal character for the Mimì of these acts) not have made a brilliant Musetta, as Welitsch did? In the remaining acts no such qualms arise.
Netrebko sings with feeling and imagination and Villazón is an inspired, golden-voiced Rodolfo. In fact, these are as finely performed as in any recording. The orchestra play almost as though reading a supplementary libretto, so vivid is their commentary. This is a recording which takes its place alongside the acknowledged 'classics'.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Villazòn is nigh-on impossible to fault. His sure-footed tenor has a wonderfully vulnerable edge. He clothes the most painful dramatic moments in tears, and the effect is heart-stopping; dripping in Puccinian melodrama and every-bit musical.” Andrew Mellor, bbc.co.uk, 9th May 2008

“This new DG recording is surely the La Boheme for our time. The singing of the two stars...is unforgettable. One needs to say little more, except that Nicole Cabell as Musetta and Boaz Daniel as Marcello are equally memorable.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****

“Despite stiff competition this vividly dramatic reading of the original score, the superb playing and Söderström's heart-breaking heroine confirm this is still the finest incarnation of Janácek's pastoral tragedy.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2007 *****

“Janácek's first operatic masterpiece is a towering work, blending searing intensity with heart-stopping lyricism.
It tells of Jenufa and the appalling treatment she receives as she's caught between the man she loves and another who finally comes to love her. But dominating the story is the Kostelnicka, a figure of enormous strength, pride and inner resource who rules Jenufa's life and ultimately kills her baby. Randová's characterisation of the role of the Kostelnicka is frightening in its intensity yet has a very human core. The two men are well cast and act as fine foils to Söderström's deeply impressive Jenufa. The Vienna Philharmonic plays beautifully and Mackerras directs magnificently. The recording is all one could wish for and the booklet is a mine of informed scholarship.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

OK, so I know that January’s CD of the Month was also an opera and I do try to vary these things, but what is one to do when faced with a set that reduces you to helpless, awestruck admiration (and, I admit it, tears) by its close? This is a worthy conclusion to a magnificent cycle. As before, most of the cast, familiar from other recordings, surpass themselves here. Windgassen may be more vocally secure for Solti but nowhere else is he so tender, so moving as here. Josef Greindl is a far more saturnine, charismatic Hagen here than elsewhere. But it is Astrid Varnay who is the great revelation. - Gramophone Magazine

“…Götterdämmerung with white-hot immediacy. The cast is superb, from Norns and Rhinemaidens upward. Keilberth sweeps them all along the path of tragedy with compellingly balanced drive and spaciousness, arriving at an unusually serene vision of Valhalla's destruction. It's an altogether gripping experience...and takes its place alongside the Solti among the finest renditions on disc.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 *****

“Almost 50 years on, Britten's own recording is still fresh. His conducting has great naturalness and the sound is amazing for 1958.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2007

“this superb set at last does justice to a musical of the 1920s which is both a landmark in the history of Broadway and musically a work of strength..von Stade gives a meltingly beautiful performance, totally in style, bringing out the beauty and imagination of Kern's melodies...The London Sinfonietta play with tremendous zest and feeling for the idiom” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition