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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Verdi: Un ballo in mascheraRecorded: 4.–9.IX.1956, Teatro alla Scala, Milano
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José Carreras (Riccardo), Montserrat Caballé (Amelia), Ingvar Wixell (Renato), Patricia Payne (Ulrica), Sona Ghazarian (Oscar), Jonathan Summers (Silvano), Robert Lloyd (Samuele), Gwynne Howell (Tom), Robin Leggate (Un Giudice) Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Colin Davis “Colin Davis's Verdi is always a slow burn, but when it catches fire it blazes. The Act III finale here has rarely been bettered. Carreras and Caballe are at the top of their game.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2013 ***** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Recorded live on 10th December 1955 “[Anderson] was impressive but perhaps a shade past her considerable best (or else nerves got to her). Jan Peerce is an occasionally rough but ready Gustavo, Robert Merrill a convincing Renato, Zinka Milanov a magnetic vocal presence, and Roberta Peters a bright-toned Oscar, while Dimitri Mitropoulous's conducting shows distinction.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Verdi: Un ballo in mascheraLive Recording from The Salzburger Festspiele, 1990
Set Design by WILLIAM DUDLEY Arthaus releases on DVD another gem from the archives of Austrian Television. The outstanding production of Verdi’s Masked Ball at the Salzburg Festivals 1989 and 1990 was Herbert von Karajan’s legacy to the Festival. Supported by a cast of superlative actor-singers in opulent scenery, Sir George Solti agreed to conduct the opera at short notice after Karajan’s unexpected death in 1989. The production had been expected to be a highlight in Karajan’s series of Verdi operas at Salzburg. Karajan’s celebrated ability to unite a cultivated sound with dramatic effects was known to create extraordinary and highly acclaimed opera events. For Un ballo in maschera Karajan planned something unusual: He would not set the opera in colonial Massachusetts, as the censors had forced Verdi to do when he was composing the work, but in Stockholm in the 1790s at the court of King Gustav III of Sweden, as Verdi had originally conceived his work. Together with the film director John Schlesinger and his stage team, Karajan developed a concept that promised theatrical splendour equal to the musical excellence that the conductor and the handpicked cast of singers would surely provide in collaboration with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. But this was not to be: stage rehearsals had already begun for the opening performance of the 1989 festival when Karajan died on 16 July. Therefore it was extraordinarily lucky that a conductor of Sir Georg Solti’s standing, was prepared to undertake the task just a week before the premiere, and with the whole world watching. He and the staging by Hollywood film director John Schlesinger was acclaimed by audience and press alike. Sound Format: PCM Stereo Picture Format: 4:3 DVD Format: DVD 9, NTSC Subtitle Languages: GB, DE, FR, ES, IT, CN Running Time: 145 mins FSK: 0 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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La Scala Milan 8th April 1973 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Classic, all-star performance of one of the great Verdi operas, featuring Pavarotti in one of his most celebrated roles. Available for the first time on DVD, the complete opera of the classic 1980 production by Elijah Moshinsky of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, filmed live from the Metropolitan Opera. This was an eye-catching and thought-provkoing production. Moshinsky staged the action in pre-revolutionary 1774 Boston. “…a valuable record and a highly enjoyable one, in Elijah Moshinsky's clean-cut production… Pavarotti, in golden voice and intense presence, is well matched by Louis Quilico's rich-voiced, mordant Renato and Katia Ricciarelli's deeply felt if occasionally strained Amelia, not to mention Judith Blegen's sparkling Oscar.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 ***** “Pavarotti [is] at his very finest, both as singer and actor...Patane conducts throughout with flair and Brian Large's video direction could hardly be bettered.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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“This set comes from live performances at La Scala in the mid-1950s when the diva was at the height of her powers. Callas gives here an even more vital performance than on her studio recorded set. It was Callas's particular genius to find exactly the appropriate mode of expression for every role she tackled. Here we have Callas the tormented, guilty wife. But she also gives us a hundred different individual inflections to reflect the emotion of the moment: indeed, as John Steane points out in one of his illuminating notes, it's often a small aside that reveals as much about the character she's portraying s a big set-piece.
The context of an evening in the theatre makes this a more arresting, vivid interpretation on all sides than its studio counterpart of a year earlier, with Gianandrea Gavazzeni galvanising his fine cast to great things. As the late John Ardoin put it in his study of Callas's recordings: 'The La Scala performance is sung with more vivid colours, with accents more etched and a general intensification of Verdi's drama.' Here the sound picture is appreciably superior to that on earlier live sets which capture Callas in other roles at La Scala.
The irresistible Di Stefano is the soul of vital declamation as Riccardo. Ettore Bastianini's forthright Renato, the only role he sang in London and one of his best in an all too short career, and Giulietta Simionato's classic Ulrica are also huge assets. Other roles are filled with house singers of the day. An unbeatable set.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “…. Ettore Bastianini’s forthright Renato, the only role he sang in London and one of his best in an all too short career, and Giulietta Simionato’s classic Ulrica are huge assets” Gramophone Magazine | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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Recorded 1962 | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Verdi: Un ballo in maschera
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Subtitles in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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