Mozart: Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen (from Die Zauberflöte) - download (MP3 & FLAC)

‘Operatic justice’, writes J.B. Steane in his informative and amusing note for this album, ‘is a law unto itself, and the baritone has been prominent among its victims. Unlucky in love, he is seen in the most favourable light as a father-figure and is otherwise all too often the villain of the piece. He may be manly but is rarely heroic. He will have his arias, his moments of glory, yet (uncannily, it must seem to him) their place is rarely at the centre of the opera, or for that matter, part of its last-act climax.’

Beginning with a bracket of Mozart arias, this colourful recital, recorded by Matthias Goerne in 2000, takes us through the terrains of mid- and late-19th century opera – Wagner, Humperdinck, Richard Strauss – to the early 20th-century with the moving ‘Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen’ from Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, to two brief excerpts from Berg’s Wozzeck.

Matthias Goerne both works within the tradition and extends it. Like his predecessors, from Schlusnus to Fischer-Dieskau, he has developed his careers in opera and song side by side, though it is true that his fame and hitherto his work as a recording artist have centred less on opera than on Lieder and oratorio. His operatic recording debut was spotted by Gramophone magazine and described as ‘an impressive appearance’, as Prometheus in the large cast of Braunfels’s Die Vögel.

Bryn Terfel is one of Britain’s best-loved singers, as comfortable in popular musical repertoire as he is in the great roles of opera. Ahead of his curated BrynFest appearances at London’s Southbank Centre, and his career-defining role as Wotan in Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House this autumn, Deutsche Grammophon is proud to release this 2CD career retrospective.

Arias from the legendary Sunday concerts from 1966, 1972, 1988 and 1992.

His Papageno was historic and turned Hermann Prey into the most popular opera singer in Germany. This CD contains a collection of hitherto unpublished recordings made during the legendary Sunday Concerts with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester from 1966 to 1992. In a representative series of roles ranging from Bach to musicals, the great baritone shows us all his facets: from the sensitivity of the comic actor to the intense, inmost sincerity of the Lieder performer. At a time when the opera was still an integral part of Germany's media landscape, Hermann Prey made it impressively clear that a broad repertoire and depth of interpretation are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Prey ends this CD with a performance of “They say falling in love is wonderful”, inviting us to fall in love with his art yet again.