C Major reviews
Massenet: Don Quichotte (Bregenz, 2019)
Gábor Bretz, David Stout, et al (voices); Vienna Symphony/Daniel Cohen (C Major, DVD)
Haydn: Symphonies Nos 88, 92 & 94; Sinfonia Concertante
Vienna Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein (C major; DVD/Blu-ray)
Rossini: Mosè in Egitto
Andrew Foster-Williams, Mandy Fredrich, Sunnyboy Dladla; Vienna Symphony/Enrique Mazzola; dir. Lotte de Beer (
C major; DVD)
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Simone Alberghini, Adrian Sâmpetrean, Irina Lungu, Kateřina Kněžíková, Julia Novikova, Dmitry Korchak, Jiří Brückler, Jan Štáva; National Theatre Orchestra/Plácido Domingo; dir. Plácido Domingo (
C Major; DVD)
Bruckner: Symphony No. 1 (1866 version)
Staatskapelle Dresden/Christian Thielemann (C Major; DVD)
Maria Callas: Magic Moments of Music
Maria Callas et al; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Carlo Felice Cillario; dir. Holger Preusse (C Major, DVD)
Bernstein at 100 – The Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood
Nadine Sierra, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Midori, Yo-Yo Ma, Kian Soltani et al; Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons, Michael Tilson Thomas et al
(C Major, DVD)
Mariss Jansons's Queen of Spades triumphs on stage
Chorus of Dutch National Opera; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Mariss Jansons; dir. Stefan Herheim (C Major)
Verdi: Rigoletto
Prague Philharmonic Choir; Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Enrique Mazzola, et al (C Major / DVD)
Rossini: Ricciardo e Zoraide
Coro del Teatro Ventido Basso; Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI/Giacomo Sagripanti, et al (C Major / DVD)
Die Walküre performed at Salzburg Festival 2017
This Salzburg production was billed as a recreation of Herbert von Karajan’s classic 1967 staging, but on this DVD ‘recreation’ acquires inverted commas – advisedly, because it’s nothing of the sort.
Watch Plácido Domingo performing Verdi's I Due Foscari
Just four years after its 1844 premiere, Verdi described this early opera as ‘a funeral with too uniform an atmosphere and colour from beginning to end’. There is some justification for this criticism: the opera presents a single dramatic situation that worsens rather than alters over the course of its three acts. Nevertheless it offers central roles with considerable potential, notably that of the elder of the two Foscari of the title – the Venetian doge unable to save his son from exile and himself from humiliating dismissal.
Dreaming up The Magic Flute
‘Steier offers brilliant and convincing solutions to the perennial problems of Die Zauberflote’