Raymond J. Lustig - Semmelweis - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Tom Pease and Stuart Stotts have been singing with children and families for well over 20 years each. They both delight in the connections, the learning, and the magic that happens when people share music, whether in the concert hall or on the kindergarten rug. Their most recent recording is Celebrate, which is quickly becoming a classic for anyone who sings with young children. Stuart and Tom most often work separately, but this recording captures them at their together best. Each of them do over 200 concerts each year, and their recordings have won awards and accolades from sources around the country.

Rameau Dardanus / Leppard, Von Stade, Soyer, Van Dam, Composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, Performer Monique Marandon, Christiane Eda-Pierre, Michael Devlin, Georges Gautier, Conductor Raymond Leppard, Orchestra/Ensemble Paris Opera Chorus, Paris Opera Orchestra. There is so much magnificent music in this improbable story and Leppard makes it tingle with life right from the outset. Vocal honors here go to Jose van Dam as the magician Ismenor-noble in tone, with a fine ringing high register, and most impressive in his invocation of the supernatural powers-and to Christiane Eda-Pierre as a radiant Venus. It is well worth having to wait until Act 4 for her appearance, but she fully comes into her own in the last act her entry there is a lovely moment, and she has an unusually florid final air (quite different in character from the rest of the opera). I have yet to hear Frederica von Stade sing other than intelligently and expressively, but the tessitura of her role here sounds rather high for her, and in Act 1 her vibrato is more marked than usual. Georges Gautier copes valiantly with the taxing title-role, whose high-lying nature makes a certain whiteness of tone almost inescapable. Michael Devlin makes a bluff warrior-suitor, at his best in Act 3; but those who remember Souzay's recording with Leppard of the Act 4 air InchMonstre affreuxInch (Philips SAL3468, 10/64- nla) will appreciate what more lies in the part. Dardanus remains all but unknown to the majority of opera-lovers; but let me urge them to sample it's riches. Two spots alone may suffice to sway them the movingly beautiful prelude to Act 3, leading to Iphise's air InchO jour affreuxInch, and the remarkable opening to the prison scene of Act 4.

Reubke / Beethoven / Raymond - Son Pno (B-Flat M)/Son Pno 21 (C Major) Op. 53/& [COMPACT DISCS] Canada - Import date 11/18/2003