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Title: Great Stars Of Opera DVD - Classical Music DVD - Great Stars Of Opera DVD

Artist: Correli, Sutherland, De Los Angeles, London Etc.

Composer: Various

Region: 1

Sound: Mono & Stereo

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Price: £29.95

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Great Stars Of Opera DVD - Classical Music DVD - Great Stars Of Opera DVD

DVD Description:

The most spectacular of the 21 operatic excerpts on this two-hour collection of Bell Telephone Hour telecasts is the last and longest--Joan Sutherland singing the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor--more than 13 minutes of incredible vocalizing, still as fresh and technically dazzling as it was when it was televised in 1962, shortly after her Metropolitan Opera debut in that role. In a sense, video recording was not Sutherland's best medium. She was not a great actress or a conventionally beautiful woman, but the video representation of her slightly awkward stage presence makes her vocal grace and agility sound all the more impressive. Equally historic is a scene from Boris Godunov melodramatically sung by George London shortly after his triumphant Bolshoi debut in that role (though one wishes he had been allowed to sing it in Russian for his American audience). A discovery of sorts is Risë Stevens's performance of a long monologue from Natoma, a long-forgotten opera by Victor Herbert.
Leontyne Price looks very young and extraordinarily talented in selections from Il trovatore and Aida; Birgit Nilsson produces great sounds in music from Turandot and Götterdämmerung. The list could go on much longer. The names on the cover of this disc are (except for the unfortunate absence of Maria Callas) virtually a who's who of the leading Metropolitan Opera singers of the late 1950s and early '60s. It would be pleasant to have Galina Vishnevkaya, Christa Ludwig, Cesare Siepi, and Walter Berry as well, but their careers blossomed elsewhere and we must be thankful for what is here--thankful, in particular, that there were once programs on commercial network television that presented material of deep and permanent value.

Great Stars Of Opera DVD - Classical Music DVD - Great Stars Of Opera DVD

Reviews:

This is the first of the three collections released so far in this series; another volume (not viewed) focuses on three tenors: Corelli, di Stefano and Vickers. All offer excellent video and audio considering the age of the material. All are from the Bell Telephone Hour... Read More

- Reviewed by Steve Davis, Essex (United Kingdom), on 13/02/2005.

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