beneboo asked: Do you have any recommendations for opera recordings or solo cds? My iTunes is a little lacking in the opera department...
ohhh my godd people asking me for opera recommendations this is so exciting
this will be a very long post
Solo recordings
To be honest, I don’t own many full recordings since I usually ‘make my own’ by downloading odd arias that I like off youtube and lumping them together by artist on my ipod. However we’re lucky to have some lovely recital CDs nowadays, here are my ‘can’t go wrong with’ recommendations by voice type:
Sopranos
- Pretty much any Callas compilation CD is good.
- Diana Damrau - Arie di Bravura, COLORaturas, Mozart: Donna
- Natalie Dessay - Mad Scenes, French Arias
- Angela Gheorghiu - Diva
- Anna Netrebko - Opera Arias
- Sondra Radvanovksy - Verdi Arias
Mezzos
- Joyce Didonato - Diva, Divo, Colbran, the Muse, Furore
- Cecilia Bartoli - Live from Italy
- Teresa Berganza - Una Voce Poco Fa
- Vesselina Kasarova - A Portrait
Tenors
- Juan Diego Florez - Arias for Rubini, Bel Canto Spectacular, Rossini Arias
- Joseph Calleja - The Maltese Tenor
- Jonas Kaufmann - Verismo, Romantic Arias
Baritones/Basses
- Peter Mattei - Great Baritone Arias
- Rene Pape - Gods, Kings and Demons
- Dmitri Hvorostovsky - Portrait, Heroes and Villains
Opera recordings
First off, if you don’t already know about Todopera, do have a look around it, it has thousands of bootlegs and studio recordings, and some real gems. I also use Sic transit opera mundi and O criminoso for things that aren’t on Todopera. Anyway, these are the recordings I currently have (mostly Italian and French, not a huge Wagner expert :S):
- Tosca with Callas and Gobbi
- Norma with Callas
- Carmen with Berganza and Domingo
- Carmen with Callas
- Don Carlo with Domingo and a generally perfect cast
- Fidelio - Kaufmann, Stemme
- Puritani with Sutherland and Pavarotti (imo anything with these two in it will be quite good, same goes for Callas)
- Il Barbiere Di Siviglia with Prey, Berganza and Alva
- Il Trovatore with Callas (is my Callas obsession showing yet?)
- La Traviata with Callas - any of them, especially the Lisbon one
- Lucia di Lammermoor - any one with Sutherland in it (she’s sometimes better live, so Todopera is the place to look for this), and also a Callas one just to compare :)
- Rigoletto - Sutherland, Pavarotti, Milnes
- Stabat Mater - Pappano
- Werther - Carreras, von Stade
This list is missing Strauss, Mozart and Wagner and lots of other things, perhaps people can recommend their favourite recordings too?
EDIT: Also, get Spotify if you haven’t already; I think it’s available in the US now, and it’s very useful for listening to stuff before you buy it or download it.
