Features:
Description:
For the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death, Claudio Abbado, the Berlin Philharmonic, a dazzling array of soloists, and a virtuoso chorus produce outstanding Verdi performances. The musicians' high level of energy does not undermine their superb precision and polished style. Selections from Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Carlos, Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Falstaff sample the composer's work at the height of his powers. One complaint: About the packaging, not the performance. There are 13 solo singers, recruited internationally and listed in a group. All of them sing superbly, but the average viewer may have trouble, at times, figuring out who is singing what. It is easy for hard-core opera lovers to identify Ramon Vargas in "Questa o quella" and "La donna e mobile," and Vargas and Andrea Rost in the Brindisi and "Sempre libera" from La Traviata, but some of the 11 others are less familiar and should have been credited. --Joe McLellan
| 
