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From:Archiv Produktion
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#247299 |
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3 of 9 customers found the following review helpful:
 Gardiner's Mozart: Good But Not Great, 2006-01-26
This recording of Mozart's first German opera The Abduction From The Seraglio is also on another box set/label and has been re-issued for Deutsche Grammophone, the world's greatest classical music and opera label. The Brit Sir Jon Elio Gardiner conducts at a brisk, lively pace (too fast for some folks) and the principal singers sing with excellent German diction and in the traditional Singspiel style but lack a je ne sais quai to really stand out. Tenor Stanford Olsen sings Belmonte, baritone Hans Peter Minetti as Pasha Selim, soprano Luba Orgonasova as Konstanze, soprano Cyndia Sieden as Blonde, Uwe Peper as Pedrillo and bass Cornelius Hauptmann as Osmin. If you're a fan of any of these singers, this recording is for you. Soprao Luba Orgonasova makes a terrific, even electrifying Konstanze - intense, lionine but also delicate and feminine, shading her voice with different tones to make her steel and gossamer at once. Hans Peter Minetti is a dark and brooding Pasha, with a deep voice such as the like I've never heard of before. Though this recording boasts great sound, there are greater recordings such as the Zubin Mehta recording with Anneliese Rothenberger and Fritz Wunderlich or the Ferenc Fricsay recording.
7 of 17 customers found the following review helpful:
 Not one of Mozarts best, but technically fine., 2005-07-31
This is a 2-CD release of a 1992 performance of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The abduction from the Seraglio), with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists. Overall this is a lively recording, remastered nicely to digital, with strong performance from the entire cast. The music, in the genre of a singspiel, is pure Mozart, composed to honor the state visit of the Grand Duke Paul of Russia to Vienna in the fall of 1781. As noted, it is light-hearted in style, and lacks any of the darker or moody shades of his later operas, which this reviewer prefers, but it does contain some brilliant arias and presents an opportunity for Luba Orgonasova to demonstrate her ability to navigate difficult arias with apparent ease. This is an opera that you might listen to for its technical intricacies and interesting German dialogue and dialect; it is not what this reviewer would consider an interesting or moving music composition. It's too fast-paced and light for that. Seraglio has its fans and detractors who are set in their views about its musicality. If the question is: is this 2-CD set a solid release that can stand up as far as its reproduction and sound quality, the answer is yes, very much so. The accompanying booklet contains virtually no information about the historical setting of the piece or anything about its 1992 predecessor. It contains a listing of the songs, and a brief explanation of what is occurring during each. If you like this style of opera, and Seraglio in particular, you won't be disappointed in what Archiv Production offers here. As a matter of fact, you will probably be very pleased.
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