By MauriceGerald
01-Dec-2010

A MYSTIFYING 'MUST HAVE'  

It is hard to imagine a better way for anyone with a smidgen of interest in opera to break a £5 note than by downloading this marvellous hour-and-a-third of operatic brilliance. However, it seems to me that they are not arias. Far better than a potpourri of solos, here we have a selection of sparkling vocal ENSEMBLES (the high-points of opera - pairs of duets, trios, quartets, quintets and so on right up to nonets) culled from both well-known and obscure Italianate operas and composers of the first half of the 19th Century. This is when opera blossomed from the earlier (e.g. Venetian) formula of alternating recitatives and arias. Perhaps culminating in an act-end duet finale, into the full polyphonic intertwining of characters, themes, motives and feelings that reached a peak at the end of the century in the set pieces of Verdi and his contemporaries.

Normally I abhor such pot-pourri, hunks torn bleeding from their place in the evolving plots of the operas from whence they've been culled. In this case the overall quality of both compositions and performers disarm all such prejudice. Not all the performers are as well-known as Della Jones, Yvonne Kenny or Jane Eaglen; but it is hard to spot a weak link among the singers - while orchestras such as the Philhamormonia and the Academy of St Martin's in the Fields, under the direction of (mostly) David Parry, are a guarantee of quality in the pit. This album is an ABSOLUTE 'MUST-BUY'.
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