Search - Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, George Frederick Handel :: Sopranos

Great voices of our time.

Zack Noeldner | Vian, OK USA | 08/09/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The recordings are live....yes I mean live with all the noises that go with a "real" live performance, you get the wonder of hearing these voices "live". They are not digitally remastered, you feel like you are there and you may get just as annoyed as you would with the gentleman in the 5th row that has a cough but it's real music with all the flaws. If you love or want to love the greatest voices of our time and you want the joy of hearing them live then you'll love this set. If, on the other hand, you want them digitally remastered to be just that - perfection at the hands of a computer - you may want to look further. I love these CD's & I enjoy them for the perfection they really are and not perfection at the hands of some computer operator."

Fidelity isn't everything

Zack Noeldner | 06/20/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yes, it is true that this collection appears to be mostly amateur and in house theatrical recordings of Price, Sutherland, Callas, and Caballe. But for someone interested in great singing, it is a wonderful opportunity to hear these fabulous singers at the height of their powers against the backdrop and the frisson of the live performance. You'll hear them doing things here that you wouldn't in the tamer setting of the recording studio. It's mostly Italian repertory, with the exception of a little Mozart, Handel, and Wagner. The inclusion of Price is puzzling, since the set doesn't cast her in favorable light when compared to the other three great divas represented here. Marilyn Horne would have been a better third choice of someone from roughly the same generation. Give me singing like this, rather than the boring, lifeless (but superior fidelity) version that passes for "high art" today."