Giuseppe Verdi also defies all attempts to pigeon-hole him. Suffice it to say here that the Metropolitan Rigoletto has a strong all-round cast in Cornell MacNeil, Placido Domingo and Ileana Cotrubas [DGM 073 093-9], that Karajan's Otello with Jon Vickers and Mirella Freni will please many [DGM 073 4040], and that the best Falstaff I've seen was a film conducted by Georg Solti, issued on LD, and to date not available in any other format.
Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet with Natalie Dessay and Simon Keenlyside [EMI 5 99447 9] is a revelation and exceptionally enjoyable. Turandot [RCA 62909-2] from Beijing is fascinating, though lacking in close-ups. Petr Weigl's film of Eugene Onegin has many virtues, even though it omits the opening scene [Decca 071 124-9]. And all collectors will want to have Franco Zeffi-relli's classic films of Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana [DGM 073 403-3].
Space permits only brief mention of four recommendable 20th century works. Leos Janacek's Jenufa and The Makropulos Case are both given fine performances by Glyndebourne Opera [ArtHaus 100 208 and Warner Music Vision 0406]. If the former is the more gripping, it's because it remains the finer work. Erich Korngold's Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City) is mesmeric in Oper National du Rhin's 2001 hallucinatory production [ArtHaus 100 343]. Finally, Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), from the Salzburg Festival of 1992, starring Cheryl Studer, Thomas Moser and Eva Marton, pseudo-Wagnerian though it may be, and given a somber production here that has all the shadows its heroine so misses, is a magical myth despite its obscurity [Decca 3031].
As for the future, there's much activity on the Wagnerian front with a new Ring cycle from the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and a highly-praised new Parsifal, both issued by ArtHaus. Watch this space for reviews of these early next year, and a Happy Christmas to all classical music lovers!
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