A Musical Toast

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
"A Musical Toast" is a wonderful display of tone colors by CWQ. As you enjoy the arrangements of Bizet's "Carmen Suite," Ravel's "Pavane"and Morton Gould's "Pavane" you'll imagine an entire orchestra. And the original works for wind quintet offer a showcase for the musicians in CWQ. The Capitol Woodwind Quintet was founded in 1977. Since that time this critically acclaimed ensemble has delighted audiences in the Washington, DC area and beyond. Their performances have also been heard throughout the United States on National Public Radio. The album title comes from a Danish painting (used on the CD cover) entitled "Hip, Hip, Hooray! Composition study, 1888" by Peder Kroyer. After enjoying the music on this CD, you'll raise a glass to this great performance.

A Musical Toast, Music, Various, Capitol Woodwind Quintet, Lora Ferguson, Truman Harris, Laurel Ohlson, Kathleen Golding, Alice Weinreb
Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Unworthy of This Show
  • Great.
  • Deserves a place in your Sondheim Discography
  • Dashed high hopes
  • Letdown from the original
 Assassins (2004 Broadway Revival Cast)
Stephen Sondheim , Neil Patrick Harris , Marc Kudisch , Michael Cerveris , Denis O'Hare , and James Barbour
Manufacturer: P.S. Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

GeneralGeneral | Musicals | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music
GeneralGeneral | Soundtracks | Styles | Music
Similar Items:
  1. Sweeney Todd (2005 Broadway Revival Cast)
  2. Assassins (1991 Original Off-Broadway Cast)
  3. Assassins
  4. The Frogs (2004 Broadway Cast)
  5. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005 Original Broadway Cast)

ASIN: B0002B161Y
Release Date: 2004-08-03

Tracks:

  1. Everybody's Got The Right
  2. Ballad Of Booth
  3. Ladies And Gentlemen, A Toast!
  4. How I Saved Roosevelt
  5. What Does A Man Do...?
  6. Gun Song
  7. Ballad Of Czolgosz
  8. Unworthy Of Your Love
  9. I Am A Terrifying And Imposing Figure...!
  10. Ballad Of Guiteau
  11. Have It Your Way
  12. Another National Anthem
  13. Take A Look Lee
  14. Something Just Broke
  15. Everybody's Got The Right

Amazon.com

"Everybody's got a right/To their dream." So begins Stephen Sondheim's 1991 show Assassins--and in this case, said dreams involve killing an American president. The characters form a veritable rogues' gallery, including John Hinckley, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth of course, but also half-forgotten luminaries such as Leon Czolgosz (who killed McKinley) and "Squeaky" Fromme (who aimed for Gerald Ford with an unloaded gun). While Sondheim's lyrics are trenchant as ever, his music, which ranges from Sousa pomp to clever little waltzes, is technically brilliant but also oddly uninvolving. (Many fans prefer the recording of the 1991 Off-Broadway version, though "Something Just Broke," which was added to the 1992 London production, makes its recorded debut here.) Still, there are several high points. In "Unworthy of Your Love," for instance, Hinckley and Fromme wax poetic about their unrequited love for Jodie Foster and Charles Manson, respectively, in a Burt Bacharach-style ballad that's deliberately (I hope!) sappy. And of course as with most Sondheim shows, the cast of this revival--Michael Cerveris, Mario Cantone, Becky Ann Baker, Marc Kudisch, Denis O'Hare--is very good. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

Customer Reviews:

1 out of 5 stars Unworthy of This Show.......2007-03-01

Assassins is a masterpiece of American theatre. Through a revue of skits and songs, it examines ideas we don't want to face, and shows us the flip side of the American Dream. The score rates as one of Sondheim's best, and the overall effect, when the show is performed well, is incredibly powerful. For years, people have wanted to mount a production on Broadway.

Given this result, they needn't have bothered.

I am still amazed at how much this production got wrong. The principal cast is nothing short of dreadful: the acting is almost laughably overwrought; the pacing keeps getting disrupted by pauses held too long and lines spoken too slowly; some singers are frequently behind the tempo (notably Michael Ceveris as Booth), while others are painful to listen to (like Jeffrey Kuhn as Zangara and Mario Cantone as Sam Byck); the new orchestrations allow for more musicians in the pit, but are much less effective than the earlier arrangements.

To top it all off, this production includes "Something Just Broke", a song sung by the Ensemble as various "average" Americans of different time periods recalling where they were when the president was shot. The song was introduced in the London production, presumably for people who didn't understand the show to have something to latch on to, but it was mercifully kept out of the published vocal score and libretto. It's not a bad song in and of itself, but musically it does not fit in with the rest of the score, and dramatically it doesn't fit in with the rest of the script. Worse, it is placed right between the Kennedy assassination -- the climax of the show -- and the finale, thus skewing all the dramatic momentum and depriving the show of an effective resolution.

The result of all this is that the comic moments aren't funny, the powerful moments fail to move, and the wonderful music is left ho-hum.

I realize that the extraordinary cast of the original production of Assassins presents a dauntingly high standard for everyone else to compare to, but the college productions I've seen were better than this.

5 out of 5 stars Great. .......2006-11-08

What an amazingly talented cast! Neil Patrick Harris, Marc Kudisch, Alex Gemignani (The new Valjean in the revival of Les Miserables) and of course, the former demon barber of Fleet Street, Michael Cerveris (in the role that won him a Tony)...Just to hear these giants of musical theatre perform together as an ensemble alone is worth the price of this recording. This recording is so wonderfully done, and I can't recommend this enough.

'Unworthy of your Love' and 'The Ballad of Booth' are heartbreakingly beautiful, strange that I say that considering the subject matter, but it's true, those two songs alone will stay with you for days on end. The Ballad of Booth has poetic and tragic lyrics like 'Damn my soul, if you must, let my body turn to dust, let it mingle with the ashes of my country...What I did, I did well, and I did it for my country. Let them cry 'Dirty Traitor!', they will understand later...'. and the hauntingly gorgeous melody that goes with those lyrics is just so well, romantic! But then you have the tongue-in-cheek, slightly macabre numbers like 'The Gun Song' and 'Everybody's Got The Right' with lyrics like, 'Everybody's got the right to be happy. Life's not as bad as it seems! Everybody deserves a little sunshine...' and 'All you have to do is, move your little finger...and you can change the world!'

What a rollarcoaster of emotion! I mean, seriously, who else but Sondheim could pull that off and make it the brilliant masterpiece that it clearly is?

One of my biggest regrets is not seeing this during it's brief run in 2004. :(

5 out of 5 stars Deserves a place in your Sondheim Discography.......2006-07-28

Like other reviewers I was fortunate enough to see Roundabout's revival production but perhaps unfortunate that my total enjoyment of that production may bias my critical listening. I can't help but recall the proprietor (Marc Kudish) caressing a pistol into the hand of each assassin when listening to the opening Everybody's Got The Right.

However, while fans of Sondheim and musical theater will argue over every nuance, I find that both this and the original are excellent in their own way. Yes, the voices in the first recording are more refined, yet this recording seems to better capture the character's mannerisms in the vocal stylization, whether the twitchy madness of Guiteau (Dennis O'Hare) or the depressed howl of Sam Byck (Mario Cantone).

This is a worthwhile recording and one that provides me with a reprise of the excellent staging and acting of this quirky play.

2 out of 5 stars Dashed high hopes.......2006-07-14

Assassins is a fascinating and surprising show. You can't imagine a more unlikely topic for a musical and yet, when you hear and/or see the show, you can't help to be impressed by the entire production. Maybe if I'd never heard the original cast recording, I would have given this a higher rating, but, to be frank, this recording suffers in comparison to the original recording in nearly every way.

While the diction on this recording is often impressive...especially Neil Patrick Harris's...too often it is accomplished at the price of tempo. Too many times the musical director has made the choice to slow down portions of the songs to the point of sluggishness. Absolutely NONE of the performances is superior to the original. That doesn't mean that any of the newer performances are horrible, it's just that they don't measure up. The one who comes the closest is Neil Patrick Harris whom I find naturally charming and vulnerable in anything he does.

The best addition to this recording is Mario Cantone's rant as Sam Byck. Unfortunately, I can't recommend getting this recording based solely on that. The biggest mis-step is the omission of the full, final, Kennedy scene. Hearing it on the original recording for the first time is an absolutely thrilling and chilling experience. Not having it all here is a MAJOR disappointment.

Buy the original recording first and check this one out from the library.

3 out of 5 stars Letdown from the original.......2006-04-10

I have been a huge fan of Assassins since it first came out back in '91. While I've never had the pleasure of seeing the play in person, I've read it several times and listened to the original cast recording so often one can hardly believe it. So when I saw "Broadway Cast Recording" I was thrilled. Then I listened to it. I went from thrilled to appalled.

John Weideman, who wrote the music, seems to prefer the Broadway cast recording--at least he says so in its liner notes. I'm not sure why. While some of the songs are still excellent (like the Hinckley-Fromme duet "Unworthy of Your Love"), many of them are just plain painful to listen to. Most of the time the singing vaccilates between being totally flat of affect (most notably Moore in "The Gun Song") to hyperbolic melodrama. Booth mumbles to the point of near-unintelligibility in several songs; Zangara sounds eerily like the mob boss from 'Johnny Dangerously' that keeps calling everyone "farging bastages"; Moore sings nearly the whole time as if she'd OD'd on sedatives; and Guiteau sounds so stereotypically gay that GLAAD should be suing the producer.

It almost seems as if the cast are not sure what do do with their characters. The cast of the Original Cast Recording hit the characters perfectly--an outstanding mix of suffering, despair, anger and hostility. The Broadway cast can't seem to, in the language of the musical, "connect" to the characters. For me this is a huge failing, as the "charcaters" here are real individuals; if the performers can't connect to them, how can we be expected to?

There are also some content differences between this recording and the original. Several brief additions are made from elsewhere in the musical, and the new song "Something Just Broke" written for the Broadway revival is included on the recording. However, about half of the last act (which is included on the original) is cut out. Sadly, the material cut out is far more moving, unsettling and significant than the material added. Also, "Something Just Broke", while a fine song (and performed better than most of the rest of the material), unfortunately breaks up the natural link between the Kennedy assassination's triumphalist ending and the closing version of "Everybody's Got the Right".

I gave this three stars because I love Assassins. It is a brilliant and unnerving drama. But the Original Cast Recording is immensely superior to the Broadway Cast Recording in its ability to reveal this to the audience. I'm glad it was revived, and I'm glad it won three Tony awards--now it can get the recognition it deserves; but for me, I'll stick to the original version I fell in love with years ago. If only the Broadway recording has found a way to be "worthy of your love"...
The MARIO LANZA Collection
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Selections from the Greatest Voice of the Last Hundred Years
  • A Must Have
  • The Mario Lanza Collection
  • The MARIO LANZA Collection
  • WONDERFUL!!!!!
 The MARIO LANZA Collection

Manufacturer: RCA Victor
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:
  1. Mario Lanza: At His Best!
  2. Christmas with Mario Lanza
  3. Mario Lanza ~ Opera Arias & Duets, from Andréa Chenier · La Bohème · I Pagliacci · Madama Butterfly · Otello
  4. American Caruso
  5. Lanza: Greatest Hits

ASIN: B000003F6V
Release Date: 1991-11-12

Tracks:

  1. Be My Love
  2. I'll Never Love You
  3. Because You're Mine
  4. The Song Angels Sing
  5. Drink, Drink, Drink
  6. Serenade
  7. The Loveliest Night of the Year
  8. La Donna E Mobile
  9. Because
  10. For You Alone
  11. Golden Days
  12. Deep In My Heart, Dear
  13. If I Loved You
  14. Yours Is My Heart Alone
  15. One Night Of Love
  16. Beloved
  17. Beautiful Love
  18. With A Song In My Heart
  19. You Are My Love
  20. Call Me Fool

Tracks:

  1. All The Things You Are
  2. My Song,My Love
  3. Love Is The Sweetest Thing
  4. Will You Remember
  5. Granada
  6. Lolita
  7. Serenade
  8. Temptation
  9. Lygia
  10. Lady of Spain
  11. This Land
  12. Lee-Ah-Loo
  13. Tina-Lina
  14. Boom Biddy Boom Boom
  15. The Bayou Lullaby
  16. The Lord's Prayer
  17. And Here You Are
  18. Song of Songs
  19. Somewhere A Voice Is Calling
  20. I Never Knew

Tracks:

  1. Ciribiribin
  2. Wonder Why
  3. Come Dance With Me
  4. O Sole Mio
  5. Younger Than Springtime
  6. For the First Time (Come Prima)
  7. Never Till Now
  8. Arrivederci, Roma
  9. If You Were Mine
  10. Behold!
  11. A Night to Remember
  12. Love in a Home
  13. Do You Wonder
  14. Softly as in a Morning Sunrise
  15. One Alone
  16. Aida:Celeste Aida
  17. Carmen: Flower Song
  18. La Traviata: Brindisi
  19. Rigoletto:Questa O Quella
  20. Pagliacci:Vesti La Giubba
  21. Cavalleria Rusticana: Addio Alla Madre

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Selections from the Greatest Voice of the Last Hundred Years.......2007-03-13

Mario Lanza was, arguably, the greatest tenor and greatest singer of this and the last century. It is difficult to appreciate him without listening to a variety of selections. This collection has some of his best recordings and exhibits the versatility and variety that he possessed that permitted him to "crossover" from opera to popular music with a ease.

I recommend this for those who already know Lanza to some extent but want to go into more depth and understand his marvelous skills.

5 out of 5 stars A Must Have .......2006-12-12

I had forgotten what a beautiful voice Mario Lanza had. This collection contains opera and pop selections that exhibit the power yet sweetness of his voice. Fortunately, we have his CD's and videos so we can remember and listen to his gorgeous, vibrant voice and personality. I highly recommend this collection along with his wonderful movies, especially The Great Caruso.

5 out of 5 stars The Mario Lanza Collection.......2006-11-10

I had forgotten just how beautiful a voice from the past was. It is a wonderful collection

4 out of 5 stars The MARIO LANZA Collection.......2006-08-19

extract from most important LPs. Brilliant sound quality from RCA. Also included are soundtrack recordings from some of his movies. The are several reissues from Mario Lanza but this one is a collection you should have.

5 out of 5 stars WONDERFUL!!!!!.......2005-10-19

The Mario Lanza Collection is a three CD set and it has 61 songs and they all sound great. The mastering on this set is excellent and the song choice is very very good. It would have been perfect if they added a forth CD with more Arias, Italian songs and Sacred Arias. BUT still this set is a great introduction to Lanza. Lanza's voice was powerful and beautiful; if you are a fan of great singing, you will love Lanza. Highlights on this CD set are; Be my Love, Because your Mine, Serenade, With a Song in My Heart, Temptation, The Lord's Prayer, Ciribirbin, O Solo Mio, Ariverducci Roma, and on and on. They are many many great songs on this set, and I highly recommend it.
Be My Love
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • A mixed bag of romantic offerings
  • The best tenor ever
  • The greatest singer of all time!
 Be My Love

Manufacturer: RCA
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:
  1. You'll Never Walk Alone
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ASIN: B000003F3C
Release Date: 1991-01-18

Tracks:

  1. Be My Love (The Toast Of New Orleans)
  2. Serenade (The Student Prince)
  3. Temptation (Going Hollywood)
  4. Wanting You (The New Moon)
  5. I'll Be Seeing You (The Royal Palm Revue)
  6. With A Song In My Heart (Spring Is Here)
  7. Without A Song (Great Day)
  8. Danny Boy (Londonderry Air)
  9. My Wild Irish Rose
  10. And This Is My Beloved (Kismet)
  11. Because
  12. Only A Rose (The Vagabond King)
  13. Funiculi, Funicula
  14. Come Back To Sorrento
  15. Maria Mari'
  16. O Sole Mio
  17. Neapolitan Love Song
  18. Arriverderci, Roma
  19. Ah! Sweet Mystery Of Life (Naughty Marietta)
  20. Look For The Silver Lining (Sally)
  21. Memories
  22. The Song Is You (Music In The Air)
  23. Ave Maria
  24. You'll Never Walk Alone (Carousel)

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars A mixed bag of romantic offerings.......2001-12-17

BMG's Lanza collections are usually a mixed bag, and this album of love songs is no exception. Interspersed with some magnificent performances are an assortment of the good, the bad, and the mediocre. Part of the problem, I suspect, is that BMG simply doesn't appreciate what treasures it has buried in its recording vaults. It's enough to bring back Lanza from the grave, swearing in High C (as Time Magazine once tut-tutted) at the injustice of it all.

Lanza, in fairness to BMG, was an inconsistent performer. In the earlier part of his brief career, he had a tendency to sing sharp, and at times his approach to various arias and songs lacked sensitivity. That's not to say he couldn't get it right. At his best he was extraordinary, combining one of the most powerful voices on record with just the right degree of melting mezza voce and a dazzling array of vocal colours. His sense of phrasing was, as Enrico Caruso Jr noted, "instinctively right", and his ability to get into the heart of a song was unquestionable. Even at his roughest, his singing was usually compelling, and one could never label any of his performances "boring".

The bad recordings generally fall into three periods of his life: the Coca-Cola Radio shows of 1951-52, the disastrous Lanza on Broadway album of 1956, and the illness-affected stereo remakes of his Christmas Carols and Student Prince albums, both recorded in 1959, the year of his death. The present CD includes material from the first two periods.

The "Coke" shows, as I've opined in a number of other reviews, produced some amazing performances of both arias and love songs. Unfortunately, however, lack of rehearsal time coupled with poor arrangements often led to the kind of wild, unrestrained singing that Lanza's detractors love to attack (while at the same time overlooking his great performances). On this CD, a number of Coke recordings were released for the first time: Danny Boy; My Wild Irish Rose; Neapolitan Love Song; and Torna a Surriento. The first two are lovely, notwithstanding a poor ending on Danny Boy and some uncertain moments in the tenor's lower register in this song. Victor Herbert's Neapolitan Song contains some piercingly sharp singing, a rough ending and some agreeable mezza voce. Torna a Surriento is too fast, too unpolished and not a patch on the piano accompaniment-only version that Lanza recorded three years later for the movie Serenade.

Among the other Coke selections is the sublime Memories, and the alternately touching and thrilling I'll Be Seeing You, with a B Flat climax that will knock your socks off. Wanting You is rough and exciting in equal measure - ditto the powerhouse Ah Sweet Mystery of Life with its ridiculously fast tempo.

Two songs from the ill-fated Lanza on Broadway album have been inexplicably included, though it must be said that at least these represent the better moments from this dreadful session. You'll Never Walk Alone contains more sharp singing, uneven rhythm and a certain bleariness, while the Borodin-adapted And This Is My Beloved is alternately belted and seductive. Incidentally, Lanza recorded a superior version of You'll Never Walk Alone for his Coke Shows; this is featured on the CD of the same name.

The real highlights for me are the immortal Serenade from The Student Prince; a thrilling Only a Rose (recorded three months after the Lanza on Broadway session and featuring a completely different voice); the aforementioned My Wild Irish Rose & I'll Be Seeing You and a mature rendition of Schubert's Ave Maria. Fans will also enjoy Arrivederci, Roma, and the ubiquitous Be My Love.

All in all an enjoyable hour, but if only more thought had been put into some of the selections...

5 out of 5 stars The best tenor ever.......2001-03-01

Mario Lanza is indeed my favourite of all tenors either living or not. I must have almost everything he ever recorded. This album has a whopping 24 tracks including 5 previously unreleased recordings, which make this a must for any true fan of Lanza. This album has some of his most romantic songs, mostly from stage and film. You won't find any opera here, which is fine, there's plenty of his other albums that have that. These are songs that are guaranteed to stir your heart and soul while Mario's voice will melt them. This is a must-have and at this price there's no reason not to have it.

5 out of 5 stars The greatest singer of all time!.......2000-06-29

This is one of the greatest compilations of Tenor Mario Lanza, The Voice of the Century, ever made. Mario Lanza had such a broad, well focused voice and he is represented to good measure here on songs like "Wanting You", "Neapolitan Love Song", and "Without a Song". On these selections one hears how the Lanza voice had a largeness, depth, and warmth from the bottom all the way to the very top. One will never hear songs like "O Danny Boy", "My Wild Irish Rose", "You'll Never Walk Alone", "Torna Surriento", "O Solo Mio", and "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" sung any better or with more feeling. My favorite on this CD, "And this is my Beloved" from Kismet displays the full Lanza Range. This, in my opinion, is one of the greatest single recordings ever made. Here Mario sings the most melting pianissimo and builds to an exciting, full bodied, heart stopping fortissimo High B flat. What passion! The particular recording of "Only a Rose" on this album has been regrettably absent from the catalogs for quite some time. It is a shame too, because Lanza makes this Vagabond King selection sound free and effortless like only Mario Lanza could. Lanza takes the listener through a guided tour, so speak, of truly the greatest singing the world has ever heard. After hearing the final selection, "You'll Never Walk Alone", there won't be a dry eye in the house. This, along with the "Don't Forget Me" Lanza CD, is one of the greatest single CD collections ever put together of Mario, or anyone else for that matter. Lanza was the greatest singer of all time and this is a must have album. The sooner you own this one, the better.
The American Tenors
Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • Nathan Granner Fan
  • Chubby tenors
  • Worth listening to, but look for it in the library or used
  • Good Overall
  • money better spent
 The American Tenors

Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:
  1. The American Tenors
  2. Three Mo' Tenors
  3. In The Presence
  4. Remember Me
  5. Heritage

ASIN: B000089J0H
Release Date: 2003-03-04

Tracks:

  1. With a Song in My Heart
  2. Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair
  3. The House I Live In
  4. When Johnny Comes Marching Home
  5. Climb Ev'ry Mountain
  6. Shenandoah
  7. You'll Never Walk Alone
  8. Amazing Grace
  9. Torna a Surrineto
  10. O sole mio/It's Now or Never Medley
  11. Be M Love (Daniel Montenegro solo)
  12. Granada (Mauricio O'Reilly solo)
  13. West Side Story Medley
  14. America the Beautiful
  15. If I Loved You (Nathan Granner solo) (Bonus Track)
  16. Funiculi, Fuinicula (Bonus Track)

Amazon.com

Driven by equal amounts marketing savvy and American pride, the rousing efforts of these three young winners of a national talent search were introduced to the world via a well-received PBS television special. Its companion CD release variously showcases the young voices of Nathan Granner, Daniel Montenegro, and Mauricio O'Reilly (and has there ever been a more quintessentially American name than Mauricio O'Reilly?) in solo turns and bracing harmony, meets the challenge of its more renowned Neopolitan elder statesman with aplomb and offers up a concise argument for the nation's own neo-operatic vocal traditions. While many of the Broadway standards and hoary traditionals break little ground, the trio's energized "West Side Story" medley argues that Broadway can offer up music as bracing as La Scala. Their takes on "Torna a Surriento," "Granada," the medley "O Sole Mio"/"It's Now or Never," and "Funiculi, Funicula" range from savory to playful, offering both a tip of the hat to that other trio and a welcome reminder of how these Italian and Latin rooted songs have become an essential ingredient of America's musical melting pot. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Nathan Granner Fan.......2006-08-04

No offense to the other two great singers on this album, but I'd like to talk about my best friend Nathan who is one of "The American Tenors" and continues to tour and promote this show.

I remember the buzz in the air when they filmed this at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles and the place was standing room only. Critics who were there loved it. Just a few weeks after recording the dvd SONY CLASSICAL (their label) was getting huge marketing projects under way to make "The American Tenors" popular in the States. Unfortunately, all the gigs that were lined up-Jay Leno, The Today Show, and many others got scrapped because the US went to war with Iraq - literally THAT week. Ouch.

That was really too bad because there were some great songs here. The show was buried before it even got a chance because of the war. You might argue that it was buried because the singers were "no names", but let me tell you something, that's crap. There are some songs here that are REALLY GREAT, and the musical arrangments are extraordinary. Nathan's version of "If I Loved YOU" is the best recording of that song you will ever find. I challenge you to find one better.

Whether it be singing on stage at Carnegie Hall, performing on an aircraft carrier in New York Harbor, opening NASDAQ, or a Kareoke Bar in Kansas City, Nathan is a star. He may not be the guy in the headlines today in America, but he has fans in the thousands, and has enormous talent and he can sing any song...ANY SONG and make it sound amazing.

Do yourself a favor and spend the [..] to get this DVD. Or better yet, the [..] for a new copy. Then go visit Nathan Granner's website and find out what he's up to next. If you are lucky someday you may get to hear him sing in person, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

1 out of 5 stars Chubby tenors.......2006-02-23

Chubby American Tenors. Nothing exceptional in the album, but a certain standart does exist -as is the case with most American products.
The album is little above mediocre when compared to its counterparts (IL DIVO, Mario Frangoulis, Celtic Tenors, etc.)

2 out of 5 stars Worth listening to, but look for it in the library or used.......2005-07-07

OK, I know, these are young, up and coming singers. It's probably not fair to compare them to the likes of Domingo, Pavarotti, etc. yet. But, If you are a fan of "The Three Tenors", and you get this CD expecting a similar listening experience, you will probably be disappointed. The American Tenors are all talented, Nathan Granner particularly so, but they are not yet on the same level as *The* Three Tenors. Of course, they are also probably a few of decades younger; it will be interesting to hear them after they have gained some experience.

Still, even allowing for the singers' relative inexperience, the main reason I didn't rate the CD higher is that it suffers seriously from over-orchestration. Often the instruments were way too loud - sometimes overpowering all but the most powerful of the three voices and forcing me lower the overall volume. At first I thought I was just being picky until I listened to some tracks from "The Three Tenors" again. The difference is obvious; understated, balanced orchestration supports the performers and lets the voices shine through.

3 out of 5 stars Good Overall.......2005-06-21

I enjoyed the presentation, and I enjoyed Natan Granner the most. He has a strong clear voice that deals with this material well. Daniel Montenegro is also strong, but Mauricio O'Reilly's voice comes across as thin and not very powerful. He would do better with softer, more intimate songs, with fewer instruments as accompanyment.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this DVD and would recommend it.

2 out of 5 stars money better spent.......2004-05-12

I really applaud Frank McNamara for attempting this, since I think he is one of our best composers/conductors. However, if you want to spend your hard earned cash, I would use it on the Frank's former colleagues, the Irish Tenors. In particular, I think Anthony Kearns has emerged as possibly the finest tenor voice in the world today. As a big fan of American Musical theater as well as a regular at the opera, I think he could emerge as a superstar.
Time (and his interests) will tell.
A Room With a View: Complete Recordings, Vol.1
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • The style is the man--and the song
 A Room With a View: Complete Recordings, Vol.1

Manufacturer: Naxos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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  1. Mad Dogs & Englishmen: Complete Recordings, Vol. 2
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ASIN: B000054BF6
Release Date: 2001-04-17

Tracks:

  1. This Year Of Grace: Dance, Little Lady
  2. This Year Of Grace: A Room With A View
  3. This Year Of Grace: Mary Make-Believe
  4. This Year Of Grace: Try To Learn To Love
  5. This Year Of Grace: Lorelei
  6. A Dream Of Youth (The Dream Is Over)
  7. Bitter Sweet: Zigeuner
  8. This Year Of Grace: World Weary
  9. Private Lives, Act 1, Love Scene: Someday I'll Find You
  10. Private Lives, Act 2, Scene: I Never Realised/If You Were The Only Girl In The World
  11. Half-Caste Woman
  12. Any Little Fish
  13. Cavalcade: Lover Of My Dreams (Mirabelle Valse)
  14. Cavalcade Vocal Medley: Soldiers Of The Queen/Goodbye Dolly Gray/Lover Of My Dreams/I Do Like To...
  15. Cavalcade, Epilogue: Toast To England
  16. Noel Coward Medley: Parisian Pierrot/Poor Little Rich Girl/A Room With A View/Dance Little Lady...

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars The style is the man--and the song.......2001-05-02

Many composers have chosen to perform their own material and commit it to discs, with mixed results. Only with Noel Coward do we feel that a good deal of the charm of his numbers lies in the very way he performs them. For proof, we now have the Naxos Nostalgia (8.120529), which dishes up 16 tracks of the ultra-refined son of W. S.Gilbert, giving us six selections from "This Year of Grace," one from "Bittersweet," a medley of treasures from his "Cavalcade," another from his other works, and a few other trifles that are better than most of what is written today.

Add to all this two classical scenes with Coward and co-star Gertrude Lawrence from his "Private Lives," incredibly valuable for those local drama groups who butcher this work in that this CD can teach them the tone and rhythms that are essential in making this classic succeed.

The subtitle of this set is "The Complete Recordings, Volume 1: 1928-1932." So we can look forward to future offerings featuring this fascinating composer-lyricist-performer. Thank you, Naxos, yet again.
Michael Feinstein Sings the Burton Lane Songbook, Vol. 2
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Music of Burton Lane
  • Great CD!
 Michael Feinstein Sings the Burton Lane Songbook, Vol. 2

Manufacturer: Nonesuch
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:
  1. Michael Feinstein Sings the Burton Lane Songbook, Vol. 1
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  4. The MGM Album
  5. Forever

ASIN: B000005J1G
Release Date: 1992-11-24

Tracks:

  1. It's Time For A Love Song
  2. The World Is In My Arms
  3. I Want A New Romance
  4. Medley: Everything I Have Is Yours/ Your Head On My Shoulder
  5. Poor You
  6. Open Your Eyes
  7. I Hear Music
  8. The Happiest Day Of My Life
  9. The Lady's In Love With You
  10. Where Have I Seen Your Face Before
  11. Don't Let It Get You Down
  12. It Happens EveryTime
  13. Look Who's Here
  14. Medley: Hurry, It's Lovely Up Here
  15. Medley: On The S.S. Bernard Cohn
  16. Medley: Melinda
  17. Medley: Dancing Lesson
  18. Medley: She Wasn't You
  19. Medley: Tosy And Cosh
  20. Medley: Wait Till We're Sixty-Five
  21. Medley: What Did I Have
  22. Medley: Come Back To Me
  23. Medley: On A Clear Day

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Music of Burton Lane.......2006-02-18

This CD is a real delight as Michael Feinstein is one of my favorite performers. He does a great job with this music by Burton Lane. I have both Volumns of music by Burton Lane and I enjoy listenting to both of these CD's

5 out of 5 stars Great CD!.......2000-11-26

It took awhile for me to enjoy the songs on this CD, but once I did, I couldn't stop listening. There are romantic songs, funny songs, powerful songs. A little something for everyone. If you don't enjoy it at the first listen - don't give up! This CD will definately grow on you!
My Secret Heart - Songs of Parlour, Stage and Screen
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Almost too much lavender and roses, but a delight anyway
  • Mr. Heppner Must Have A Large Parlour!
  • He can keep his secret to himslef
  • What a 'crossover' album should be!
  • This cd has left me speechless, wow!
 My Secret Heart - Songs of Parlour, Stage and Screen
Ben Heppner , Vittorio Giannini , Ernest Charles , Ivor Novello , Sir Noel Coward , Eric Coates , Teresa Clotilde del Riego , Mana-Zucca , Ernst Seitz , and Haydn Wood
Manufacturer: RCA
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Similar Items:
  1. Ben Heppner - Great Tenor Arias
  2. Ideale: Songs of Paolo Tosti
  3. Heppner Sings Wagner
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  5. San Francisco and Other Jeanette MacDonald Favorites

ASIN: B00002JXEC
Release Date: 1999-11-09

Tracks:

  1. Let All My Life Be Music
  2. Sing To My Heart A Song
  3. Let My Song Fill Your Heart
  4. Love Is My Reason For Living
  5. Someday My Heart Will Awake
  6. I'll See You Again
  7. We'll Gather Lilacs
  8. Bird Songs At Eventide
  9. Homing
  10. I Love Life
  11. The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise
  12. Roses Of Picardy
  13. I'll Be Seeing You
  14. Serenade
  15. Love Me Tonight
  16. Be My Love
  17. The Desert Song
  18. I'll Follow My Secret Heart

Amazon.com

With his 1999 Met triumph as Tristan--the most taxing of all Wagner's tenor roles--Canadian singer Ben Heppner has fully earned his heralded position as the great new Heldentenor of our time. His Lohengrin is a signature role, while his album German Romantic Opera has been nominated for a Grammy. Yet Heppner also commands tremendous versatility--and of a much more engaging character than that of the typical crossover effort--using his powerful, bronze-tinged tenor to tender and charming effect in My Secret Heart. This is a collection of songs roughly from the period between the two world wars, when music began to reach mass audiences via radio and screen. Many of these are almost forgotten gems--emblems of a vanished era--but once had wide cultural currency: the World War II hit "We'll Gather Lilacs," the radio show Family Hour's theme tune "Let My Song Fill Your Heart," and the oft-recorded 1919 ballad "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise." Heppner, with his sturdy beauty of tone and sweet, natural-sounding vibrato, breathes new life into this genre. He handles the idiom's unabashed schmaltz with charm and brings a lilting urbanity to two Noël Coward tunes, with especially bittersweet refinement in "I'll Follow My Secret Heart." --Thomas May

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Almost too much lavender and roses, but a delight anyway.......2006-08-29

These are beloved popular songs from our grandparents' generation that are redolent of lavender an tears. Their sentimentality couldn't be more out of fashion, but Ben Heppner steps forward, like Mario Lanza before him, to offer thrills amidst the honeyed scents. He's totally sincere, and you'd have to be Alberich or Don Pizarro to react with anything but a melting heart. God, I'm falling into the same vocabulary as these songs. No need to blush, though, with such a great singer at hand.

5 out of 5 stars Mr. Heppner Must Have A Large Parlour!.......2005-02-22

I purchased this CD after hearing Mr. Heppner in recital singing "Homing" for an encore. This small gem written by Teresa Del Riego is a haunting song about loneliness. We learn from the notes-- they are very informative with bios on the composers included here as well as the words to the lyrics-- that she composed this ballad in 1917, the year her husband was killed in France just before the ending of World War I. There are other lovelies here as well: "I Love Life", "We'll Gather Lilacs", "The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise" as well as music by Noel Coward, Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml. Heppner also sings "I'll Be Seeing You." It's such a relief to hear someone other than Liberace do that number since it was the song that he always used to close his television show in the 50's and unfortunately made into a syrupy cliche.

Mr. Heppner says these are songs of the parlour, stage and silver screen. His glorious voice which appears to be a combination of steel and gold fills a recital hall easily. He would need a huge parlour to sing in as well.

This CD is quite wonderful. There are no dull cuts. Since the songs are all about love, this would make a great February 14 gift.

1 out of 5 stars He can keep his secret to himslef.......2003-12-13

This is OBNOXIOUS, this dude should be in operas. i am speechless, he is one loud mouthed dude!

5 out of 5 stars What a 'crossover' album should be!.......2001-09-01

In general, I hate it when classical singers make 'crossover' recordings. Usually the singer has no idea how to sing 'pop' material in anything like the proper style - even someone who is singing it because he or she genuinely likes the music and not just to milk cash from the unsuspecting masses. But there are always exceptions to a rule, and this CD is one of them. Ben Heppner here scales down his huge operatic voice and shows his 'secret heart', a more intimate side of his musical personality.

There is no question that Heppner is one of the greatest tenors of our age. He is often compared with his fellow Canadian Jon Vickers (with whom he shares much of his repertory) but especially here, he is beginning to remind me more and more of Jussi Bjorling, and I can think of no higher compliment. Part of this is because Bjorling actually sang quite a bit of repertory similar to what Heppner sings here, but more importantly, both voices have an ideal combination of power and sweetness. Heppner's is essentially a very lyric voice despite its large size, and he is capable of great tonal beauty and sensitivity. This not only makes his Wagner, Giordano, and Berlioz very special, but makes him equally adept with the gentle little gems he sings on this disc. He is helped somewhat by the fact that these songs, most of which were written in the very early part of the 20th century, are a lot closer to the 'classical' style than more modern pop. But what really makes Heppner perfect for this material is his total identification with the texts, his tenderness, and his utter sincerity. Also, his diction is superb - you won't need the printed texts to understand what he is singing. In the hands of a lesser singer, some of these old fashioned songs would be absolute treacle. But an artist like Heppner can raise up even 'substandard' compositions and give them the aura of greatness.

In the more upbeat songs, Heppner sings with the thrilling, heroic tone that has made him in demand in every opera house in the world. He makes 'Let All My Life Be Music' into his personal mission statement. 'Homing' was also a favorite of another great Wagnerian tenor, namely Lauritz Melchior. 'I Love Life!', complete with splendid high C, is sung with enough cheer and vigor to bring anybody out of a depression. But this repertory is often gentle and introspective, and Heppner can also easily fine down his voice to a splendid pianissimo, drawing you in and enticing you to pay attention as opposed to banging you over your head like many other tenors do. Ivor Novello's 'Love is My Reason For Living' and Ernest Charles' 'Let My Song Fill Your Heart' are light, gracious Viennese waltzes. The familiar 'Roses of Picardy', 'Bird Songs at Eventide' and 'I'll Be Seeing You' are also sung sweetly and caressingly. Two more Novello songs are among the best tracks on the album. 'Someday My Heart Will Awake', is soft, gentle, and nostalgic, rising to a passionate conclusion. 'We'll Gather Lilacs' is obviously a love song from Heppner to his wife Karen (to whom the entire album is dedicated), full of yearning and deeply moving.

The operetta selections are even more special. In the Serenade from 'The Student Prince', which is alone worth the price of the CD, Heppner makes something truly thrilling of the declaration 'Oh, hear my longing cry!/Oh, love me or I die!', and ends with not one but two spectacular high Cs. What a pity that the chances of him ever recording the entire operetta are so slim! The cajolingly sung title song from 'The Desert Song' is almost as fine, as is 'Love Me Tonight' from 'The Vagabond King'. Finally, the title song 'I'll Follow My Secret Heart', with yet another brilliant high C, makes a splendid finish to this very enjoyable album.

I should also give credit to noted composer and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick for his warm, rich, and perfectly scaled arrangements of these songs. Like Heppner, he finds the perfect mood for each piece and never engages in schmaltz that one might expect from some of this material. The only complaint I have about this disc is the one I have about many contemporary CDs - why is there only 54 minutes of music on a medium that can hold almost 80 minutes? There are assuredly more than 18 songs Heppner could have recorded in this vein. I would have liked to have seen more operetta items in particular. Although I suppose they couldn't have recorded the Drinking Song from 'The Student Prince' as well as the Serenade without a chorus, it would have been nice if 'Deep In My Heart, Dear' had been included. Still, the quality of what is there far outweighs the quantity. The excellent documentation, in German and French as well as English, includes a personal note from Heppner, biographies of all the composers as well as Heppner and Tunick, and complete song texts. The cover shows Heppner surrounded by red velvet, designed, amusingly enough, by Red Herring Productions!

Whether you're an opera lover who wants to hear a great tenor in a lighter mood, or a fan of early 20th century popular music who is curious to see what it sounds like sung by a genuinely great voice, this disc is essential. It is an excellent introduction to Heppner's artistry if you haven't experienced it before, and after listening to it you might want to try some of his opera CDs, both solo recitals and complete recordings. There are few voices that could serve as a better introduction for a neophyte to the wonderful world of opera. If only more 'crossover' singers (both classical and pop) had Heppner's musical integrity...

3 out of 5 stars This cd has left me speechless, wow!.......2001-02-18

Air give me air, I need lots of air, air, air.......This cd has caused me a lot of adverse breathing.

The things that I have read about Ben have been very true. He really is a lot more than I ever bargained for. He is THAT GOOD.

I need to go out on a limb and say that he is the best tenor I have ever heard. In my wildest dreams I never thought anyone could be that good.

For this cd Ben choose to sing a lot of standards. Bravo! This is my kind of music. Ben did an excellent job crooning us with his golden voice. He knew when to hold back and when to sing at full strength. This is marvelous how he worked each song to get the full meaning out of it.

The only complaint I have is there was not enough of the good olde songs that I wanted to hear Ben sing. I know it's hard to please all the people all the time and I understand where Ben was coming from.

This cd is a must for the fans of beautiful opera singers who crossover with popular music.
Bizet: Carmen / Price, Corelli, Merrill, Freni; Karajan
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • A relative success
  • AN ALMOST GREAT CARMEN
  • Leontyne Price a Great Carmen
  • A Gloriously Sung Carmen
  • Maybe I'm a little partial...
 Bizet: Carmen / Price, Corelli, Merrill, Freni; Karajan
Georges Bizet , Wiener Philharmoniker , Herbert von Karajan , Leontyne Price , Franco Corelli , Vienna State Opera Choir , Mirella Freni , and Robert Merrill
Manufacturer: RCA
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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  2. Tristan Und Isolde
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ASIN: B000009W7K
Release Date: 1997-02-03

Tracks:

  1. Carmen: Overture - G. Bizet
  2. Carmen: Sur la place, chacun passe - G. Bizet
  3. Carmen: Regardez donc cette petite (Micaela) - G. Bizet
  4. Carmen: Avec la garde montante (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  5. Carmen: C'est bien la (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  6. Carmen: La cloche a sonne - G. Bizet
  7. Carmen: La voila, la voila (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  8. Carmen: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  9. Carmen: Carmen! sur tes pas - G. Bizet
  10. Carmen: Quels regards! Quelle effronterie (Don Jose) (Micaela) - G. Bizet
  11. Carmen: Parle-moi de ma mere (Don Jose) (Micaela) - G. Bizet
  12. Carmen: Reste la maintenant, pendant que je lirai (Don Jose) (Micaela) - G. Bizet
  13. Carmen: Que se passe-t-il donc la-bas? - G. Bizet
  14. Carmen: Mon officier, c'etait une querelle (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  15. Carmen: Tralalalala, coupe-moi, brule-moi (Carmen) (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  16. Carmen: Pres des ramparts de Seville (Carmen) (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  17. Carmen: Voici l'ordre; partez (Carmen) - G. Bizet

Tracks:

  1. Carmen: Entr'acte - G. Bizet
  2. Carmen: Act 2 - Les tringles des sistres tintaint (Gypsy Song) (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  3. Carmen: Act 2 - Messieurs, Pastia me dit (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  4. Carmen: Act 2 - Vivat! vivat le Tor - G. Bizet
  5. Carmen: Act 2 - Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre (Toreador Song) (Escamillo) - G. Bizet
  6. Carmen: Act 2 - La belle, un mot (Escamillo) - G. Bizet
  7. Carmen: Act 2 - Eh bien, vite, quelles nouvelles? (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  8. Carmen: Act 2 - Nous avons en t une affaire (Quintet) (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  9. Carmen: Act 2 - Mais qui donc attends-tu? (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  10. Carmen: Act 2 - Halte lQui va l(Don Jose) (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  11. Carmen: Act 2 - Enfin c'est toi! (Carmen) (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  12. Carmen: Act 2 - Lalalala - Attends un peu, Carmen (Don Jose) (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  13. Carmen: Act 2 - La fleur que tu m'avais jet(Flower Song) (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  14. Carmen: Act 2 - Non! tu ne m'aimes pas (Carmen) (Don Jose) - G. Bizet
  15. Carmen: Act 2 - HolCarmen! HolHol(Don Jose) (Carmen) - G. Bizet
  16. Carmen: Act 2 - Bel officier, bel officier (Carmen) (Don Jose) - G. Bizet

Tracks:

  1. Carmen: Entr'acte - Georges Bizet
  2. Carmen: Act 3 - Ecoute, ecoute, compagnon, ecoute (Carmen) (Don Jose) - Georges Bizet
  3. Carmen: Act 3 - Reposons-nous une heure ici (Carmen) (Don Jose) - Georges Bizet
  4. Carmen: Act 3 - Melons! Coupons! (Card Scene) (Carmen) - Georges Bizet
  5. Carmen: Act 3 - Eh bien? - Eh bien (Carmen) - Georges Bizet
  6. Carmen: Act 3 - Quant au douanier, c'est notre affaire (Carmen) - Georges Bizet
  7. Carmen: Act 3 - C'est des contrebandiers (Micaela) - Georges Bizet
  8. Carmen: Act 3 - Je dis que rien ne m'epouvante (Micaela's Air) (Micaela) - Georges Bizet
  9. Carmen: Act 3 - Je ne me trompe pas (Micaela) (Don Jose) - Georges Bizet
  10. Carmen: Act 3 - Je suis Escamillo, Torero de Grenade! (Escamillo) (Don Jose) - Georges Bizet
  11. Carmen: Act 3 - Hola, hola Jose! (Carmen) (Escamillo) (Don Jose) - Georges Bizet
  12. Carmen: Act 3 - Moi, je viens te chercher! (Micaela) (Don Jose) (Carmen) - Georges Bizet
  13. Carmen: Act 3 - Helas, Jose! (Micaela) (Don Jose) (Escamillo) - Georges Bizet
  14. Carmen: Entr'acte - Georges Bizet
  15. Carmen: Act 4 - A deux cuartos ! - Georges Bizet
  16. Carmen: Act 4 - Les voici! Voici la quadrille! - Georges Bizet
  17. Carmen: Act 4 - Si tu m'aimes, Carmen (Escamillo) (Carmen) - Georges Bizet
  18. Carmen: Act 4 - C'est toi! - C'est moi! (Carmen) (Don Jose) - Georges Bizet
  19. Carmen: Act 4 - Ou-vas-tu? - Laisse-moi! (Don Jose) (Carmen) - Georges Bizet

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars A relative success.......2007-07-11

From his multiple readings of the nine Beethoven symphonies, to his controversial, unconventional production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, to his individual achievements in the realms of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Sibelius, Mahler, Strauss, and Schoenberg, the Austrian conductor-legend Herbert von Karajan left his irreplaceable fingerprint on the world of music. However, in spite of all his brilliance in the aforementioned and unmentioned spheres, Georges Bizet's relentlessly celebrated opera Carmen was as musical tapestry Karajan never fully understood.

While Karajan aficionados plot their revenge for this seemingly gratuitous attack, it should be noted that he was not alone among conductors in this fault; in fact, when one considers than Carmen is the "C" in any beginner's guide to opera ("A" being Verdi's Aïda and "B" being Puccini's La Bohème), it is almost laughable to discover how many disregarded the proper form in which Carmen should be played. Carmen was not a grand opera, despite what Sir Thomas Beecham, Georges Prêtre, Thomas Schippers, and the like wished so ardently to believe. Bizet composed Carmen in the tradition of the opéra-comique, a parallel of the modern musical, with musical sections coupled with spoken melodramas or dialogues. The most superb recorded example of the properly performed Carmen is the Sir Georg Solti recording with Tatiana Troyanos, Plácido Domingo, José van Dam, and Dame Kiri te Kanawa. (Karajan did make a similar recording later in his career, with Agnes Baltsa, José Carreras, van Dam, and Katia Ricciarelli, but his interpretation was regrettably slow and vapid, and the melodramas were spoken (one must wonder why) by actors, rather than the singers.)

In spite of all this, the stars of this recording are superb. Leontyne Price injects a little bit of Bess into her Carmen, which results in a soulful, lyrically beautiful, and dramatically venomous gypsy vamp. Her Habanera ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle") and Seguidilla ("Près de remparts de Séville") are bewitching. Franco Corelli, who, in 1963, embodied the entire institution of opera with his sultry, sheik-like physique and his hot-blooded, titanic tenor register, is a full-fledged madman as the obsessed Don José. Robert Merrill is a bit too American as the swaggering toreador Escamillo, but his rendition of "Votre toast je peux vous le rendre" is nonetheless suave and debonair. Mirella Freni had not yet reached her silkiest prime in 1963, but she glides through Micaëla's Act III aria ("Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante") like a songbird. (It should be noted that the diction of the four stars is poor, particularly Corelli and Freni; the two of them coupled in Alain Lombard's 1968 recording of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette with similar overall success, hampered only by their abysmal pronunciation.)

The high water mark of this recording is the final track, featuring the opera's cataclysmic finale ("Où vas-tu?"..."Laisse-moi!"). Corelli is so venomously fanatical ("Ainsi, le salut de mon âme"), Price is so inanely noxious and cruel ("Eh bien! Frappe-moi donc, ou laisse-moi passer!"), and the Wiener Philharmoniker is in such tempestuous voice, the following three lines deserve special recognition:

- Don José: "Pour la dernière fois, démon, veux-tu me suivre?"

- Carmen: "Non! Non! Cette bague, autrefois, tu me l'avais donnée. Tiens!"

- Don José: "Eh bien! damnée!"

The above excerpt is literally worth the entire recording; Corelli and Price are unmatched in bravado.

4 out of 5 stars AN ALMOST GREAT CARMEN.......2007-04-13

This Carmen could have been a great one without the role of Don Jose held by Corelli who butchered the french text , which makes me think by the way that unfortunately there is no french opera singers able to deliver an acceptable Opera Comique version ( with the dialogue). (Corelli had also made a mess of the Faust role -with a splendid Ghiaurov-with his
dreadful french accent)..Sorry to say that of deceased great singer but the Carmen libretto is not a text to be only sung but deeply felt which french language does not allow to a singer who does not rehearse enough.
Robert Merrill marvelous dark tone and Mirella Freni, almost a debutante at that time saved the day.

5 out of 5 stars Leontyne Price a Great Carmen.......2007-03-26

Having several Carmen cds, I bought this one on the advice of a great opera expert, Ron Shaheen of San Diego fame. Glad I did. Miss Price is a dramatic on-fire Carmen. Sings with passion and panache. My favorite of all the ones I've heard. Unless you can find one with Milena Kitic singing Carmen, I recommend this version. Corelli, Merrill and Freni, of course, are automatic harbingers of a great cd purchase. All this from an avid opera buffoon. Viva L'Opera!

5 out of 5 stars A Gloriously Sung Carmen.......2006-08-09

One of the sad ironies of opera history is that Bizet never lived to see Carmen become the smash hit of the opera world. Described as the world's first musical, with one hit song after another, the opera is packed with great music and memorable melodies such as the Seguidilla, the Habanera and the Toreador Song. It is one of the first operas set in real time in a real place with ordinary people. Today it is arguably the most popular opera in production.
While there are many wonderful recordings, here it's the voices that make this recording so memorable. Leontyne Price is simply in sumptuous form, with the richness of a mezzo in the lower register plus her ringing top notes. Franco Corelli is a clarion and passionate Don Jose, Mirela Freni a sweet voiced Micaela, and Robert Merrill a rich and robust Escamillo. In some respects this is the "Italian" Carmen, (Corelli and Freni don't have the best French accents and Price was never known for her diction), but the quality of the voices make up for any linguistic deficiency.
As is his wont, Herbert von Karajan emphasizes his orchestra, which becomes almost another member of the cast in his hands--this can sometimes be at the expense of his singers, but Price, Corelli, Freni and Merrill But a von Karajan performance is always thrilling, whether it is this album or his Salzburg Festival DVD with Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers, Mirela Freni and a very young Justino Diaz.
For a fan of Leontyne Price this is a MUST HAVE, and a worthy addition to any opera collection.

5 out of 5 stars Maybe I'm a little partial..........2006-04-23

I first heard this version of Carmen many years ago, and for two main reasons, I can not give up listening to it. Reason #1: Leontyne Price's voice is so rich and spot-on, and reason #2: the Vienna Boys Choir add the necessary youthful element to the opera. I feel that this is a good, solid recording, well worth the five stars I gave it and far, far better than the versions of Carmen that make me cringe (and which shall remain nameless). The voices were cast well, and as usual, Herbert von Karajan conducts superbly.
Love Songs
Average customer rating: Not rated
    		Love Songs

    Manufacturer: Polygram Records
    ProductGroup: Music
    Binding: Audio CD

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    ASIN: B0000040YG
    Release Date: 1990-03-30

    Tracks:

    1. Tonight [From West Side Story]
    2. Because You're Mine
    3. As Time Goes By
    4. Love Is a Many Splendored Thing
    5. My Own True Love [From Gone with the Wind]
    6. Memory [From Cats]
    7. Concerto d'Autunno
    8. Because
    9. You Belong to My Heart (Solamente Una Vez)
    10. Siboney
    11. O Sole Mio
    12. Granada
    13. Parlami d'Amore, Mari
    14. Core 'Ngrato
    15. Be My Love
    16. Dein Ist Mein Ganzes Herz [Das Land des Lelns]
    Three Tenors of the Golden Age
    Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    • Don't buy this for Lanza!
    • A GREAT LISTEN!
    		 Three Tenors of the Golden Age

    Manufacturer: RCA
    ProductGroup: Music
    Binding: Audio CD

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    Similar Items:
    1. Bluebird Of Happiness
    2. The Art of the Cantor

    ASIN: B000003G3Y
    Release Date: 1996-07-16

    Tracks:

    1. L'africana: Mi battle il cor: O paradiso!: L'africana: Mi batte il cor; O paradiso!
    2. Tosca: E lucevan le stelle
    3. Tarantella napoletana - No. 8, Les soirees musicales
    4. Yours Is My Heart Alone - From The Land Of Smiles
    5. Tosca: Dammi i colori: Rceondita armonia: Tosca: Dammi i colori; Recondita armonia
    6. Rigoletto: La donna e mobile
    7. L'arlesiana: E la solita storia - (Lamento di Federico): L'arlesiana: E la solita storia - (Lamento di Federico)
    8. La boheme: Che gelida manina
    9. Be My Love - From The Toast Of New Orleans
    10. Martha: M'appari tutt'amor
    11. Mattinata
    12. Because
    13. I Love You Truly
    14. Pagliacci: Recitar!; Vesti la giubba
    15. Santa Lucia luntana
    16. Granada
    17. Funiculi, Funicula: Funciuli, funicula
    18. Ideale
    19. Bluebird Of Happiness
    20. With A Song In My Heart
    21. 'O sole mio
    22. Turandot: Nessun dorma

    Customer Reviews:

    3 out of 5 stars Don't buy this for Lanza!.......2002-02-25

    Oh dear. Whoever compiled this collection was not paying much attention to the Mario Lanza selections! Several of them feature Lanza at his worst (Funiculi' Funicula', Santa Lucia Luntana, With A Song In My Heart), and Be My Love excepted, the tenor recorded superior versions of all of them on other occasions.

    Jan Peerce and Jussi Bjoerling fare much better, with both tenors sounding at the peak of their form. Ironically, several of their selections are more closely associated with Lanza (Vesti La Giubba, Granada and Che Gelida Manina), and one can only wonder at the reasoning behind these choices.

    Buy this if you're a fan of Peerce or Bjoerling; admirers of Lanza should look elsewhere for his best recordings.

    5 out of 5 stars A GREAT LISTEN!.......2000-06-25

    This CD is tremendous, giving us a true feeling of the "three" tenors, when there were a lot more than that! It is undeniable that Bjoerling stands out as the best, and will only make you want more.But the Lanza trademarks are here too.

    Track Listings:

    1. Alec Wilder: Music for Winds and Brass
    2. Alfons V el Magnąnim: El Cancionero de Montecassino
    3. American Reflections: Chamber Music of David Alpher
    4. Annibale Padovano: Mass for 24 Parts
    5. Arma Lucis
    6. Art of Youra Guller (Prelude & Fugue/Ballade 4)
    7. Bach: 7 Harpsichord Concertos, Triple Concerto
    8. Bach Family Motets Clare College Choir
    9. Bach: Italian Concerto; English Suite No. 2; 12 Little Preludes
    10. Bach J.S: Goldberg Variations [Import] [Live]

    Track Listings

    track listings

    Track Listings

    Really Rosie [Original recording remastered] [Import]

    Tchaikovsky, Dvorįk: Symphonies

    The Early Blues Roots of Bob Dylan

    Moanin' [Live] [Import]

    Rock Solid: Essential Collection [Limited Edition] [Import]

    The First Lady

    The Very Best of Michael Feinstein [Import]

    Schubert: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 3

    Ten: A Decade of Commonbond

    The Scenic Route

    The Spine

    Salsa en la Calle 8 '99

    Salsa Greats V.2 [Import]

    Third Day

    Miles Davis at Newport 1958