Editorial Product Review: :While critics at the 1971 premiere found the work derivative and even tasteless, audiences loved this ardent, resourceful, somewhat brazen, ultimately moving Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers. Leonard Bernstein's affinity for his public and for the age in which he lived enabled him to successfully outfit his Mass with a stylish mix of contemporary and ancient modes--rock, jazz, electronic music, Gregorian chant--and place it in a context somewhere between Broadway and opera. Though it lacks the visual component of a live performance, the work holds up well on this Bernstein-led ...
Editorial Product Review: essential recording:This recording was made near the end of Maria Callas's career. It is a role she never sang onstage, but it suited her almost perfectly, and she gives a deep, compelling performance on this recording. The mezzo-soprano tessitura was comfortable for her voice, and the role did not call for a pretty sound. Nor did the recording studio require the kind of huge vocal power expected in an opera house. And furthermore, the character of a strong-willed, capricious, sexually compelling woman who thinks exclusively of herself was close to the ...
Editorial Product Review: essential recording:This recording was made near the end of Maria Callas's career. It is a role she never sang onstage, but it suited her almost perfectly, and she gives a deep, compelling performance on this recording. The mezzo-soprano tessitura was comfortable for her voice, and the role did not call for a pretty sound. Nor did the recording studio require the kind of huge vocal power expected in an opera house. And furthermore, the character of a strong-willed, capricious, sexually compelling woman who thinks exclusively of herself was close to the ...
Editorial Product Review: essential recording:This recording was made near the end of Maria Callas's career. It is a role she never sang onstage, but it suited her almost perfectly, and she gives a deep, compelling performance on this recording. The mezzo-soprano tessitura was comfortable for her voice, and the role did not call for a pretty sound. Nor did the recording studio require the kind of huge vocal power expected in an opera house. And furthermore, the character of a strong-willed, capricious, sexually compelling woman who thinks exclusively of herself was close to the ...
Editorial Product Review: essential recording:This recording was made near the end of Maria Callas's career. It is a role she never sang onstage, but it suited her almost perfectly, and she gives a deep, compelling performance on this recording. The mezzo-soprano tessitura was comfortable for her voice, and the role did not call for a pretty sound. Nor did the recording studio require the kind of huge vocal power expected in an opera house. And furthermore, the character of a strong-willed, capricious, sexually compelling woman who thinks exclusively of herself was close to the ...
Editorial Product Review: :There's a commercial inevitability to holiday song collections that can tempt music fans to mutter 'humbug' under their breath. Yet while this collection (released in conjunction with the Tenors' Christmas Spectacular tour of 2003) is no less market savvy, in the end the trio's earnest, energetic performances earn their fair shair of respect. The trio's Celtic shadings impart considerable warmth to 'Fairytale of New York' and other performances, but it's the range of influences they (also in solo and duet turns, all solidly backed by the Czech National Chamber Orchestra) bring to ...
Editorial Product Review: :The performances on this 2 disc set, which includes extensive liner notes and the complete libretto, were recorded at the Barbican Center, London, in August 2007, with the London Symphony Orchestra and the same vocalists who performed in Vienna.
Editorial Product Review:Album Description:StingÂ’s Songs From The Labyrinth is an album of 17th century music composed by John Dowland and performed on the lute, an ancient acoustic guitar. After being given a lute nearly two years ago as a gift, Sting became fascinated and immersed himself with the instrument and the history of lute music. Reminded of his almost 25 year long enthrallment with the works of John Dowland, the Elizabethan composer who wrote songs for the lute, Sting has recorded a new album of vocal and lute music. All songs were composed by ...
Editorial Product Review:Album Description:For her second recording as an exclusive Virgin Classics artist, soprano sensation Diana Damrau has chosen to sing a remarkably varied selection of concert and operatic arias by Mozart, ranging from the bravura (Donna Anna, Konstanze, Donna Elvira) to the more serious (Pamina) to the lighter soprano (soubrette roles such as Susanna, Blonde, and others). Damrau has gained international acclaim for her Mozart renditions, alternating the roles of Pamina and The Queen of the Night at the Met last fall, as well as Konstanze in Die Entführung later in the season. ...
Editorial Product Review: :This disc could be more succinctly titled Christmas for Anglophiles. Few sounds are more British than the boy soprano-dominated Choir of King's College in Cambridge. And the group is heard--in some sections recorded live--in an actual Christmastide service amid the generous reverberation of a cathedral acoustic with little more than a tasteful though austere organ accompaniment. The repertoire isn't just conservative, traditional hymns and carols. One is harmonized by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and there are a number of contributions by contemporary composers Thomas Adès, Judith Weir, and John Tavener, all of which ...
Usually we're fans of Logitech's gaming mice, but its highest-end G9 Laser Mouse is expensive, overly complex, and lacks the ergonomic thought we've come to expect. If you like to brag about dot-per-inch limits, perhaps the G9's 3,200dpi laser will be enough to sell you, but for the price, we expect the design to match.
Small and light enough for a shirt pocket, Samsung's Helix YX-M1 is a one-stop audio entertainment center with an XM radio, a digital music player, and room for 50 hours of tunes, but it comes up short on battery life.