This magnificent performance is without a doubt among the top two or three Handel opera recordings in the catalog. John Nelson outdoes even the period instrument competition, conducting with a vitality and freshness that sweeps all before it. Kathleen Battle is a great Semele (if listening to this woman sing "Myself I Will Adore" isn't a classic example of typecasting, then what is?). But the real palm must go to Marilyn Horne as the jealous Juno, who simply stops the show with her two arias (she sings Ino as well). A very great recording.

Claudio Abbado uses Mussorgsky's text in a condition almost as complete as Mstislav Rostropovich's but avoiding some overlap from variant readings. He brings to his conducting the same vitality and scrupulous attention to small details that are familiar from his work in Italian opera. His cast is good throughout and particularly strong in the leading roles. This is a Boris to live with, one that gets better with repeated hearings.

The most comprehensive edition devoted to Gioacchino Rossini marking his 150th anniversary. Born in 1792, Rossini was the most popular opera composer of his time. Although he retired from the Opera scene in 1829, he continued to compose in other genres, including sacred music, piano and chamber works. He did gather his late works under the ironic title Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), which veils a true collection of masterworks.

The most comprehensive edition devoted to Gioachino Rossini marking his 150th anniversary. Born in 1792, Rossini was the most popular opera composer of his time. Although he retired from the Opera scene in 1829, he continued to compose in other genres, including sacred music, piano and chamber works. He did gather his late works under the ironic title Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), which veils a true collection of masterworks.

The most comprehensive edition devoted to Gioachino Rossini marking his 150th anniversary. Born in 1792, Rossini was the most popular opera composer of his time. Although he retired from the Opera scene in 1829, he continued to compose in other genres, including sacred music, piano and chamber works. He did gather his late works under the ironic title Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age), which veils a true collection of masterworks.

Bluebeard's Castle is a difficult opera to cast. Bluebeard himself must either be a bass who can get up to a high F or a baritone who can get down to low G. In the former category, to which Samuel Ramey belongs the usual risks are that he will sound unsuitably fatherly or will be uncomfortably tense in the upper register. Ramey avoids both hazards with ease: he combines gravity with believable youth, and has no problems with the upper reaches of the part. His is a slightly cool reserved, soft-grained Bluebeard, there is no swell of homage in the last scene when he hails his former wives as ''immortal, unforgotten'', but you may well prefer his sobriety to Fischer-Dieskau's meticulous but at times melodramatic expressive shading of every syllable.

Gioachino Rossini's Messa di Gloria of 1821, right in the middle of the years when he ruled the operatic scene, has been less often recorded than the free-spirited and personal Stabat Mater of his old age. Various reasons could be advanced for this comparative neglect. Stacked up against Rossini's operas of the period it's something of a mixed bag. Some of it is intensely operatic, but it also looks back to the past with its giant contrapuntal "Cum sancto spiritu" (the mass consists of a Kyrie and Gloria). From the point of view of the cult of individual Romantic genius, a major problem is that Rossini may have had a collaborator on the work, one Pietro Raimondi, who honed some of the more polyphonic passages.

Mario Bernardi revived the Horne-Corsaro ''Rinaldo'' for the National Arts Center of Canada, and a new and much more elaborate production designed by Mark Negin had a great success at Festival Ottawa in the summer of 1982. ''Rinaldo'' is in essence Marilyn Horne's production. She sings the title role in a version that has been tailored specifically for her vocal powers, and she has obviously had a lot to say about the hows and the whos of this production.

Rodelinda stems from a period of great creativity in Handel’s life, 1724-25, following hard on Giulio Cesare and Tamerlano. Although it met with only moderate success. One of its first revivals was via the German Handel Society in the 1920s, and then the Handel Opera Society revived it again, with a cast including Joan Sutherland, during the 1959 celebrations of Handel’s bicentenary. It was one of Sutherland/Bonynge’s later Decca operatic collaborations (1985) and their only Handel opera they recorded together.

David McVicar's production of Manon takes a more than usually harsh view of the story…Here, everything and everybody is for sale… It is thrilling, sometimes even slightly shocking, and throughout the direction of the cast is faultless: every scene bears re-viewing for the amount of detail and dramatic energy that is released. It is unlikely that Natalie Dessay will ever give a greater performance than this. Her singing of each of the great arias is equally fascinating. The scene in which she and Rolando Villazón size each other up before speaking is exquisitely managed… Villazón makes a passionate hero. I cannot imagine that we will see another Manon to equal this for a long time. (Gramophone)

This Mass in B Minor led by Sir Neville Marriner is an excellent choice for those looking for modern orchestral instruments, lively, full adult choruses, and a solid lineup of soloists. Marriner’s performance lacks the ponderously stodgy tempos of those older recordings, but he does not bypass the beauty, spirituality, or grandiosity inherent in the music in favour of speed.

Arrigo Boito's treatment of the Faust legend is imaginative yet also faithful to Goethe's original conception, and the score is memorable for its rich orchestral sounds, beautifully punctuated with lyrical passages and choral interludes. Robert Carsen's sumptuous, post-modern production of Mefistofele is a gloriously decadent and theatrically stunning realisation, and the San Francisco Opera's performance has been unanimously acclaimed in both Paris and San Francisco. Samuel Ramey, in the title role, has won both critical and overwhelming popular approval.

Those who know Zeffirelli's style won't be surprised by the conventionally lavish production, but it effectively evokes the atmosphere of religious oppression and personal antagonisms Verdi so unerringly depicts. The dark-hued, threatening setting fits Muti's energetic, rhythmically vital conception. He quickens the emotions in a peculiarly Italianate way, and throughout evinces a feeling for the colouring of the score. His reading is in turn a good background for some thoughtful and idiomatic singing.

In 1813, a month before his 21st birthday and three years before his Barber of Seville, Rossini had his one-act farsa Il Signor Bruschino premiered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice. It was not well received, although its overture, with the second violins tapping their music-stands with their bows, has become popular. The cast is strong, with Samuel Ramey providing the most potent performance as the duped guardian Gaudenzio. Claudio Desderi weaves through the absurd plot as the ridiculous figure of the elder Bruschino with a great deal of character, although the sound is somewhat threadbare at times. Frank Lopardo as the lovelorn Florville, pretending to be the young Bruschino, has a splendid, mellifluous tenor.

The central facts of this brilliant performance are the conductor's vision and energy, expressed through a virtuoso orchestra and a cast carefully selected for theatrical as well as musical skills. The feeling of unrelenting pressure in the music seems to be an externalization of Don Giovanni's compulsions, which are only thinly veiled by his aristocratic manner and Mozart's mellifluous but intensely dramatic music. Riccardo Muti's tempos are often fast, but not so fast as to interfere with the fine nuances of dramatic expression in the orchestra and the singers, and he makes the gritty realities underlying the often smooth surface of the words and music intensely clear at every point.