Herbert von Karajan recorded between 1966 and 1968 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and a cast of stars this reference version of 'The Creation' by Joseph Haydn.
After a legendary concert given in 1965 in Salzburg, Herbert von Karajan entered the studio a few months later to record Haydn's masterpiece with the same lead singers, Fritz Wunderlich and Gundula Janowitz. Almost completed in 1966, the recording was abruptly interrupted by the accidental and tragic death of Fritz Wunderlich at the age of 35, on September 17, 1966. The sessions then resume with a young tenor, Werner Krenn, who replaces Wunderlich on the songs. recitatives in particular.

Die Jahreszeiten, or The Seasons, is not as well loved as Haydn's other late oratorio, The Creation; here Haydn tried to force pastoral imagery – by 1801 a set of ideas that had been musically rehashed for centuries – into his late and in many respects proto-Romantic musical language. He resented, he wrote to a correspondent, having to compose "French trash" at one point in the score that called for frog sounds, and the score contains a menagerie of other rustic creatures and sounds – shepherds, shepherdesses, horn calls, birds, trees, bees, herbs, fish, roosters, rifle shots, thunder and lighting, stags, sunrises, and sunsets, among others. Yet the work is a strange mixture of cute and exultant.

I think Karl Böhm's live performances of Strauss operas represent some of his best work; this is a companion piece to his live Daphne which has yet to be bettered despite being another elderly, live recording, albeit in narrow stereo. It is in comparatively restricted mono but one soon forgets that, given the quality of the performance.

After the wars with the Ottoman Empire, the Turks – their dress, manners, and music-fascinated 18th century Europe, and poking fun at them became standard fare in Parisian vaudevilles. Gluck picked up the theme in 1761 after he became conductor of the French Opera in Vienna, using a translated French libretto by P.R. Monnier that had already been set to music by Monsigny. La Cadi Dupée ("The Duped Cadi") was believed lost until it was rediscovered in the archives of the Hamburg State Opera by the producer of this recording. The central character is a Cadi (a Muslim judge) who wants to marry the reluctant Zelmire, to the dismay of his wife Fatime. Zelmire, in love with Nuradin, pretends to be Omega, the unattractive daughter of the dyer Omar; after the marriage contract is signed and Omega appears, the Cadi has to buy his way out of the imbroglio and return contritely to Fatime while Zelmire and Nuradin go off happily.

La Cenerentola is one of the few operas to have an important subtitle, "The Triumph of Virtue". This Salzburg production makes a point of its being a moral tale rather than a mere fairy tale like the version reflexively sung by Angelina in her "Cavatina": the defeat and forgiveness of the stepsisters and their greedy father is a settling of moral accounts. The production is also tremendous fun–partly because of gimmicks like the mechanical coach and horses that arrives on stage in the high wind of the Act Two storm–but mostly because of the endlessly energetic pulse of Riccardo Chailly's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic.

This performance of Der Rosenkavalier is special for a couple of reasons. Christa Ludwig would soon trade the title role for the role of the Marschallin. It is a shame because she is so well suited to Octavian with her ardent sincerity. Sena Jurinac, no stranger to the role of Octavian, sings the Marschallin with poise. Sylvia Gestzy combines youthful charm with opulence of tone. This performance also marks one of the few times that Walter Berry sang the role of Ochs. He is not as "profundo" as one might want but he is very funny and ultimately creates a loveable oaf. The sound is very good.

This is a review of the 'live' Mitropoulos recording from Salzburg. Although it is in mono sound the sense of perspective is actually better than in many stereo efforts. Yes sometimes voices recede further than is ideal but that is to be expected in the theatre. The audience is unobtrusive between numbers. The stage noise is generally very low frequency so does not obscure the music.

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin had hardly opened on 24th September 1961 before it started preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary. How was that possible? Had it entered into some sort of time warp? That might indeed have been possible for a theatre that in the past had devoted itself to Richard Wagner’s works. But there was a simpler explanation: the Deutsche Oper Berlin had, in fact, originally opened on 7 November 1912 under the title of Deutsches Opernhaus.

It is usually the big nineteenth-century opera sets that are bought for their singers; but with a line-up of principals such as we have here Handel too is swept into the golden net. Lucia Popp, two years into her career after her Vienna debut, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Walter Berry: that is a quartet which in its time may have seemed no more than standard stuff, but at this date looks starry indeed. […] The Orfeo, for one thing, is sung in German instead of Italian; it has cuts, though many fewer than the Mackerras recording in English with Dame Janet Baker; it has the solo voices recorded very close indeed (those that are supposedly off-stage are just about where many modern recordings would have them except when off-stage); and the orchestra sounds, to our re-trained ears, big and thick, with the heavy bass-line that used to seem as proper to Handel as gravy from the roast was to Yorkshire pudding.

Bernstein opera sets come few and far between, but those that do emerge are treated as isolated landmarks. Such was his recording of Richard Strauss` ''Der Rosenkavalier'' of 1971 (CBS M3K 42564, three CDs), recorded three years after he virtually swept the Viennese off their collective feet with it at the Staatsoper.

From fairy tale to great opera: With Die Zauberflöte Mozart made the step from simple Singspiel to a full-blown German opera, thus laying the foundations for an independent opera culture in the German language. The 1973 Electrola recording combines a truly legendary vocal ensemble, featuring first and foremost Edda Moser, whom many people still regard as the best Queen of the Night of all time, Walter Berry as a Papageno oozing Viennese charm, Anneliese Rothenberger as the enchanting Pamina and Peter Schreier as her loving Tamino.

This DVD of Ariadne is a 1978 film based on Filippo Sanjust’s Vienna State Opera production. The bustling Prologue is set in the backstage area of the mogul’s palace and the 18th century costumes fit neatly. In the opera proper, the stage is transformed into a very stagey desert island with an improbable set of stairs leading to the heroine’s cave, the action spilling over into the theatre’s side boxes at times. While there’s nothing particularly imaginative about the production, it never distracts from the main event–the music. Strauss was profligate in his melodic gifts, his ability to make a reduced orchestra sound big, and his wonderful obsession with the female voice, which yields many glorious moments in the opera. Lavish casting helps.

This production of Mozart’s Zauberflöte received enormous and unanimous approval, when it was premiered in Salzburg. The Theatre wizard Jean-Pierre Ponnellecreated a staging which became part and parcel of the festival programme for over nine years and soon acquired the status of a legend. Of course, none of that would have had the same appeal if it had not been in accord with Mozart’s music, performed with perfect blend of lightness and pathos, humour and profundity, by James Levine and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; nor would it all have worked without a truly Festival-worthy cast of singers: the Finnish bass Martti Talvela, who departed way too soon in 1989, in his famous role as Sarastro, the incomparable Edita Gruberová as “the best-ever Queen of the Night” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), the legendary Tamino Peter Schreier as well as the petite, lyrical soprano Ileana Cotrubas˛ as Pamina. Further, Christian Boesch, who sang the role of his life with Papageno, was credited most for his performance in this legendary Zauberflöte.

The tale of womaniser Don Giovanni and his servant Leporello. Giovanni's attempts to woo Donna Anna end in tragedy when he kills her father in a duel. Anna and her fiancé Don Ottavio swear vengeance. Giovanni then attempts to seduce Zerlina at her wedding reception, but is foiled when his former mistress Donna Elvira warns the bride of Giovanni's reputation. Giovanni now has everyone out for his blood, but tries to trick his pursuers by switching places with Leporello. Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts the Vienna State Opera Chorus and Philarmonic Orchestra performing Mozart's famous opera. The principle singers are Walter Berry, Erna Berger, Otto Edelmann, Anton Dermota, Elisabeth Grummer and Cesare Siepi as Don Giovanni.

It is usually the big nineteenth-century opera sets that are bought for their singers; but with a line-up of principals such as we have here Handel too is swept into the golden net. Lucia Popp, two years into her career after her Vienna debut, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, Walter Berry: that is a quartet which in its time may have seemed no more than standard stuff, but at this date looks starry indeed. […] The Orfeo, for one thing, is sung in German instead of Italian; it has cuts, though many fewer than the Mackerras recording in English with Dame Janet Baker; it has the solo voices recorded very close indeed (those that are supposedly off-stage are just about where many modern recordings would have them except when off-stage); and the orchestra sounds, to our re-trained ears, big and thick, with the heavy bass-line that used to seem as proper to Handel as gravy from the roast was to Yorkshire pudding. The roles of Caesar and Sextus, moreover, are taken by men, and there is not a countertenor in sight.