Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann

Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann

Though this 1960s-vintage recording has fallen out of fashion in some circles because it uses a corrupt edition of the opera with recitatives, arias, and ensembles not written by Offenbach, it remains highly listenable and boasts the greatest Hoffmann on recordings: Nicolai Gedda. His voice is youthful, focused, and marvelously flexible, able to sing the music with rare precision and authority but with the weight to project dramatic authority. The women in his flashback adventures are luxuriously cast with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf using her innate aloofness as Giulietta and Victoria de Los Angeles her innate radiance as Antonia. Stylistically, conductor AndrÃ© Cluytens is the master, even if he was even more authentic in his 1940s recording with an all-Opera Comique cast, which is worth seeking out on EMI imports. --David Patrick Stearns
Country USA
Brand Parlophone
Manufacturer Emd/EMI Classics
Binding Audio CD
ItemPartNumber 0777 7 63222 2 3
ReleaseDate 1989-10-17
UnitCount 1
Format Box set
UPCs 077776322223
EANs 0077776322223

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