The ‘fresh, beautiful and critically underpraised’ voice (Gramophone) of Pilar Lorengar is celebrated here on an album of operatic arias, originally issued in 1980 by Decca as a portrait of the Spanish soprano who had entranced audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for three decades. ‘Our Pilar’as she was known affectionately at the Deutsche […]

When Pilar Lorengar died, a little over 20 years ago, at the age of 68 in her adopted city of Berlin, the tributes were unanimous for ‘one of the most beautiful voices heard in the post-war era’ (The Independent). She had grown up in Zaragoza and always treasured her introduction to the musical stage, practically […]

This supreme recording of ‘La traviata’ with its principals in top form and Maazel delivering energy and beauty to the score, here offers some of the most memorable moments from the opera.

This is one of the most successful and stylish of Don Giovanni recordings. Having sung Donna Anna in her early (Giulini) recording, Sutherland here is, if anything, even more spine-tingling in this role. Bonynge and the English Chamber Orchestra, together with the Ambrosian Singers, really deliver the goods and the rest of the stellar cast […]

This is a classic recording from 1968, of Leoncavallo’s one-act, grisly tale of ‘live’ murder during a village stage production. This is ‘verismo’ at its finest and most potent and the star-studded cast gives a thrilling, edge-of-the-seat performance.

A treasury of some of the greatest Lehar recordings from the Decca catalogue, this CD encompasses the entire LP with Holm, Krenn and Paulik plus Pilar Lorengar singing arias from ‘Eva’ and ‘Gypsy Love’. It’s a model of sugar-encrusted elegance of a bygone era.

Dvořák naturally gave a great deal of attention to the genre of the oratorio and it was his work in this area that firmly established his reputation in the English-speaking world. Rossini very much admired Pergolesi’s fine setting of the Stabat Mater but had not felt equal to attempting his own. The decision to try […]