Gerald Moore, Victoria de los Angeles – Victoria de los Ángeles in Concert (Live, Royal Festival Hall, 1964) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 46:41 minutes | 1,65 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Legendary prima donnas often have an epithet – whether la Divina, la Stupenda or la Superba. The Catalan singer Victoria de los Angeles, who celebrated her 100th birthday on November 1, 2023. If I had celebrated my birthday, the addition la Suprema was certainly due. Like hardly any other soprano of her time, she was able to combine sound, language, feeling, refinement and charm in the highest perfection in her vocal art – whether on stage, in the concert hall, on the song podium or in the recording studio. She bears the name García in her birth name and thus commemorates the legendary Spanish opera singer and vocal teacher Manuel García, father of the famous divas Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot. In her singing style one thinks to hear the inspiration of the great namesake – timbre, phrasing, intimacy, nobility and elegance combine to sublime, aristocratic perfection.
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Victoria de los Angeles – Purcell: Dido and Aeneas, Z. 626 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:30 minutes | 1,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Dido and Aeneas (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priest’s girls’ school in London by the end of 1689. Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early as 1683. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her. A monumental work in Baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas is remembered as one of Purcell’s foremost theatrical works.[6] It was also Purcell’s only true opera, as well as his only all-sung dramatic work. One of the earliest known English operas, it owes much to John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, both in structure and in overall effect.
The influence of Cavalli’s opera Didone is also apparent. Both works use the prologue/three acts format and there are similarities between, for instance, Mercury’s solo in Didone and the solo “Come away fellow sailors” in Purcell’s work.
Read more![Victoria de los Angeles, Nicolai Gedda, Sir Thomas Beecham - Bizet: Carmen, WD 31 (1960/2011) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/09/06/0190295895778_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Victoria de los Angeles, Nicolai Gedda, Sir Thomas Beecham – Bizet: Carmen, WD 31 (1960/2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:41:48 minutes | 3,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
De los Angeles’s portrayal of Carmen is absolutely bewitching…Naturally the other singers are not nearly as dominant as this, but they make admirable foils…Beecham adds his own special touch to the orchestral interludes. – Penguin Guide – 2010 edition
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