Kathleen Battle Edition
£59.80
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Label: Australian Eloquence
Cat No: ELQ4842517
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 15
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 4th August 2023
Contents
Artists
Kathleen Battle (soprano)Jessye Norman
Placido Domingo
Margo Garrett
James Levine
Christopher Parkening
Itzhak Perlman
Conductors
Claudio AbbadoBruno Campanella
Myung-Whun Chung
Andrew Davis
Carlo Maria Giulini
Herbert von Karajan
James Levine
Alain Lombard
Ion Marin
John Nelson
Seiji Ozawa
Andre Previn
Leonard Slatkin
Georg Solti
Artists
Kathleen Battle (soprano)Jessye Norman
Placido Domingo
Margo Garrett
James Levine
Christopher Parkening
Itzhak Perlman
Conductors
Claudio AbbadoBruno Campanella
Myung-Whun Chung
Andrew Davis
Carlo Maria Giulini
Herbert von Karajan
James Levine
Alain Lombard
Ion Marin
John Nelson
Seiji Ozawa
Andre Previn
Leonard Slatkin
Georg Solti
About
Kathleen Battle enraptured opera audiences of the 1980s and 1990s. Here was a lyric soprano combining unsurpassable beauty of tone with a keen musical intelligence, a way with words and a communicative warmth that drew listeners to Strauss and spirituals alike. She has the easy phrasing of a great jazz singer combined with the breath, breadth and precise projection of a trained voice.
James Levine coached her at the Metropolitan Opera, and when he accompanied her at the 1984 Salzburg Festival and DG recorded the recital as Battle's debut solo album, nothing less than a phenomenon was launched. She had been admired as a gifted singer since the age of eight, and a 1985 article in Time Magazine declared that she was "the greatest lyric coloratura soprano in the world".
Her performances at the Met of Susanna, Despina, Pamina and other lyric roles in the great Mozart operas, conducted by Levine, established her as one of the world's leading interpreters of this repertoire. Recorded near the end of her DG association, Battle and Levine recorded arias from those roles for an album which became a radiantly beautiful souvenir of an era when they formed an artistic team as celebrated and accomplished in their way as Schwarzkopf and Karajan or Nilsson and Solti.
However, Battle had already recorded for several labels, and this Eloquence box uniquely brings together selected albums she made for Angel (the US branch of EMI – those which have repatriated to Universal Music Group) with the DG recitals. They include an imaginatively programmed guitar recital with Christopher Parkening and excerpts from a Messiah led by Sir Andrew Davis in Toronto.
These Handel arias feature on a new compilation within the album, "Kathleen Battle sings Sacred Music", which also features excerpts from her appearances in Levine's DG recordings of The Creation by Haydn and the C minor Mass by Mozart, as well as Poulenc's Gloria and the "Pie Jesu" from Fauré's Requiem.
Two further albums showcase excerpts from more complete albums: one of Handel and Mozart arias, including the celebrated Semele recording with John Nelson, and another of operatic and concert arias, including a staggering "Grossmächtige Prinzessin" (Ariadne, with Levine) and the touching songs from the Ozawa recording of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Featuring a new essay on the soprano and the background to her meteoric career by David Patrick Stearns, the set will be an essential acquisition for all lovers of lyric soprano artistry.
In addition to Kathleen Battle's complete DG recitals, this set includes two of her Angel recitals which have repatriated to Universal Music Group, and three discs of excerpts themed by Sacred Music, Handel and Mozart arias, and Opera and Concert arias.
"A radiant and joyous experience for performers and listeners alike. The Fauré songs are so seductively coloured, and the spirituals convey at once such animation and so much unassuming dignity." – Stereo Review, April 1987 (Carnegie Hall Recital)
"There's something about Battle's singing which disarms me completely. In the long-lined numbers especially, she is so poised, pure, and breathtakingly lovely that I hang, ensorcelled, on every phrase." – Fanfare, March 1989 (Schubert - Lieder)
"The singing is con amore throughout the programme, with just the right touch of humour or tenderness or whatever each selection calls for." – Stereo Review, October 1989 ("Live in Tokyo")
"The scene from L'elisir d'amore ... is graceful in character, wholly delightful, and the Romeo and Juliet nuptial duet combines passion and musical sensitivity... Warmly recommended." – Opera
Contents:
CD 1
J.S. Bach - Arias
- Itzhak Perlman ∙ John Nelson
CD 2
Mozart - Opera Arias
- James Levine
CD 3
Bel Canto: Italian Opera Arias
- Bruno Campanella
CD 4
French Opera Arias
Honey and Rue
- André Previn
CD 6
Live in Tokyo 1988
- Plácido Domingo ∙ James Levine
CD 7
Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall
Salzburg Recital
- James Levine
CD 9
Schubert - Lieder
- James Levine
CD 10
Spirituals in Concert
- Jessye Norman ∙ James Levine
CD 11
Pleasures of their Company
- Christopher Parkening
CD 12
A Christmas Celebration
- Leonard Slatkin
CD 13
Kathleen Battle sings Sacred Music: Mozart · Haydn · Handel · Poulenc · Fauré
- James Levine ∙ Andrew Davis ∙ Seiji Ozawa ∙ Carlo Maria Giulini
CD 14
Kathleen Battle sings Handel and Mozart
- John Nelson · Sir Georg Solti · Herbert von Karajan · Alain Lombard
CD 15
Kathleen Battle sings Opera and Concert Arias: Rossini ∙ Donizetti ∙ Verdi ∙ J. Strauss II · R. Strauss ∙ Wagner ∙ Mendelssohn
- Claudio Abbado ∙ Ion Marin ∙ James Levine · Sir Georg Solti ∙ Herbert Von Karajan ∙ Seiji Ozawa
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