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Mozart: Die Zauberflöte / Sir Georg Solti


Release Date: 08/05/2008 
Label:  Decca   Catalog #: 414568   Spars Code: ADD 
Composer:  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performer:  Hans Sotin,  René Kollo,  Renate Holm,  Hetty Plümacher,   ... 
Conductor:  Sir Georg Solti
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Vienna State Opera Chorus,  Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,  Vienna Boys' Choir
Number of Discs: 3 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 2 Hours 36 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

Memory has a trick of losing the good, the nice and the normal, and retaining only the oddities, which then swell into grotesque self-caricatures. So, taking a preliminary mental survey of Solti's Die Zauberfiöte, I recalled stingingly fierce sforzandos in the Overture, accomplished contortions in the Queen of Night's passage-work, a craggily gigantic Sarastro, and the whole thing punctuated by claps of thunder whose every onset threatened a heart attack. Reality, of course, proves much less extreme. The sforzandos do jab too insistently but as a whole the Overture is finely played, with its due complement of majesty and mystery, energy and grace. Cristina Deutekom certainly produces a curious effect as she juggles with the scales and Read more triplets, slaccati and altissinii of her arias; however, her accuracy and firmness earn gratitude, while the strange cold glitter of her tone characterizes aptly. As for Talvela's Sarastro, its phrases are often rough-hewn, but there is rich magnificence in the ample range, the notes themselves and the authority of utterance. The thunder, roaring lions and all else in the producer's effects department take their places quite naturally; and from the background (or what memory had relegated to the background) emerges a wide assortment of pleasures, partly a matter of individual performances, but adding up to a highly viable, competitive account of the opera... Solti's direction of the opera has sometimes been found too restless; once the Overture is over, I can hear little to substantiate the criticism, whereas his feeling for excitement is a great asset in this opera where a very slight excess of solemnity or relaxation can be deadly.

-- Gramophone [9/1986]
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Works on This Recording

1. Die Zauberflöte, K 620 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performer:  Hans Sotin (Bass), René Kollo (Tenor), Renate Holm (Soprano),
Hetty Plümacher (Alto), Hanneke van Bork (Soprano), Yvonne Minton (Mezzo Soprano),
Pilar Lorengar (Soprano), Gerhard Stolze (Tenor), Herbert Lackner (Baritone),
Kurt Equiluz (Tenor), Martti Talvela (Bass), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Baritone),
Hermann Prey (Baritone), Stuart Burrows (Tenor), Cristina Deutekom (Soprano),
Wolfgang Zimmer (Spoken Vocals)
Conductor:  Sir Georg Solti
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Vienna State Opera Chorus,  Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,  Vienna Boys' Choir
Period: Classical 
Written: 1791; Vienna, Austria 
 Date of Recording: 10/1969 
Venue:  Sofiensaal, Vienna 
Length: 156 Minutes 7 Secs. 
Language: German 

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