Notes and Editorial Reviews
"...Gardiner's account of the Vienna Orfeo ed Euridice is peerless. One soon loses all sense of its being a period-instrument performance at all, so profound, at times overwhelming is its impact - so utterly right. In detail after detail - hauntingly poetic offstage instrumental complement, perfectly positioned in the drama (and perfectly captured by the excellent Philips recording); superbly stirring brass playing, which makes every entry a dramatic event; choral singing extraordinarily light in weight yet rich in emotional substance; exquisitely refined dance movements - and in sustainment of a delicately tenebrous, uniquely Gluckian atmosphere throughout, Gardiner's command of an opera championed since his first London concert
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performance, 21 years ago, is revealed as simply larger and fuller than almost anyone else's. The set was studio-made after many concerthall performances by exactly the same forces, and in recording terms it achieves the best of all worlds -the vitality of a live event married to the precision of a recording.
-- Gramophone [9/1997]
Reviewing original release of this recording
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Works on This Recording
1.
Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph W. Gluck
Performer:
Derek Lee Ragin (Countertenor),
Sylvia McNair (Soprano),
Cyndia Sieden (Soprano)
Conductor:
John Eliot Gardiner
Orchestra/Ensemble:
English Baroque Soloists,
Monteverdi Choir
Period: Classical
Written: 1762/1774; Vienna, Austria
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