Composed by Jacques Offenbach
Performed by Rene Duclos Choir with Jean-Christophe Benoit , Ernest Blanc , Jeannine Collard , Renee Faure , Christiane Gayraud , Nicolai Gedda , Nicola Ghiuselev , Jean-Pierre Laffage
Conducted by Andre Cluytens , Robert Geary
Product Description
Though this 1960s-vintage recording has fallen out of fashion in some circles because it uses a corrupt edition of the opera with recitatives, arias, and ensembles not written by Offenbach, it remains highly listenable and boasts the greatest Hoffmann on recordings: Nicolai Gedda. His voice is youthful, focused, and marvelously flexible, able to sing the music with rare precision and authority but with the weight to project dramatic authority. The women in his flashback adventures are luxuriously cast with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf using her innate aloofness as Giulietta and Victoria de Los Angeles her innate radiance as Antonia. Stylistically, conductor André Cluytens is the master, even if he was even more authentic in his 1940s recording with an all-Opera Comique cast, which is worth seeking out on EMI imports. --David Patrick Stearns
Offenbach - Les contes d'Hoffmann / Gedda · Schwarzkopf · de los Angeles · d'Angelo · Ghiuselev · London · Blanc · Cluytens,Jacques Offenbach,André Cluytens,Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire,Elisabeth Schwarzkopf,Victoria de los Angeles,Gianna d'Angelo,Nicolai Ghiuselev,George London,Ernest Blanc,Jean-Christophe Benoît,Renée Faure,Choeurs René Duclos,EMI Classics,Classical,Classical Music,French Romantic Opera,Opera,Opera / Operetta / Oratorio,Opera/Operetta
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