Buywell Classic Music - 'Kirsten Flagstad - Gluck: Alceste' CD Label: Decca, Cat. No. 480 2979 (or 4802979)

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Kirsten Flagstad - Gluck: Alceste

Kirsten Flagstad - Gluck: Alceste (Decca 480 2979)

SKU: 14770

Price:
AU $18.13

Label: Decca Cat. No.: 480 2979 Medium: CD No. Discs: 3

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Show / Hide Kirsten Flagstad Edition overview

'I'm a classical girl, you know,' wrote the legendary soprano Kirsten Flagstad in her memoirs, The Flagstad Manuscript, co-authored with Louis Biancolli. 'Whatever Wagner may be, other music gives a different satisfaction: the music of Gluck, for example, or Handel. It's the precise and orderly mind of these composers that I think appeals to me. The balanced style, the regular sections, everything in place. All of that appealed to my sense of tidiness.'

Though her return to the Met during the 1950-51 season was announced as her farewell, the new general manager, Rudolf Bing (later Sir Rudolf) lured her back for one more season by offering her Alceste, one day at lunch. 'It was too great a temptation, and Mr. Bing knew it,' she later recalled. Opening night, 4 March 1952, was a triumph. The composer Virgil Thomson reviewed it for the New York Herald Tribune and found her the 'ultimate in stylishness. No singer living could have sung Alcestis's arias with more sumptuous beauty of voice or a more impeccable respect for the classic line, their expressive rhetoric.'

In April 1956 Flagstad relearned the role for a BBC broadcast of the Italian version. Decca decided to record the opera a few days later using the same cast and version. Unfortunately Flagstad was suffering from a very heavy cold and was not at her best. The producer of this recording, John Culshaw, wrote in his book Putting the Record Straight, 'I tried to persuade her to abandon Alceste despite the considerable expense to Decca of such a write-off, but her loyalty to her fellow artists prevailed.'

Flagstad in, perhaps, less that her usual stellar voice is still an extraordinary, mesmerizing artist, as listeners to Decca's classic recording can attest. This reissue features an informative note by Paul Thomason on the genesis of the Gluck opera in Flagstad's many and multi-lingual performances of this opera.

A Decca Eloquence 3-CD set.

Artists:

Kirsten Flagstad (soprano).

Composers:

Gluck.

Conductors:

Geraint Jones.

Orchestras:

The Geraint Jones Orchestra & Singers.

Tracks:

CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK (1714-1787) Alceste
CD 1 Act I Scene 1 Scene 2 CD 2 Act II Scene 1 Scene 2 CD 3 Act III
	Admeto, King of Pherae in Thessaly Alceste, his wife Eumelo, their son Aspasia, their daughter Evandro, Admetus' confidant Ismene, Alceste's confidant A Herald (un banditore) High priest of Apollo Apollo The oracle of Apollo (L'oracolo) An infernal deity (Un nume infernale)	Raoul Jobin Kirsten Flagstad Joan Clark Rosemary Thayer Alexander Young Marion Lowe James Atkins Thomas Hemsley Thomas Hemsley James Atkins Thomas Hemsley
Chorus of courtiers and citizens, Alceste's ladies-in-waiting, priests of Apollo and infernal deities Coro di cortigiani e cittandini, di damigelle d'Alcestem, di sacerdoti d'Apollo, di numi infernall The Geraint Jones Orchestra & Singers Geraint Jones

Medium:

CD

No. of Discs:

3

SKU #:

14770

Label:

Decca

Catalog #:

480 2979

Price: AU $18.13

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