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Written by Kevin Filipski
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 Signor Goldoni (Dynamic), Italian composer Luca Mosca’s comic opera about the great 18th century playwright, had its world premiere in Venice two years ago, which was immortalized on this recording. A splendidly-realized farce that combines vivid color in its sets, costumes and humor with a rich musical score by Mosca that deliberately reminds listeners of Stravinsky and Rossini—two master composers of comedic operas—Signor Goldoni is also a smart insider’s homage to the plays of Shakespeare, two of which, Othello and The Merchant of Venice, were set in Venice (also the setting of this opera). The large and excellent cast of singers is led by Barbara Hannigan and her thunderous coloratura runs. It’s unfortunate that there are no extras; interviews with the composer, librettist, conductor, stage director and singers would have been welcome to put this new and largely unfamiliar work in context.
also available…
The Adventures of Pinocchio (Opus Arte), Jonathan Dove's operatic retelling of Collodi's classic tale about a wooden boy, has tuneful music, witty staging and spectacular singing and acting by Victoria Summers in the title role (best extra: composer interview); Maria: Cecilia Bartoli (Decca) is the Italian opera diva's tribute to Maria Malibran, the opera superstar who died at age 28 in 1836, including a superb Barcelona concert that features music Malibran made famous (lone extra: 65-minute documentary exploring Malibran's legacy); in a 2002 concert version of Jules Massenet's grand opera Cléopâtre (Kultur), Montserrat Caballé sings with power as the title heroine, while Miquel Ortega conducts the orchestra and chorus in a lively reading of this voluptuous music; The Paris Opera's 2008 production of The Cunning Little Vixen (Medici Arts), Leos Janacek's bittersweet fairy tale, doesn’t grasp the subtleties at the heart of the work, but Russian soprano Elena Tsallagova makes a suitably vixenish fox at its center (lone extra: backstage interviews); Antonin Dvorak's comic opera The Devil & Kate (Kultur) is a rarity onstage, so this straightforward, 1988 English-language version staged by Britain's Wexford Opera is a welcome release, with the irrestistible Anne-Marie Owens as the irrepressible Kate; Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischutz (Arthaus Musik), always a tricky 'magic opera' to produce onstage, confounds director Ruth Berghaus in this 1999 Zurich staging—at least conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, his musicians and singers grasp von Weber's strongly Germanic score; Siegfried Wagner wrote overlong operas like Der Kobold (Marco Polo), a downbeat 3-1/2 hour extravaganza with beautiful passages: unfortunately, he never reached his father's lofty heights (lone extra: interviews in German with no English subtitles); Lorin Maazel's opera based on George Orwell's classic 1984 (Decca) had its premiere in 2005 at London's Royal Opera House—however, despite powerfully dramatic passages, it suffers from a dearth of musical ideas, although Simon Keenlyside is a robust Winston Smith, arrested for "thoughtcrime" (lone extra: Maazel discusses the opera's composition); Slaves to the Rhythm (MVD Visual) is a 2004 charity concert in London that celebrated a quarter-century of producer Trevor Horn's hitmaking: among the groups who perform the tunes he helped make famous include ABC, Seal, The Pet Shop Boys, Lisa Stansfield, Yes and (of course) The Buggles; Soundstage: Foreigner Live (E1) isn't really Foreigner at all—the rock hitmakers of the late 70s and early 80s is just founder and lead guitarist Mick Jones with a bunch of sidemen, and no matter how he tries, Kelly Hansen can't come close to matching the leather-lunged power of former lead singer Lou Gramm; French composer Olivier Messiaen's lone opera, the gargantuan St. Francois d'Assise (Opus Arte) is as close as it's possible to get to truly heavenly music—and in this stunningly spare 2008 production in Amsterdam, its spirituality comes through loud and clear, led by Rod Gilfry's touching presence as Francis (best extra: featurette A Chamber Piece...Really); a modern-dress production of Wagner's Tannhäuser (Arthaus Musik) isn't always disastrous, as director Nikolaus Lehnhoff's solid staging from Baden-Baden in 2008 shows—the standout is Waltraud Meier's sizzling performance as the bewitching Venus (lone extra: 55-minute documentary with cast and crew interviews); Prokofiev's mammoth masterpiece War and Peace (Arthaus Musik) receives a hit-or-miss Paris production in 2000 by director Francesca Zambello, highlighted by the composer's awesomely dramatic music and a terrific cast led by Nathan Gunn, Mikhail Kit and Olga Guryakova (lone extra: two-part, 80-minute "making-of" documentary).
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