Cheap Ariadne auf Naxos (Music) (Richard Strauss, Karl Bohm, Walter Berry, Franz Bierbach, Lisa della Casa, Oskar Czerwenka, Murray Dickie, Hilde Guden, August Jaresch, Peter Klein) Price

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Customer Reviews of Ariadne auf Naxos

Levine Ariadne
This is the Levine Ariadne set with Tomowa-Sintow, Baltsa, Battle, Lakes and Prey from 1986. The other reviewer appears to be commenting on a Bohm live recording. This performance is exquisite. Tomowa-Sintow is in especially creamy voice here, and is matched every step of the way by Baltsa's most impassioned composer, and Battle's vixenish Zerbinetta. Lakes is a little dull as Bacchus, but Strauss was not a tenor person, and this role is sort of thankless - he is in strong voice, however. The Vienna Philharmonic play magnificently for Levine, who conducts a most lively, very Straussian performance. Don't miss it.

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A classic, surely...
the EMI mono set, conducted by von Karajan, is widely regarded a classic -- exemplary singers who completely understand their roles and the culture that produced Strauss and von Hoffmansthal, a master of the craft to guide and shape the effort (Walter Legge) -- and, oh yeah, that von Karajan guy, too!

The same can be said for this performance, recorded live in Salzburg, with perhaps restricted mono sound compared with Legge's production -- also mono, but beautiful enough to make you wonder why they bothered with stereo at all!

What clinches this set for me is the presence of Lisa Della Casa: beautiful voice, beautiful woman -- the perfect singing actress in Mozart and Strauss, in my opinion. And Bohm is the conductor, with a complete understanding of all things Straussian. And the rest of the cast is supurb. It seems the 50s were a golden age for Strauss, and we seem to be enjoying a similar richness today: Jesse Norman, Sumi Jo, and so many others. Lucky us.

As for the EMI recording -- I still own the lp set. And lps still sound pretty good, lest we forget.

P.S. This is definitely not the Levine recording, which is listed as a DG Double elsewhere -- a good buy if you are in the market for it. This ARIADNE is probably from the same performance as the Gala set, but the sound is far better. Similarly, there is a Gala IL TROVATORE with Price and Correli, cond. by von Karajan that is available on DG (look for it!) with superior sound. I have personal experience with both recordings -- all 4, actually -- and the DG issues of both Strauss and Verdi are, happily, in my collection.

I ordered this DG/Bohm ARIADNE on these pages, among the used items.