Great Arias

This on-going series of ten-minute programmes introduces some of opera’s finest

moments, performed and presented by some of the greatest singers of our day, Dame Joan

Sutherland, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Eva Marton, Marilyn Home, Anne Sofie von Otter, Roberto Alagna,

Philip Langridge, René Kollo and Yuri Marusin among them. Their performances are drawn from

recent live recordings of acclaimed productions of key works in the operatic repertoire and

include such high-spots as Vissi d’arte from Puccini’s Tosca, the Mad Scene from Donizetti’s

Lucia di Lammermoor, Elektra’s murderous confrontation with her mother in Strauss’s Elektra, and

Leonora’s D’amor sull’ali rosee from the final act of Puccini’s Tosca.

Xerxes

From the English National Opera 1988 Nicholas Hytner’s innovative production has been

much acclaimed and this live recording from the English National Opera features outstanding

performances from a fine English cast, including Dame Ann Murray, Christopher Robson, Jean Rigby,

Lesley Garrett, Rodney Macann and Valerie Masterson. Designer David Fielding adds curious,

surreal touches to his eighteenth-century settings in the London pleasure gardens at Vauxhall,

which heighten the absurdity of the love intrigues in Handel’s comic opera. (Sung in

English)