Wagner: Götterdämmerung — Asher Fisch and the Adelaide Ring
The final instalment, middle of the road in both performance and sonics, and a closing verdict ranking all four Adelaide Ring titles against one another.
Melba Recordings
6 articles.
Writing
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 — Australian Youth Orchestra, Anissimov
A well played Tenth from an orchestra not to be dismissed as amateurs, and a faithful capture of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall's difficult acoustics, warts included.
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Believe in Love — Elizabeth Whitehouse and Richard Bonynge
Soprano arias billed as rare and mostly not, sung with style and flair, with the voice imaged left of centre exactly where a soloist stands in a real hall.
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Wagner: Siegfried — Asher Fisch and the Adelaide Ring
The opera in the cycle I had always liked least, in a performance and recording that changed my mind — the best balanced of the four, and the one to sample multichannel SACD on.
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Wagner: Das Rheingold — Asher Fisch and the Adelaide Ring
The second Adelaide instalment, and the weakest: a faultless recording of a staging whose energy was largely visual, with stage water reading on the microphones as crackle.
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Wagner: Die Walküre — Asher Fisch and the Adelaide Ring
The first instalment of the Adelaide Ring on SACD, reviewed by someone who sat in the hall: an emotional rather than physical Walküre, on a recording that may beat being there.
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