Placido Domingo: The Verdi Opera Collection

To celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi, Sony Classical is releasing a joint tribute to the best-loved of all Italian opera composers and to one of the most remarkable and instantly recognisable tenor voices of our age: Plácido Domingo – The Verdi Opera Collection brings together the great Spanish tenor’s classic RCA and Sony Classical recordings of six complete Verdi operas on 15 CDs. The five RCA recordings included in Plácido Domingo – The Verdi Opera Collection all date from the first two decades of Domingo’s international career (1969–1978), when his gloriously burnished tone gleamed brightest; a relative rarity in the Verdi canon, the early Luisa Miller appears in a Sony Classical recording dating from 1991. Four of the six operas are conducted by James Levine, the New York Met’s long-time Music Director; the other two conductors are Zubin Mehta (Il trovatore) and Erich Leinsdorf (Aida). In three of the six operas (Il trovatore, Aida, La forza del destino) Domingo is partnered by one of the most sumptuous-voiced sopranos of our time, the Met’s then leading lady, Leontyne Price, while in those and two other titles (Otello, I vespri siciliani) Domingo’s baritone rival/nemesis is the always thrillingly virile Sherrill Milnes. Other notable singers, all stars of their day, include the sopranos Renata Scotto and Martina Arroyo, mezzos Fiorenza Cossotto and Grace Bumbry, and bass Ruggero Raimondi. The six operas included in Plácido Domingo – The Verdi Opera Collection are: Il trovatore (recorded 1969); Aida (1970); I vespri siciliani (1973); La forza del destino (1976); Otello (1978); and Luisa Miller.

Price: $46.98