Kenneth Riegel

These recordings are with two different orchestras (Mahler 1st with the Chicago Symphony and the 8th with the London Philharmonic). Tennstedt's live performances are much better than his studio versions of the same works, and it's wonderful to watch him coaxing what he wants from the players. Even though he conducts from the score rather than from memory, he always seems to be directly connected to the orchestra in an almost magical way. The sound is good in both performances, and there is a sense, on both occasions, of being present for something quite special. These are great performances.

Don Giovanni, séducteur et manipulateur, multiplie les conquêtes jusqu'au jour où le fantôme du Commandeur (que Don Giovanni a tué) revient pour se venger.

Richard Strauss's opera, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

A Saint-Pétersbourg en 1874, se joue la première de l'opéra de Moussorgsky, "Boris Godounov". Le rideau se lève : après l'assassinat du jeune tsarévitch, Boris Godounov est porté au pouvoir par les boyards. C'est un homme solitaire, dévoré par la culpabilité. Il sombre peu à peu dans la démence, pendant que le peuple meurt de faim.

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 2 June 1992.

Leonard Bernstein made these recordings during his wonderfully productive collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker in the mid-1970s when he was at the peak of his career. Humphrey Burton's direction is, as always, very fine, giving the viewer/listener both the larger picture and highlighting individual soloists, players or groups of musicians and, of course, the maestro. The video and audio tracks show their age, but are quite acceptable even for today's standards. Bernstein's Seventh is everything one could desire: dark and spooky, highly sensual, but also structurally strong and assertive where needed. Bernstein's reading does not gloss over breakdowns in tonality and the foreshadowing of later musical developments.