La Boheme is on SACD (likely a pcm recording, on London); there may be some others as well, but I haven't checked it yet. The major labels likely would never take advantage of the storage capacity of the medium, for the reason you mention.
Where's Opera on SACD???
Hi Everyone,
I've noticed that there's no Opera on SACD yet. Does anyone know why? It seems like a natural for the new format, because of the extended storage capacity, and because I think Opera lends itself to multi-channel quite naturally.
While on the subject of storage capacity, does anyone know the capacity of an SACD? Wouldn't it be great to be able to get "Siegfried" by Wagner on 1 disc instead of 4! (Wait... maybe THAT'S why it's not on SACD? Record companies couldn't really sell 1 disc for $65, whereas they can do that with 4 discs. Hmmm.)
Tfkaudio
I've noticed that there's no Opera on SACD yet. Does anyone know why? It seems like a natural for the new format, because of the extended storage capacity, and because I think Opera lends itself to multi-channel quite naturally.
While on the subject of storage capacity, does anyone know the capacity of an SACD? Wouldn't it be great to be able to get "Siegfried" by Wagner on 1 disc instead of 4! (Wait... maybe THAT'S why it's not on SACD? Record companies couldn't really sell 1 disc for $65, whereas they can do that with 4 discs. Hmmm.)
Tfkaudio
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From my perspective Opera is much better served on DVD than CD or SACD. It's an audio-VISUAL extraviganza. Hell, for me it was worth setting my system up as a home-theater just to experience opera. Now you can get two versions of the full Ring cycle on DVD, and each can be had for around $100. One's by The Met (they've got three cycles of that particular production coming up next year by the way), and the other is the centenial performance at Bayreuth. And both are in 5.1 format. Siegfried is on two disks on both productions. |
There's la Boheme on Decca with Angela Georghiu and her husband. The performance is truly very good. The mixing, only acceptable. The "Poisoned Kiss" by Vaughan Williams just came out on Chandos. Quite enjoyable alla G&S way. I just purchased a DVD-A version of Die Walkure on Farao Classics. They have some long excerpts on the website. This recording comes from a 2002 production at the Bavarian conducted by Zubin Mehta. I'm not a fan of ZM but this time he does well. Waltraud Meier, Peter Seiffert, John Tomlinson and Mihoko Fujimura (watch her!) sang their heart out. Gabriele Schnaut is OK. I got mine at Virgin Records. |