For this is a total experience, perfectly tailored for private listening. 'Anyone tempted to programme the remote-control to skip over the dialogue in this Zauberflöte will rue the day. In no other recording I know are you so aware of the originality of Mozart’s scoring, whether in the austere, hieratic colouring (trombones and basset-horns to the fore) of the music for Sarastro and the priests at the start of Act II, the manic glitter of Monostatos’s aria or the ethereal, other-worldly sonorities in the music for the Three Boys.' Richard Wigmoreĭaniel Behle, Marlis Petersen, Daniel Schmutzhard, Sunhae Im, Marcos Fink, Anna-Kristiina Kaappola, Kurt Azesberger, Inga Kalna, Konstantin Wolff RIAS Kammerchor Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMC 902068.70 (2010) 'Articulation is light and buoyant, tempos mobile yet never driven or inflexible, textures sharp and transparent. Rebecca Evans, Elizabeth Vidal, Majella Cullagh, Sarah Fox, Diana Montague, Lesley Garrett, Barry Banks, Simon Keenlyside, John Tomlinson Geoffrey Mitchell Choir London Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Mackerras Chandos CHAN 3121 (2005) Read our full review of this recording here See her performing the character's famous aria below. This Papageno arouses both delight and poignant emotions, and his singing is wonderfully strong and true in style.'Īlso noteworthy is Diana Damrau's 'sharply intelligent' interpretation of the Queen of the Night. Critic Max Loppert writes: 'Simon Keenlyside’s Papageno offers none of the vaudeville high jinks traditionally associated with the role: he brings to its comedy a Pierrot lunaire-like poetry, precisely achieved down to the smallest detail. The highlight of this filmed production is the performance by Simon Keenlyside as Papageno. David McVicar Opus Arte DVD: OA0885D, Blu-ray: OABD7002D (2003) Will Hartmann, Dorothea Röschmann, Diana Damrau, Franz-Josef Selig, Simon Keenlyside, Ailish Tynan, Adrian Thompson, Thomas Allen Royal Opera House/Sir Colin Davis, dir. The best opera recordings released in 2021 so far The best recordings of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute

Magic flute music