Great Operatic Arias - Sir Thomas Allen
CHAN 3118
Gounod
1 Faust
Valentin's Aria 'Even the bravest heart may swell'
Rossini
2 The Barber of Seville
Figaro's Cavatina
'I am the barber everyone wants, I am!'
Mozart
3 The Marriage of Figaro
Count Almaviva's Recitative and Aria
'You've won the case already' - 'Must I be made to suffer'
Wagner
4 Tannhäuser
Wolfram's Aria
'With dark foreboding twilight casts her shadows'
Tchaikovsky
5 The Queen of Spades
Yeletsky's Aria
'You seem unhappy, my beloved'
Thomas
6 Hamlet
Drinking Song
'Oh wine, deliver me from sadness' with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
Verdi
7 Luisa Miller
Miller's Scena and Aria
'Stop!' You shall listen' - 'Marriage is sacred' - 'I was right to be suspicious'
with BrindleySherratt, bass
Wagner
8 Tannhäuser - Wolfram's Aria 'Turning my gaze upon this proud assembley'
Bizet
9 The Pearl Fishers - Yurga's recitative and aria 'The storm has died away'
Britten
10 Billy Budd - Billy in the Darbies 'Look! Through the port comes the moonshine astray
Johann Strauss
11 Die Fledermaus (The Bat) - Watch Duet 'Though I'm somewhat out of practice' with Janice Watson soprano
Lehár
12 The Merry Widow - Cavalryman Duet: 'Hello, here's a soldier bold' with Janice Watson soprano
Rodgers
13 Carousel - Billy Bigelow's Soliloquy: 'I wonder what he'll think of me!'
Korngold
14 Die Tode Stadt (The Dead City) - Fritz's Song 'In visions, illusions' with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir.’

London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Parry

Recorded in Blackheath Halls, London 23-26 October 2003
Producers - Brian Couzens, Sound engineer - Ralph Couzens, Assistant engineer - Michael Common
Opera

'Opera that speaks your language: that's the trumpet-call for the Chandos/Peter Moores Foundation's worthy and often revelatory series of complete opera and selected arias in English.

And seldom is it spoken so seductively and eloquently as by the salty, sensuous and word-lively voice of Thomas Allen. This anthology of some of Allen's greatest roles, from Mozart to Richard Rodgers, is real fan-club fodder - and more. The disc, with its accompanying booklet generously packed with photos and enhanced by Rodney Milnes' elegant and illuminating commentary, bears all the marks of a lovingly engineered and produced artefact, with commitment and affection ringing out of every track.'
The Financial Times

The Allen baritone is in full, eloquent form, with a ring of mature authority and faultless diction.'
The Guardian

'As always, Allen was a supremely intelligent recitalist, matching sound with sense, probing the meaning of a text without fracturing the vocal line.'
The Times

'Allen had the perfect measure of expressive pace and scale... a most artful balance between the intimate and the rhetorical.'
The Sunday Telegraph

'David Parry and the LPO accompany splendidly. A delicious disc'