There are a lot of really good video recordings of the Mozart operas. So many that they risked swamping the other categories so I decided to pull them out into a separate post. What I’ve tried to do is select the best recording for each of the major operas. Same rules as the all time best category. To be considered the disk must be a worthwhile production, excellently performed and filmed and with better than average sound and video quality. So herewith the three da Ponte operas, the two major Singspiels, La clemenza di Tito and Idomeneo.
A Mountain of Mozart
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Well not strictly baroque. I wanted a category for pre-Mozart rep since so many houses (and audiences) ignore it and there are some very odd ideas about performing it. So we are going to cover ground from the earliest days of opera to the late 18th century here, including staged versions of oratorios, because I rather like them. Here, in rough order of composition, then are my picks; from Monteverdi to Rameau. 
The opera video recording is in some ways a rather recent phenomenon. Before the DVD there really wasn’t a very satisfactory way of distributing a product with a decent sound though there were TV broadcasts and some have been preserved in the catalogue. Most of the extant recordings are “made for TV” and tend to show the limitations of the technology of the time. Interestingly, most pre 1980 recordings are of films made in the studio and lip synched to a pre-recorded track. There are only a handful of recordings of live performances in the opera house plus some pioneering BBC recordings of Britten works where the singers are “live”.
operaramblings 