Donizetti: La Favorite

The most recent of these reissued sets is the 1999 recording of La Favorite, conducted by Marcello Viotti, who gets the long lines of Donizettis melodies just right and holds the big ensembles together well. His Munich forces play and sing handsomely. In Vesselina Kasarova we have a Léonor of admirable poise and beautiful tone (ClassicsToday.com). As Fernand, wrote BBC Music Magazine, Ramón Vargas is stylish and fluent in his two arias with their dauntingly high range. The whole recording was praised by Gramophone as a beautifully conceived and performed version of an opera too often encountered in its Italian guise, but here brought vividly to life in the original French.