Kathleen Battle Edition (15CD Box Set)

A Limited Edition, Original Jackets collection showcasing the artistry of the magnificent American soprano, Kathleen Battle.

Kathleen Battle enraptured opera audiences of the 1980s and 1990s. Here was a lyric soprano combining unsurpassable beauty of tone with a keen musical intelligence, a way with words and a communicative warmth that drew listeners to Strauss and spirituals alike. She has the easy phrasing of a great jazz singer combined with the breath, breadth and precise projection of a trained voice.

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James Levine coached her at the Metropolitan Opera, and when he accompanied her at the 1984 Salzburg Festival and DG recorded the recital as Battle’s debut solo album, nothing less than a phenomenon was launched. She had been admired as a gifted singer since the age of eight, and a 1985 article in Time magazine declared that she was "the greatest lyric coloratura soprano in the world."

Her performances at the Met of Susanna, Despina, Pamina and other lyric roles in the great Mozart operas, conducted by Levine, established her as one of the world’s leading interpreters of this repertoire. Recorded near the end of her DG association, Battle and Levine recorded arias from those roles for an album which became a radiantly beautiful souvenir of an era when they formed an artistic team as celebrated and accomplished in their way as Schwarzkopf and Karajan or Nilsson and Solti.

However, Battle had already recorded for several labels, and this Eloquence box uniquely brings together selected albums she made for Angel (the US branch of EMI – those which have repatriated to Universal Music Group) with the DG recitals. They include an imaginatively programmed guitar recital with Christopher Parkening and excerpts from a Messiah led by Sir Andrew Davis in Toronto.

These Handel arias feature on a new compilation within the album, Kathleen Battle sings Sacred Music, which also features excerpts from her appearances in Levine’s DG recordings of The Creation by Haydn and the C minor Mass by Mozart, as well as Poulenc’s Gloria and the ‘Pie Jesu’ from Fauré’s Requiem.

Two further albums showcase excerpts from more complete albums: one of Handel and Mozart arias, including the celebrated Semele recording with John Nelson, and another of operatic and concert arias, including a staggering ‘Grossmächtige Prinzessin’ (Ariadne, with Levine) and the touching songs from the Ozawa recording of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Featuring a new essay on the soprano and the background to her meteoric career by David Patrick Stearns, the set will be an essential acquisition for all lovers of lyric soprano artistry.

TRACK LIST

CD 1
J.S. BACH Arias
Itzhak Perlman
John Nelson

CD 2
MOZART Opera Arias
James Levine

CD 3
Bel Canto – Italian Opera Arias
Bruno Campanella

CD 4
French Opera Arias
Myung-Whun Chung
CD 5
Honey and Rue
André Previn

CD 6
Live in Tokyo 1988
Plácido Domingo
James Levine

CD 7
Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall
Margo Garrett

CD 8
Salzburg Recital
James Levine

CD 9
SCHUBERT Lieder
James Levine

CD 10
Spirituals in Concert
Jessye Norman
James Levine
CD 11
Pleasures of their Company
Christopher Parkening

CD 12
A Christmas Celebration
Leonard Slatkin

CD 13
Kathleen Battle sings Sacred Music
Mozart · Haydn · Handel · Poulenc · Fauré
James Levine ∙ Andrew Davis
Seiji Ozawa ∙ Carlo Maria Giulini

CD 14
Kathleen Battle sings Handel and Mozart
John Nelson · Sir Georg Solti · Herbert von Karajan · Alain Lombard

CD 15
Kathleen Battle sings Opera and Concert Arias
Rossini ∙ Donizetti ∙ Verdi ∙ J. Strauss II · R. Strauss ∙ Wagner ∙ Mendelssohn
Claudio Abbado ∙ Ion Marin ∙ James Levine · Sir Georg Solti ∙ Herbert Von Karajan ∙ Seiji Ozawa