Rossini in Versailles - Caballé, Horne, Raimondi - Abbado 1985Gala concert in the style of the 1840s in honour of the composer Giaochino Rossini from the Royal Opera House of the Chateau de Versailles, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Claudio Abbado.
with: Montserrat Caballé, Enzo Dara, Samuel Ramey, Marilyn Horne, Francisco Araiza, Ruggero Raimondi, Eva Lind, Raquel Pierotti, Giorgio Surjan, Paul Brooke
This is a wonderful concert, as if done at Versailles as a homage to Rossini, who is played by an actor sitting in a box. Everyone is in second empire costume, everything is great fun, including Caballé playing the castanets. There are minor musical blemishes, as they filmed this live, but that matters little. Horne excels in Semiramide, the Spanish song in the intermission, and the Tancredi duet with Caballé, Raimondi and Ramey in arias from Il Viaggio a Reims, Caballé in Guillaume Tell, Araiza in the Stabat Mater; everything is expertly guided by Abbado. Truly a Rossini feast. --Comment IMDB
