This Luciano Pavarotti box set represents the high-density, no-frills approach to opera marketing, shoehorning four of the tenor's complete Puccini operas into a package smaller than a double jewel case. Considering that the recordings themselves are all from the big-budget 1970s when Pavarotti was in his prime, and that the La bohème and Turandot performances (some might include Madama Butterfly) can be considered "go to" choices for overall musical quality, the value becomes even more impressive. The downside is the ...
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This Luciano Pavarotti box set represents the high-density, no-frills approach to opera marketing, shoehorning four of the tenor's complete Puccini operas into a package smaller than a double jewel case. Considering that the recordings themselves are all from the big-budget 1970s when Pavarotti was in his prime, and that the La bohème and Turandot performances (some might include Madama Butterfly) can be considered "go to" choices for overall musical quality, the value becomes even more impressive. The downside is the complete absence of texts, translations, and the other interesting materials that usually come with operatic recordings. If you need those things, and can't conveniently get them from somewhere else, this album won't be of any use to you. Herbert von Karajan's 1973 La bohème, with Pavarotti, Mirella Freni, Rolando Panerai, and Nicolai Ghiarov, is the standout of this collection -- very nearly the perfect recording of the opera, and certainly one of Pavarotti's finest efforts. The...
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