# Need some help/recommendations - Diva recordings



## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Well, between the Opera News article and the thread on great female singers of the past on this forum, I was starting to get the itch to sample some recordings of Claudia Muzio.

I went to Amazon and started to get a bit confused by the choices (and the prices), till I remembered to check my library system where I found a Muzio CD from Nimbus which I promptly ordered.

The problem is, while I was at Amazon, I came across another Nimbus CD called DIVAS 1906-1935 (which my library does not have) and it sounded really intriguing.

Does anyone here have this CD? How would you rate it? Or any others like it?


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

The DIVAS cds are compilations of great female singers of the past. 

This collection is nice, but usually you can find most of those arias in youtube those days. There are other collections of course.

About Claudia Muzio, really her best collection is this one:










Muzio was already very sick (she will die within one year of recording those arias), in relative poverty, the recordings were funded by his great friend, colleague and admirer Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, and her voice was not in top form. She was never completely at ease with top notes, but she was also unable to use her fiato as in her younger days, due to the illness, and some sounds were not produced with the right intonation.... but this means nothing when you hear those arias and you forget is Claudia Muzio singing. You are listening to Violetta Valery, to Floria Tosca, to Maddalena di Coigny,...

Just listen to this incredible "Addio del Passato":


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Thanks, schigolch. My best opportunity to really listen to vocal music is on my commute in the car. I can get by with orchestral/instrumental at work, but vocal music needs to be turned down so far I can barely hear it. So, I think I may get the DIVAS disc anyway.

But, thanks for the recommendation on the Muzio CD. That particular disc seems to be out of print, and used copies are going for about $60 US on Amazon (US). (Amazon UK is even worse) Do you know of any better sources for it?

I can get a similar album from a different label (Preiser Records) at I-Tunes for $10. Any knowledge of that one?


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

This is another collection of Muzio's arias from before the 1930s. It's fine too, but not the Columbia recordings.


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