Recommend a gift for a dying opera buff

[Aftermath Fan]

My aunt is 82 and dying of cancer. She is comfortable but has 6-12
months to live and this will (barring a miracle) be her last
Christmas.

She is a great opera lover. However, she's been "out of the scene"
for the last few years due to her illness.

I'd like to get her some CDs for Christmas, but am not as
knowledgeable as she. Can anyone recommend some excellent recent
recordings? Any format would be fine - complete operas, performances
of arias, etc. Other choral music would be fine (I'm already planning
to give her a copy of Rachmaninoff's Vespers)

I do know that Lucia di Lammamoor is her favorite opera and she is not
a big Wagner fan.

Thanks in advance!

[Mike]

I can't imagine anything more buoyant than a(nother) Marriage of
Figaro. I just added the recently-released Glyndebourne CD set
(Amazon link follows) to my Figaro collection; it's at the very top,
together with the legendary Kleiber and Leinsdorf recordings.
http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Le-nozze-di-Figaro/dp/B0018J90L2/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1228527457&sr=1-6

[Stephen Jay-Taylor]

I don't know where in the world you are, and this might have some bearing on local availablity of various products. But as a simple suggestion, why don't you set her up with a basic DVD player, do the necessary simple connections yourself, and then let her watch Lucia di Lammermoor, perhaps the Met's with Sutherland and Pavarotti on DG, or the more recent - but not cranky - Châtelet staging, with Ciofi and Alagna, on TDK. And the new Covent Garden La Fille du Régiment on Virgin/EMI has enough vocal thrills from Dessay and Florez, coupled with a knockabout farce plot, to cheer anyone up..

 

SJT