The Opera Album
This is a remarkable collection: two and a half hours' worth of opera arias, duets, and a couple of choruses, and nary a dud among them. All the stars are here,  from Alagna to Schwarzkopf, with stops at Gheorghiu, Callas, Bjoerling,  Dessay, Gedda, Carreras, Popp, Domingo, Norman--and a bunch of others. And the  repertoire is wisely chosen: the gorgeous Flower Duet fromLakme, de los  Angeles singing Bizet's Habanera fromCarmen, the famousPearl Fishersduet (Gedda,  Blanc), Wally's exit into the snow fromLa Wally(Callas), the Barcarolle fromTales of Hoffmann(Jessye Norman and Ann Murray), "Largo al factotum" with an energetic Thomas Hampson asThe Barber of Seville, Domingo in "Celeste Aida," countertenor David Daniels in a Handel aria, the heavenly "Song to the Moon" fromRusalka, sung as in a dream by Lucia Popp, Caballe  asMadama Butterfly, and many more--37 tracks in all. Even if you already own some of these, having them all in one place makes for breathless, glorious listening.--Robert Levine