O Holy Night / Luciano Pavarotti / Special Deluxe Edition (Decca)

 (23 customer reviews)

For enjoying the spirit of the Christmas season, I rely on The Time Life Platinum Christmas Collection, "Treasury of Christmas I", 3 CD set of 36 songs by various artists, UPC 1130-11311-2. But for the MEANING of Christmas, only Pavarotti's renditions of these timeless, beautiful songs meet the challange. I've listened to others, from Il Divo to Carerras and Domingo, but none meld the scores, arrangements and precise delivery and have the same effect upon the listener. This is Pavarotti, the ultimate tenor, recorded at his best.

My wife and I love Christmas music, but this album is in a class by itself. It is opera, classical music, Christmas carols, and the most heartfelt and expressive personal expression of religious feeling. It is exalted and joyous, and to my wife and me, inexpressively beautiful. We're listening to "O Holy Night" as I type this on Christmas Eve, as we've listened to this album since its release, several times each year before and after Christmas. Each year, I discover new depths and new appreciation for songs that we maybe didn't hear as clearly previously.

Forget the aging Pavarotti singing with diminished voice into a microphone to packed arenas, handkerchief in hand. This was recorded in January 1976 in England when Pavarotti was in his prime, movingly expressing his deep religious feeling through magnificent music. The great opera conductor Kurt Herbert Adler of the Chicago Lyric Opera and then Music Director of the San Francisco Opera perfectly led the National...Read more

These are the great musical selections that only Pavarotti can do justice. To put them into the hands of someone else would be a disservice to both the composer and the listener.