The latest CD releases reviewed

PUCCINI: IL TRITTICO
Soloists: Piero Cappuccilli, Nicola Martinucci, Sylvia Sass, Rosalind Plowright, Juan Pons. Teatro Alla Scala Warner Music Vision **** 

With the current trend of seeking out and producing hitherto neglected baroque operas, the lesser known operas of Puccini and his contemporaries are suffering from comparative neglect. This is a pity, as there is much fine music in many of these works, none more so than in this release of Puccini's three one-act operas, known collectively as Il Trittico. While Gianni Schicchi is by common consent one of the fullest and funniest of all Italian comic operas, the other two, Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica, also have their magic Puccini moments. With the soloists all giving fine performances in the main parts in each of these one-acts, this single DVD (at a reasonable price) makes for a considerable bargain that can be confidently recommended to all lovers of Puccini's music. www.wmg.com Colman Morrissey

SLIPKNOT
Voliminal - Inside the Nine Roadrunner *

Metal novelty reaches a dull point with Slipknot, nine middle-aged men from Iowa who have taken to wearing onstage masks that suggest images subliminally glimpsed in the recurring nightmares of serial killers. The music is almost as bad. It's in the live arena that Slipknot kinda make sense: while the melody is bludgeoned to death in a series of nasty guitar-slasher moves, the stage show includes anonymous muppets going through mock-shock motions; it's so awful it's laughable. So is this in-concert DVD, which mixes live footage with pointless "arty" intercutting and backstage shenanigens such as vomiting roadies and a lengthy close-up of - yes, really - a toilet being unblocked. My, how audacious of them. Extras include promo videos, interviews and bonus live footage. Tony Clayton-Lea