The audience for opera is growing, and there is a proliferation of new and reissued recordings available on CD. This is opera critic Alan Blyth's personal selection of the best 100 of them, from Britten to Berg, Monteverdi to Mozart and Gounod to Gershwin. He gives an appraisal of each CD selected, and also includes a concise list of alternatives, for readers who prefer vintage recordings or "authentic" performances.