Under Giacomo Puccini’s Panoply

[jlaurson]

Really, can it be that we haven't a Puccini thread? Not that I'd be visiting often, granted... but still. Seems an oversight. Well, let it be this, if there isn't already one.


Fresh from Forbes:



AUG 2, 2015
Turandot and Offenbach At The Bregenz Festival

...It might merit confessing that I'm not all that hot about Puccini and that I suffer from a general deficiency in appreciating Italian opera. That said, I consider Turandot the best compromise as far as quality and popularity is concerned.....

[Jaakko Keskinen]

My 2nd favorite opera composer! There really hasn't been a thread about him yet? Btw, should this be on the "Opera and vocal" board since composers like Verdi and Wagner, who mainly composed operas, have their threads there? Or should Wagner and Verdi threads be located here, at composer discussion?

[jlaurson]

My 2nd favorite opera composer! There really hasn't been a thread about him yet? Btw, should this be on the "Opera and vocal" board since composers like Verdi and Wagner, who mainly composed operas, have their threads there? Or should Wagner and Verdi threads be located here, at composer discussion?

Good question -- perhaps there is a Puccini thread there?

[vers la flamme]

Favorite Puccini recordings? Preferably in stereo and in good sound. I want to get more into his music.

[DavidW]

I like Turandot.  Here are a couple of quite different approaches:





I also like Sutherland who was my introduction.

[DavidW]

You might have more luck in the opera room btw.  That is where all the knowledgeable people hang out.

[JBS]

There's a bunch of hardy perennials: Callas's Tosca, Mehta's Turandot, Karajan's Boheme and Madama Butterfly.
But the alternatives to these are almost as good.
Fanciulla del West--all the versions I've heard are about the same in terms of quality.
La Rondine--I don't particulary care for it, and neither of the two recordings I'vs heard work for me.
Trittico: I don't like Il Tabarro or Suor Angelica, so I won't suggest anything for them, or for the trilogy as a whole. But I do like Gianni Schicchi, and have a soft spot for the recording on Naxos

[brewski]

This 2007 recording of La Bohème is a favorite, and I couldn't express it better than Thomas May does below. Yes, the soaring lines are all there, but there's also freshness, and the recording is excellent, capturing the La Scala orchestra as well as the singers. Also, the two leads were married at the time (though they divorced in 2013), which adds an extra layer to the relationship.

There are many classic versions, so if you have favorite singers, you might want to go down that rabbit hole, but this one checks off many boxes.

Anyway, highly recommended.

-Bruce

Quoted on Amazon:

"Get ready to hear Puccini's star-crossed bohemians as you've never heard them before. To be sure, not only is La Bohème probably the most widely performed opera, but it's one of the most frequently recorded, from the superb account under Thomas Beecham to Karajan's famous Decca version (still a best seller after nearly 30 years). And it's precisely because of the opera's popularity that clichés and overromanticized distortions have settled around performance practice. Riccardo Chailly's goal in making yet another Bohème was to clear these away, using a new critical edition of the score and respecting Puccini's own stated views on how the music should sound, how the drama should unfold. The result is a profoundly moving work of restoration that deserves to join the ranks of its formidable predecessors.

"To begin with, this Bohème features a young cast—all in their 30s—of some of today's most characterful singers who together convey the necessary vital sense of ensemble. Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna (the couple first met performing the opera at Covent Garden) bring overwhelming chemistry to Mimì and Rodolfo. For once, we hear the arias of their famous encounter in Act I not as set pieces but as part of a larger momentum in which both are swept up. Alagna, with a thrillingly full sound to his top range, portrays a many-faceted Rodolfo, from dreamy poet and ardent lover to the man broken by loss, while Gheorghiu's radiantly sympathetic Mimì is a study in the use of subtle vocal coloring to dramatic effect. Elisabetta Scano sings an unusually light-voiced Musetta, as transparent as a boy soprano—a fascinating contrast to Simon Keenlyside's robust and charismatic Marcello.

"Chailly's urgent, unsentimental approach to the score is, quite simply, a revelation, and the story moves forward briskly. His insight into tempo relation between the "big" numbers and transitional sections highlights Puccini's effect of comic high spirits mingling with intense pathos. Whether it's the aching solo cello in "Mi chiamano Mimì" or the impeccable diminuendo of the final tragic bars, Chailly's well-known mastery of detail foregrounds a lucid variety of colors and dynamics from La Scala's orchestra—its first recording of the opera in more than 30 years—that are often neglected in the music. The result is categorically a Bohème for our time."

—Thomas May

[JBS]

I like Turandot.  Here are a couple of quite different approaches:

I don't know if the latest remastering did anything to correct it, but they did an odd thing with the Emperor in that: he seems to have been recorded at a great distance, almost in a room down the hall. Perhaps to emphasize the remoteness of his imperial position. But it rendered him almost inaudible.
IIRC, the recording is mono, which magnified the problem.

[JBS]

You might have more luck in the opera room btw.  That is where all the knowledgeable people hang out.

Perhaps you can transfer this thread there?

[KevinP]

Frankly, I think we should dismantle most of the different rooms. Years ago there was more activity (not an exponential amount more, but still more) and segmenting that activity into different rooms made sense.

But now it's several different rooms with very little activity. The opera room has basically two threads that get regular activity. The jazz room (and I was one of the voices that petitioned for it) has one. The General room is basically just the massively active 'what are you listening to now' with a few pop-ups. The segmenting into different rooms just makes the activity we have look lesser than it is. If we merged everything into Classical Music and Diner (just as an example), we'd have two very active forums.

I don't think that's going to happen, and this isn't a battle I choose to fight, just an opinion I want to voice. Nothing to do with the great Puccini, sorry.

[DavidW]

I read by unread posts so no dog in the fight, but I'll let the mod team know Kevin.  Ultimately that comes down to Rob.

[San Antone]

One of my favorite Puccini box sets is this one:

GIACOMO PUCCINI
The Great Opera Collection
La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut,
La Fanciulla Del West, Turandot, Il Trittico
Tebaldi · Bergonzi · Del Monaco · Macneil · Corena · London

[Lisztianwagner]

I love de Sabata's performance of Tosca from Teatro alla Scala, with a superb cast; the sound quality is very fine, but I think it's a mono recording.

[ritter]

Today we commemorate 100 years of the passing of Giacomo Puccini in Brussels, on November 29th, 1924.

Listening to Act I of this classic performance of Turandot , form La Scala in 1964, with Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli and Galina Vishnesvskaya, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni.

Gavazzeni, apart from being an operatic conductor of the first rank, was also a very fine writer on musical matters. His essays on Puccini have been collected by his grandson Giovanni Gavazzeni in this book hat has just been released in Italy:



Some of the essays were already available in previously published books, but others are occasional texts that had not been collected until now. I've already received my copy, and look forward to at least browse it this weekend.