What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

Started by Tsaraslondon, April 10, 2017, 04:29:04 AM

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Autumn Leaves

Quote from: Don Carlo on June 13, 2017, 04:51:15 AM
Did you buy the whole Tebaldi box or separated recordings?

I bought the individual (stereo) issues of La Boheme and Madama Butterfly from your box.
I commented on the box when you posted it last week and noted that it's now possibly OOP or down to the last few copies (as it's now very expensive).
Basically I couldn't afford the box and was just pointing out that you were lucky to own a copy (as Im sure its got a lot of good stuff in it)..

anothername

Quote from: Conor71 on June 13, 2017, 07:41:27 PM
I bought the individual (stereo) issues of La Boheme and Madama Butterfly from your box.
I commented on the box when you posted it last week and noted that it's now possibly OOP or down to the last few copies (as it's now very expensive).
Basically I couldn't afford the box and was just pointing out that you were lucky to own a copy (as Im sure its got a lot of good stuff in it)..

I bought the boc for €99.00 when it came out, on the other hand you better buy them separate, the whole box is a shamble to the artist.

Autumn Leaves

Quote from: Don Carlo on June 13, 2017, 08:04:56 PM
I bought the boc for €99.00 when it came out

The box was released in 2014 - why did you say this then?:

Quote from: Don Carlo on June 10, 2017, 08:54:09 PM


Just purchased this set

Just curious? (Im a pretty friendly person in case theres any doubt..)  ;)

Quote from: Don Carlo on June 13, 2017, 08:04:56 PM
on the other hand you better buy them separate, the whole box is a shamble to the artist.

I agree: Univeral Classics boxes are always pretty minimal - Sony and Warners sort of lead the way with their big Artist Commemorative boxes (stuff like the Rubinstein, glenn Gould and Callas boxes come to mind).

ComposerOfAvantGarde

Not a long one, but very intriguing


Autumn Leaves

#284
Now playing:



Recieved this recording in the mail this afternoon and now listening to it for the first time.
Edit: Almost finished the final Disc - found this not quite as compelling as Abbado's version but it is quite nice and can't really be faulted on anything other than individual preference.
Only a first listen so not a firm opinion.. :)

anothername

Quote from: Conor71 on June 13, 2017, 08:47:23 PM
The box was released in 2014 - why did you say this then?:

Just curious? (Im a pretty friendly person in case theres any doubt..)  ;)

I agree: Univeral Classics boxes are always pretty minimal - Sony and Warners sort of lead the way with their big Artist Commemorative boxes (stuff like the Rubinstein, glenn Gould and Callas boxes come to mind).

I do think that's a very reasonable price for 66 CD's , no idea how the prices are now, that's why.

Autumn Leaves

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 13, 2017, 02:08:23 AM


Fantastic transfer of this famous performance, a performance which changed the face of operatic history. This is absolutely where the bel canto revival started.

Callas is in fabulous form, and, though the opera is heavily cut, none of the Annas in the various studios sets (Sutherland, Sills, Souliotis, Gruberova) comes within a mile of her vocal and dramatic acumen and her supreme musicality. In the words of Richard Fairman in Opera on Record III, "she alone, of latter-day artists, has the power to grasp the emotional crux of every line and put it across."

Without doubt one of the most thrilling nights in Callas's career.

Review on my blog here https://tsaraslondon.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/anna-bolena-la-scala-milan-april-14-1957/

Thanks for this - I visited your Blog today and I was very impressed!.
I appreciate your enthusiasm for Callas - I dont know much about her or her discography yet.

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Conor71 on June 13, 2017, 10:14:02 PM
Now playing:



Recieved this recording in the mail this afternoon and now listening to it for the first time.
Edit: Almost finished the final Disc - found this not quite as compelling as Abbado's version but it is quite nice and can't really be faulted on anything other than individual preference.
Only a first listen so not a firm opinion.. :)

This is one of the two recordings of Carmen I own (the other is the Callas recording).

I bought it after seeing Baltsa and Carreras in the opera at Covent Garden, one of my most memorable evenings in the opera house. I do like their performances on this set, and also that of Jose Van Dam as Escamillo, but Ricciarelli, a singer I've enjoyed in other repertoire, is woefully miscast as Micaela. I don't like having the spoken dialogue delivered by actors, whose voices bear no relation to the singers', and, beautiful though much of the orchestral playing is, I find the speeds ponderous and slow. This is a heavy, Teutonic Carmen, not really to my taste. I keep it for the performances of the two principals, but that's the only reason really.

My favourites are, predictably, the Callas version, which is very French in feel, having been recorded in Paris with a mostly French cast, conductor, chorus and orchestra; the Abbado, probably the most central recommendation, and the Beecham, which is wonderfully suave and elegant, though De Los Angeles doesn't convince me for one moment that she would pull a knife on a fellow worker in a cat fight. Her singing is of course unfailingly musical.

Of these, Abbado's version uses the original spoken dialogue (spoken by the singers). The Callas and Beecham versions use the Guiraud recitatives, which were traditionally used back then.
\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Autumn Leaves

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 14, 2017, 01:36:45 AM
This is one of the two recordings of Carmen I own (the other is the Callas recording).

I bought it after seeing Baltsa and Carreras in the opera at Covent Garden, one of my most memorable evenings in the opera house. I do like their performances on this set, and also that of Jose Van Dam as Escamillo, but Ricciarelli, a singer I've enjoyed in other repertoire, is woefully miscast as Micaela. I don't like having the spoken dialogue delivered by actors, whose voices bear no relation to the singers', and, beautiful though much of the orchestral playing is, I find the speeds ponderous and slow. This is a heavy, Teutonic Carmen, not really to my taste. I keep it for the performances of the two principals, but that's the only reason really.

My favourites are, predictably, the Callas version, which is very French in feel, having been recorded in Paris with a mostly French cast, conductor, chorus and orchestra; the Abbado, probably the most central recommendation, and the Beecham, which is wonderfully suave and elegant, though De Los Angeles doesn't convince me for one moment that she would pull a knife on a fellow worker in a cat fight. Her singing is of course unfailingly musical.

Of these, Abbado's version uses the original spoken dialogue (spoken by the singers). The Callas and Beecham versions use the Guiraud recitatives, which were traditionally used back then.


Thanks for your response - I haven't tried Callas or Beecham's version yet but I'll keep them in mind:
I don't have any experience with Callas' recordings from the 1950's yet - I bought her Madama Butterfly with Karajan/La Scala from 1955 and it's pretty much an experiment to see how I find the sound from this series of recordings.
Im not fully allergic to Mono recordings and have a number of Jazz and Rock recordings from the 50's/60's in Mono which I enjoy a lot but not many Classical recordings in Mono that I would listen to very often.
But I am curious about Callas - If I like the MB I will possibly pick up more of her recordings :).

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Conor71 on June 14, 2017, 01:17:51 AM
Thanks for this - I visited your Blog today and I was very impressed!.
I appreciate your enthusiasm for Callas - I dont know much about her or her discography yet.

Thank you.

As you will have noted, Callas is my passion, but there are a couple of blog posts about other opera recordings.

Callas divides opinion to this day. The voice, a magnificent one in her early days, is completely individual and was never conventionally beautiful, and she was never afraid to sacrifice beauty of tone to expressive use of the voice. But even those who dislike her voice would aver her fantastic musicality.There is no doubt she was one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, something that cannot be said of a lot of singers.

That said, there are those who just don't like the sound of her voice, even when she was at her peak. I accept that. But, if you do get the bug, the rewards are infinite.

\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Conor71 on June 14, 2017, 01:51:44 AM
Thanks for your response - I haven't tried Callas or Beecham's version yet but I'll keep them in mind:
I don't have any experience with Callas' recordings from the 1950's yet - I bought her Madama Butterfly with Karajan/La Scala from 1955 and it's pretty much an experiment to see how I find the sound from this series of recordings.
Im not fully allergic to Mono recordings and have a number of Jazz and Rock recordings from the 50's/60's in Mono which I enjoy a lot but not many Classical recordings in Mono that I would listen to very often.
But I am curious about Callas - If I like the MB I will possibly pick up more of her recordings :).

All Callas's recordings up until 1957 are mono, and that year, though the Il Barbiere di Siviglia, recorded in London, is stereo, all the recordings she made in Milan are in mono. It is a great pity that Legge was so wary of mono. Decca were making excellent stereo recordings with Tebaldi at the same time. That said, some are better than others; the famous De Sabata Tosca, recorded in 1953, is particularly good.

The Madama Butterfly is a bit boxy, but sounds well enough to me in the recent Warner pressing, though obviously not as lush as Karajan's second Decca recording. My review of it here

https://tsaraslondon.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/madama-butterfly/

\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Autumn Leaves

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 14, 2017, 02:00:02 AM
All Callas's recordings up until 1957 are mono, and that year, though the Il Barbiere di Siviglia, recorded in London, is stereo, all the recordings she made in Milan are in mono. It is a great pity that Legge was so wary of mono. Decca were making excellent stereo recordings with Tebaldi at the same time. That said, some are better than others; the famous De Sabata Tosca, recorded in 1953, is particularly good.

The Madama Butterfly is a bit boxy, but sounds well enough to me in the recent Warner pressing, though obviously not as lush as Karajan's second Decca recording. My review of it here

https://tsaraslondon.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/madama-butterfly/

Excellent - thanks for your replies :).
I'll be sure to check out your review of the MB recording soon.

Marsch MacFiercesome

#292
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 13, 2017, 02:08:23 AM


Fantastic transfer of this famous performance, a performance which changed the face of operatic history. This is absolutely where the bel canto revival started.

Callas is in fabulous form, and, though the opera is heavily cut, none of the Annas in the various studios sets (Sutherland, Sills, Souliotis, Gruberova) comes within a mile of her vocal and dramatic acumen and her supreme musicality. In the words of Richard Fairman in Opera on Record III, "she alone, of latter-day artists, has the power to grasp the emotional crux of every line and put it across."

Without doubt one of the most thrilling nights in Callas's career.

Review on my blog here https://tsaraslondon.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/anna-bolena-la-scala-milan-april-14-1957/

^ I

*LOVE*

this

review!

- especially the much fuller in extenso exegesis of it at your site.

I couldn't agree more with the analysis and conclusions. . . and of course how- for some of us at any rate- Callas' innate musicality coupled with her ingenious dramatic instincts just sends galvanizing seismic shifts of emotional resonances though us.

For me, her singing may not always be the most beautiful 'singing,' but it is without cavil or question the most beautifully 'expressed,' the most 'moving,' and the most dramatically 'true.'

No artist moves me like she does.

Callas' characterization of Anna Bolena can be so alternately tender and loving- and then shifting gears: so absolutely-and-incandescently 'thrill-ing' at the same time-  that my emotions are just all over the map!

If Aristotle ever needed a more concrete artistic example of how catharsis is attained, the shining exemplar of Callas' Anna Bolena is it.

She's not just the singer of the century, but (I imagine) the Singer of Many Centuries.









Easier slayed than done. Is anyone shocked that I won?

kishnevi

#293
A Marsch sighting! Good to see you.
TD
I may have heard this opera a few decades ago on a Met matinee broadcast, but if  I did I don't remember it. So this was effectively a first listen.


Since it's based on Schiller, the story is a bit convoluted/improbable, and the music sometimes falls into the merely oom pah pad blood and bombast type of Verdi. But much of the music rises above that, anyway.

Besides, sometimes you need oom pah pah blood and bombast Verdi.

The recording is the first of six in this set.


(The other five: Trovatore, Sicilian Vespers, Forza del Destino, Aida, Otello)

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on June 14, 2017, 06:10:36 PM
A Marsch sighting! Good to see you.
TD
I may have heard this opera a few decades ago on a Met matinee broadcast, but if  I did I don't remember it. So this was effectively a first listen.


Since it's based on Schiller, the story is a bit convoluted/improbable, and the music sometimes falls into the merely oom pah pad blood and bombast type of Verdi. But much of the music rises above that, anyway.

Besides, sometimes you need oom pah pah blood and bombast Verdi.

The recording is the first of six in this set.


(The other five: Trovatore, Sicilian Vespers, Forza del Destino, Aida, Otello)
Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on June 14, 2017, 06:10:36 PM
A Marsch sighting! Good to see you.
TD
I may have heard this opera a few decades ago on a Met matinee broadcast, but if  I did I don't remember it. So this was effectively a first listen.


Since it's based on Schiller, the story is a bit convoluted/improbable, and the music sometimes falls into the merely oom pah pad blood and bombast type of Verdi. But much of the music rises above that, anyway.

Besides, sometimes you need oom pah pah blood and bombast Verdi.

The recording is the first of six in this set.


(The other five: Trovatore, Sicilian Vespers, Forza del Destino, Aida, Otello)

If these are all Sony recordings, none of them are quite the best representatives of the various operas, despite the presence of Domingo.

For Luisa Miller, I always head for Moffo/Bergonzi on RCA, Caballe/Pavarotti on Decca or Riccciarelli/Domingo on DG.
Caballe sings gloriously, but I don't really believe in her as a village girl, Moffo is also at her best and I find her portrayal a little more sympathetic. Ricciarelli is the most affecting of all, but also the most vocally fallible. All three tenors are superb. Best conducted is probably the Decca under Maag.

It's an important opera in Verdi's development, the duets for father and daughter hunting at what Verdi would eventually achieve in the Violeta/Germont duets in La Traviata.
\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Marsch MacFiercesome on June 14, 2017, 11:08:19 AM
^ I

*LOVE*

this

review!

- especially the much fuller in extenso exegesis of it at your site.

I couldn't agree more with the analysis and conclusions. . . and of course how- for some of us at any rate- Callas' innate musicality coupled with her ingenious dramatic instincts just sends galvanizing seismic shifts of emotional resonances though us.

For me, her singing may not always be the most beautiful 'singing,' but it is without cavil or question the most beautifully 'expressed,' the most 'moving,' and the most dramatically 'true.'

No artist moves me like she does.

Callas' characterization of Anna Bolena can be so alternately tender and loving- and then shifting gears: so absolutely-and-incandescently 'thrill-ing' at the same time-  that my emotions are just all over the map!

If Aristotle ever needed a more concrete artistic example of how catharsis is attained, the shining exemplar of Callas' Anna Bolena is it.

She's not just the singer of the century, but (I imagine) the Singer of Many Centuries.




How fabulous to have you back!

\"A beautiful voice is not enough.\" Maria Callas

Marsch MacFiercesome

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on June 14, 2017, 06:10:36 PM
A Marsch sighting! Good to see you.
TD
I may have heard this opera a few decades ago on a Met matinee broadcast, but if  I did I don't remember it. So this was effectively a first listen.


Since it's based on Schiller, the story is a bit convoluted/improbable, and the music sometimes falls into the merely oom pah pad blood and bombast type of Verdi. But much of the music rises above that, anyway.

Besides, sometimes you need oom pah pah blood and bombast Verdi.

The recording is the first of six in this set.


(The other five: Trovatore, Sicilian Vespers, Forza del Destino, Aida, Otello)

Hi Jeffrey!- the enthusiasm's mutual; especially with 'Verdi' fans ;D . . .

Switching gears from pleasantries: The sometimes repetitive and pedictable "oom-pah-pah" of Verdi's orchestration never really chafes on me because his vocal lines (as opposed to the merely orchestral ones) are just so absolutely dramatically stellar.

I may incline to Wagner and Strauss' 'orchestrations' but I vastly prefer the dramatic finessings of Verdi when it comes to the singing. . . . . . . 'and,' Donizetti, 'and' Bellini, and even Rossini for that matter.

I'll take the dramatic powerhousings of Callas' Armida or Lady Macbeth over Brunnhilde any 'day.'
Easier slayed than done. Is anyone shocked that I won?

Marsch MacFiercesome

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 15, 2017, 02:04:35 AM
How fabulous to have you back!

And how fabulous to bask in such illustrious company.

Cheers.
Easier slayed than done. Is anyone shocked that I won?

kishnevi

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 15, 2017, 01:00:38 AM
If these are all Sony recordings, none of them are quite the best representatives of the various operas, despite the presence of Domingo.
I have a few recordings of Aida and Otello already, but the others are ones I will be probably be content with one recording only.   In fact, I don't remember ever hearing Vespri before (unless that too was broadcast by the Met matinee, which it may well have been).  Aida and Otello, on the other hand, I will be soon getting at least one more each.  Such is the way things go, each will have Domingo.  Meaning I will have three Domingo Otellos and two Domingo Radames.

But my liking for Domingo goes well back, since I decided that out of "I Tre Tenori" he seemed to be the best actor.   Watching Luciano can be like watching a large ham walk aimlessly around the stage. (A very very large ham by the time he got to the end of his career.)  Then, a few years ago, I got two recordings of Don Carlo at the same time, and was able to a back to back comparison of the two.  Domingo won.

Quote
For Luisa Miller, I always head for Moffo/Bergonzi on RCA, Caballe/Pavarotti on Decca or Riccciarelli/Domingo on DG.
Caballe sings gloriously, but I don't really believe in her as a village girl, Moffo is also at her best and I find her portrayal a little more sympathetic. Ricciarelli is the most affecting of all, but also the most vocally fallible. All three tenors are superb. Best conducted is probably the Decca under Maag.
I'll keep this in mind if I do ever go for another recordings.
Quote
It's an important opera in Verdi's development, the duets for father and daughter hunting at what Verdi would eventually achieve in the Violeta/Germont duets in La Traviata.

I noticed them.  And the father son scenes between the Count and Rodolfo weren't shabby either.

kishnevi

Quote from: Marsch MacFiercesome on June 15, 2017, 07:20:08 AM
Hi Jeffrey!- the enthusiasm's mutual; especially with 'Verdi' fans ;D . . .

Switching gears from pleasantries: The sometimes repetitive and pedictable "oom-pah-pah" of Verdi's orchestration never really chafes on me because his vocal lines (as opposed to the merely orchestral ones) are just so absolutely dramatically stellar.

I may incline to Wagner and Strauss' 'orchestrations' but I vastly prefer the dramatic finessings of Verdi when it comes to the singing. . . . . . . 'and,' Donizetti, 'and' Bellini, and even Rossini for that matter.

I'll take the dramatic powerhousings of Callas' Armida or Lady Macbeth over Brunnhilde any 'day.'


Have to disagree with you.  But then I'm the one that just actually did the Ring in four days (last week). :P