What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[ritter]

Gioachino Rossini : La donna del lago

Elena: Rosanna Carteri
Giacomo V (Uberto): Cesare Valletti
Malcolm Groeme: Irène Companeez
Rodrigo di Dhu: Eddy Ruhl
Douglas d'Angus: Paolo Washington
Serano / Bertrando: Valiano Natali
Albina: Carmen Piccini

Tullio Serafin
Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Nice opera and great cast. The problem is that one of the best pieces of the work, the concluding rondò for the lead female, Tanti affetti (one of Rossini's great creations) is omitted entirely from the performances. What could Tullio Serafin be thinking?

[Tsaraslondon]

Time can be an ally when it comes to assessing things from the past. I bought this set when it came out and didn't like it much. Three of the four principals disappointed me. This is THE opera where competition is at its fiercest. I won't bother detailing what irritated me back then. Suffice to say that rehearing redressed the balance substantially - to the point where i can recommend this as one of the - let's say - 5 best performances on record.

First: glorious orchestral playing, great conducting and superb engineering.
Second: a very sensitive portrayal of Aïda. Past the first Act where her voice is apt to sound stressed in the big ensembles, Anja Harteros gives a sensitive and beautifully vocalized portrayal of the eponymous heroine. Spendid pianissimo high notes - not on a Caballé level, but not far.
Third: a superb mezzo (Ekaterina Semenchuk), gutsy yet very sensual sounding. Patrician, womanly - not a man-eater ogress.
Fourth: the noble Radamès of Jonas Kaufmann. A rather over delicate, over refined 'Celeste Aïda', but a good voice (more baritonal than tenorish), good characterization, very sensitive to the mood of the scenes. The last iteration of 'si schiude in ciel' is to die for.

Ramfis and King of Egypt are very solid. The Priestess' incantations are miked closer than usual, as if she was just ahead of the procession, not in some remote locqtion. I could wish for more venom and fanaticism from Ramfis, but this is a good enough ersatz.

I am still disappointed by Tézier's Amonasro. Good voice, but little bite, not enough grit and amplitude of voice. Better than the cartoonish, mustache-twirling of some old school baritones (Leonard Warren), but a disappointment nonetheless. The drama in Aïda rests on the shoulders of the scorned lover (Amneris) and the battle-weary warrior (Amonasro).

When it's all said and done, Aïda is an opera that rises or falls on a quintet of 4 singers and a conductor/orchestra. Get 4 out of 5 right and you've got a winner. I'll keep this one.

I'm more in the other direction. I rather enjoyed this recording when it was first issued, but I find it's the last of my six recordings of the work that I pull down from the shelf, when I want to listen to the opera (the others are Callas live in Mexico 1951 and London 1953 and in the studio in 1955, Muti with Caballé and Karajan II with Freni).

Orchestrally and sonically it's splendid, but, to be honest, the only one of the principals I really like is Kaufmann. Harteros is touching, but vocally not a patch on Callas, Caballé or Freni. Likewise Semenchuk is a bit too generalised, and nowhere near as interesting as Dominguez, Simionato, Barbieri, Cossotto or my personal favourite, Baltsa.
 

[André]

I'm more in the other direction. I rather enjoyed this recording when it was first issued, but I find it's the last of my six recordings of the work that I pull down from the shelf, when I want to listen to the opera (the others are Callas live in Mexico 1951 and London 1953 and in the studio in 1955, Muti with Caballé and Karajan II with Freni).

Orchestrally and sonically it's splendid, but, to be honest, the only one of the principals I really like is Kaufmann. Harteros is touching, but vocally not a patch on Callas, Caballé or Freni. Likewise Semenchuk is a bit too generalised, and nowhere near as interesting as Dominguez, Simionato, Barbieri, Cossotto or my personal favourite, Baltsa.
 

We're of one mind when it comes to Caballé/Muti and Freni/Karajan. I can't really enjoy the first two Callas recordings you mention because of the precarious sound, but the studio one is definitely up there with Callas, Tucker, Gobbi and Serafin at their best (that's 4 out of 5, so I'm good 😉).

[JBS]

Part of


The composer:


If he looks a little put out, he has reason to be.

This was premiered in Venice a few months before the Mozart/Da Ponte version, with the title role sung by the tenor who created Don Ottavio for Mozart. Oddly enough, a third opera on the same subject was premiered the same evening at another theater in Venice.

Gazzaniga's opera is much shorter than Mozart's--one act lasting about 1 3/4 hours--but it's obvious Da Ponte took over almost all of it for his libretto (including the Catalog Aria) although he obviously added and improved a good deal. He did omit two roles--a fourth woman wooed by Don Giovanni, and a second servant who appears in the final scene. Also not in Mozart are the fireworks accompanying the Don's descent to Hell and the final tarantella danced by the remaining characters, which the Orfeo booklet says were included because the premiere was during the Carnival season.

Synopsis from Wikipedia

With his manservant Pasquariello keeping watch outside, Don Giovanni attempts to seduce Donna Anna. Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, challenges Giovanni to a duel and is killed. Ottavio, Anna's fiancé, swears vengeance. Meanwhile Don Giovanni encounters his old lover, Donna Elvira outside the walls of Villena. As Don Giovanni woos Donna Ximena, Pasquariello gives Elvira a detailed account all his master's amorous conquests. Maturina and Biagio, accompanied by a party of peasants, arrive. Maturina and Biagio are about to be married, but Don Giovanni chases off a furious Biagio and attempts (unsuccessfully) to seduce Maturina.

Don Giovanni and Pasquariello follow Ottavio when he visits the Commendatore's tomb. Pasquariello is terrified when he hears the statue accept an invitation to dinner. Later that evening at Don Giovanni's house, Elvira pleads with the Don to mend his ways. She leaves when he refuses. Giovanni and Pasquariello enjoy their dinner and sing the praises of food, wine, and Venetian women. The statue suddenly arrives and drags Don Giovanni to his death. Ottavio and the women enter. Pasquariello and Lanterna describe Giovanni's fate to them. The opera ends as all rejoice at his downfall.

This is one of three audio recordings of the opera. There are also two productions available on DVD.

[JBS]

Next up from the Orfeo set, a one-act Orientalisme from Bizet



Reading the plot synopsis, it seems best to ignore the story and enjoy the music, which is very good, especially when Ms. Popp is involved, but there's also a tenor/baritone duet at the start that's just as good as the one in The Pearlfishers.

There are at least three other recordings of this opera, including a recent one from Bru Zane (part of a larger set devoted to le Bizet inconnu) and (if you insist on knowing what the characters are saying)a live recording in English from 1957.

[JBS]

Another from the Orfeo Opera Rarities set


The main competition to this recording is a live performance with Caballe from 1961 Bremen that seems to be OOP.

There's also this listed on Amazon but unknown to either Wikipedia or Discogs.  Going by the list of performances in Wikipedia's article on this opera, it's probably from 1946 or 1948.


I just started listening to this recording, so the only thing I can remark about it is that like the other two operas I've already listened to, the volume is extremely low and requires button fiddling to be audible.

[Kalevala]

Another from the Orfeo Opera Rarities set


The main competition to this recording is a live performance with Caballe from 1961 Bremen that seems to be OOP.

There's also this listed on Amazon but unknown to either Wikipedia or Discogs.  Going by the list of performances in Wikipedia's article on this opera, it's probably from 1946 or 1948.


I just started listening to this recording, so the only thing I can remark about it is that like the other two operas I've already listened to, the volume is extremely low and requires button fiddling to be audible.

I haven't heard of that opera before.  Besides the audible issues, what do you think of the music and the lyrics/story?

K

[JBS]

I haven't heard of that opera before.  Besides the audible issues, what do you think of the music and the lyrics/story?

K

It's extremely good Dvorak.
It's not that great of an opera.

[Tsaraslondon]

[San Antone]

Stravinsky : Mavra

[JBS]

Another installment from Orfeo's Opera Rarities set.


So far (near the end of Act I), the music seems like Verdi without melodies mixed up with Wagner without leitmotivs. The story is an episode in legendary Czech history.
Sung in Czech, of course, which is probably an impediment to enjoying it for non-Czech speakers, since the flow of the music seems tied to the words more than other operas.

There are three competing recordings: two on Supraphon and one involving the forces of Czech Radio dating to 1950.

[San Antone]

Debussy : Pelléas et Mélisande
Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Singers
Camille Maurane, Suzanne Danco, Henry Etchéverry, André Vessières, Marjorie Westbury, Oda Slobodskaya

[JBS]

Another installment of the Orfeo Rarities set


Just under 80 minutes so it's shorter than some one act operas. Recorded in 1981 but not released until 1996.
I am liking what I hear.

There are three other recordings.


There are also various clips and a complete performance  from 1989 in Zagreb on YouTube.

[Wendell_E]

I've been in the mood for Mussorgsky.

[Tsaraslondon]

This was my first recording of Fidelio, just as Helga Dernesch was my first Leonore, and I still love it. When I changed from LP to CD, I bowed to popular opinion and bought the Klemperer, but I honestly found it disappointing. I got rid of it and bought the Karajan, which I find bitingly dramatic and the cast is at least as good as the Klemperer, maybe even better.

Here is the LP cover of the one I had.

[ritter]

I've been in the mood for Mussorgsky.

Both those recordings are in my collection, Wendell, but I haven't listened to them in ages.

IIRC, Abbado's Khovanshchina includes the chorus that Stravinsky wrote for the score. OTOH, I read somewhere that the Boris Godunov from Berlin was one of the most (if not the most) expemsive opera recording ever made, and sales were dismal.

I should revisit both sets soon.

[JBS]

One last bite of the Orfeo Rarities set




This Boheme is darker and more cynical than Puccini's version.  The male Bohemiams are not so admirable; the Marcello-Musetta relationship takes up more space, with Marcello assigned to the tenor and Rodolfo to the baritone.
Although the opera starts and ends on two successive Christmases, there's no Parpignol and no crowd of children marching about. Mimi is not faithful to Rodolfo, and other less important differences make it less genial than Puccini.



(Scene from a Paris production in 1899)

Musically the opera seems excellent and is probably worth having in one's library. There are other recordings, including one from 1958 with Ettore Bastianini, one from LA Fenice on Nouvo Era, and a DVD production.

As for the Orfeo set, I would say three of the operas make it worth getting--this one, the Bizet, and the Massenet.
And if you don't want the full set, those three operas are worth getting on their own in one or another recording.

[ritter]

A classic recording of an early Verdi opera: Thomas Schippers conducts Ernani, with Carlo Bergonzi, Leontyne Price, Mario Sereni and Ezio Flagello.

[San Antone]

Vivaldi : Argippo
Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi

[Kalevala]

Vivaldi : Argippo
Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi

I have one CD with him conducting (which I recall liking) and another one in a box to be either resold or donated.  It was a Vivaldi one and I felt like that he was galloping along way too fast (40 mph?  Non-opera).  I'd appreciate your comments.

K