VERDI King of Italian Opera

Started by marvinbrown, April 20, 2007, 12:50:59 PM

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Drasko

#260
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 22, 2009, 11:13:16 PM
Will we therefore find performances of Verdi's greatest opera becoming few and far between? Will it become as much a rarity on stage as Bellini's Norma, though, it has to be noted, that these days the latter is played more often than it once was, with any amount of unsuitable sopranos in the leading role.

Quote from: knight on June 23, 2009, 01:37:07 PM
There will always be somebody who will take it on

I think we'll get stuck with those 11 Tristans singing it, how will that sound stylistically I'd rather not think.
But I guess that would still be better than none.

Brünnhilde ewig

Quote from: Drasko on June 24, 2009, 04:25:05 AM
I think we'll get stuck with those 11 Tristans singing it, how will that sound stylistically I'd rather not think.
But I guess that would still be better than none.

Tristan on Verdi's Veranda? No objections from me because I can't believe that Ian Storey has not been mentioned. His performance in the Barenboim/Chéreau Tristan und Isolde is awesame, both singing and acting. Yes, it was in 2007, he is still very much alive!


Drasko

Could anyone tell me anything about this disc:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Operas-Otello-Opera-Guild/dp/B000OGSMAA



I presume it's a collection of arias or excerpts from Otello by different singers who at one time or another sung in it at the Met, starting with Francesco Tamagno himself (didn't know he made any recordings). But can't find actual tracklisting anywhere, and what is the quality of transfers?

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Drasko on June 26, 2009, 06:51:43 AM


I presume it's a collection of arias or excerpts from Otello by different singers who at one time or another sung in it at the Met, starting with Francesco Tamagno himself (didn't know he made any recordings). But can't find actual tracklisting anywhere, and what is the quality of transfers?

Can't help you I'm afraid. The only recording I know of Tamagno is a brief excerpt, with piano, of him singing the Esulatate, and I'm assuming it is that which is on the disc. He was already quite old when he recorded it, but there is no denying the power of his voice.

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

Drasko

#264
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on June 26, 2009, 01:51:15 PM
Can't help you I'm afraid. The only recording I know of Tamagno is a brief excerpt, with piano, of him singing the Esulatate, and I'm assuming it is that which is on the disc. He was already quite old when he recorded it, but there is no denying the power of his voice.

Some googling and youtubing show that Tamagno actually recorded about 15-20 arias in 1903-04, and you're right, he was retired by then and died next year.
There are few of those on youtube, here's Esultate:
http://www.youtube.com/v/mTWPnsOe_B8
Seem to recall reading somewhere that Verdi was actually worried would Tamagno be able to pull off the softer parts of the role. Undeniably powerful voice, but I also really like the way he phrases it with those rolling Rs in Dopo l'armi.
Del Monaco does the same thing in one of live recordings (but strangely not always). Here does:[mp3=200,20,0,left]http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/7/24/2018019/Monaco_Esultate_54.mp3 [/mp3]

DarkAngel

#265


Anyone compared the new Gheorghiu "traviata" DVD to her famous older Solti version?
I have the older one and really like it, seems the main upgrade for new version is having Ramon Vargas play her lover Alfredo (old version had Frank Lopardo)

Overall comparing vocal and visual elements how does it stack up?


BTW my current favorite DVD version is Stratas:
(Also enjoy the Netrebko modern EuroTrash version)






jlaurson

#266
Quote from: DarkAngel on June 28, 2009, 11:26:52 AM


BTW my current favorite DVD version is Stratas.

(Also enjoy the Netrebko modern EuroTrash version)


Incidentally, the latter is my favorite version. By some measure.
I take it you are using the [hoary and tiresome] epithet "Eurotrash" tongue-in-cheek...

QuoteStyle Instead of Glamour in Willy Decker's La Traviata

Few opera recordings – CD or DVD – have
been more looked forward to (or more heavily
promoted) than the famed 2003 Traviata from
Salzburg with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón.
The marketing was carefully devised: first the complete
opera, then the arias and highlights with a preview of
the DVD, and finally, a few months ago, the DVD itself.
The recording was fine but not quite as special as the
event must have been for those who saw it live. DVD
is the second best thing and manages sufficiently to
convey that sense of occasion... etc.

DarkAngel

#267
Quote from: jlaurson on July 06, 2009, 09:43:12 AM
Incidentally, the latter is my favorite version. By some measure.
I take it you are using the [hoary and tiresome] epithet "Eurotrash" tongue-in-cheek...

Yes just using the opera slang term eurotrash generically to describe modern slick stripped down remake of classic opera.......

The stuffed shirts of the opera world often hate these slick modern versions, but in this case Netrebko and company are magnificent!
Very bold and imaginative stage design that flows wonderfully with the storyline, visually striking and Netrebko is wonderfully animated, bold and sexy, an esential La Traviata DVD


karlhenning

Quote from: DarkAngel on July 06, 2009, 10:41:54 AM
Very bold and imaginative stage design that flows wonderfully with the storyline, visually striking and Netrebko is wonderfully animated, bold and sexy, an esential La Traviata DVD

She's not the title character, then?  So few consumptives have the energy to be bold & sexy.

DarkAngel

#269
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on July 06, 2009, 10:51:25 AM
She's not the title character, then?  So few consumptives have the energy to be bold & sexy.

Well by final act she is on death bed.......but early in opera it is party time 24/7
Sexy, oh yes

Notice how Netrebko plays a modern aggressive women who pushes her man around and takes what she wants, a bolder more powerful Violetta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz7Gbalk98

jlaurson

Quote from: DarkAngel on July 06, 2009, 10:41:54 AM
Yes just using the opera slang term eurotrash generically to describe modern slick stripped down remake of classic opera.......

The stuffed shirts of the opera world often hate these slick modern versions...

Tell me about it. Among a certain North American opera crowd it seems terribly en vogue (for the last 30 years, at that) to cry "Eurotrash" every time they are confronted with their own ignorance and intellectual laziness. It's either Zeffirelli-style or it's Eurotrash. How dare acting go beyond arm extensions and eye-brow raising. Arggh... gets me every time. Not that there aren't failed and even trashy productions among the plethora of new productions that come out all over Europe (as opposed to the US, where rarely a creative spark in the opera world is ever lit first; they simply recycle 30-year old European ideas). But the indiscriminate and ignorant use of that phrase (seemingly always with some self-satisfied glee of stubborn-roundabout-superiority) when it least applies is what maddens me so. At the very least the phrase should be reserved for unintelligent or completely incomprehensible productions. Not for anything that's "not as I'm used to from public television MET broadcasts 40 years ago".


(Note that I'm not flailing this at you... you just untapped a general rant-genie's bottle.)

knight66

We had some acolyte of AC/DC who was constantly throwing the term around. He would apply it to any Wagner production that was not completely literal. The term seemed to catch on a bit on the site.

No doubt the newish Copenhagen Ring would be well beyond the pale; despite it providing more insights than any remotely traditional effort that I have seen.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

jlaurson

Quote from: knight on July 06, 2009, 01:30:27 PM
We had some acolyte of AC/DC who was constantly throwing the term around. He would apply it to any Wagner production that was not completely literal. The term seemed to catch on a bit on the site.

No doubt the newish Copenhagen Ring would be well beyond the pale; despite it providing more insights than any remotely traditional effort that I have seen.

Mike

...and yet all one would have to do is read Jorge Luis Borges' "Pierre Menard Author of the Quixote" to understand that the idea of being "true to the composer" is not only incredulously silly, but in fact an insidious lie. Admittedly, Borges doesn't write about opera, but in essence the inability to not interpret. I'm working on editing an interview with the artistic director of the Munich State Opera, in which all these points come up, of course...

Here's a short quote that distills the essence of the argument:

Quote
It is a revelation to compare Menard's Don Quixote with Cervantes'. The latter, for example, wrote (part one, chapter nine):

. . . truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor. Written in the seventeenth century, written by the "lay genius" Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical praise of history. Menard, on the other hand, writes:

. . . truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor.



History, the mother of truth: the idea is astounding. Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an inquiry into reality but as its origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what has happened; it is what we judge to have happened. The final phrases—exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor —are brazenly pragmatic.

The contrast in style is also vivid. The archaic style of Menard—quite foreign, after all—suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his forerunner, who handles with ease the current Spanish of his time.

Superhorn

 A lot to chew on here! I don't know where to begin. I love Verdi, but I also love Wagner. I don't think his operas are too long winded at all.
Yes, it takes patience to appreciate them, but I can't imagine them being any shorter, and to fault them for their length is rather like criticizing great long novels such as War and Peace or Moby Dick for not being short stories.
  Verdi's operas are wonderful, but Wagner's have a certain profundity and emotional power that the Italian's operas, for all their great qualities, just don't have, with the possible exception of Otello.
  I also love the operas of Puccini, Richard Strauss and Janacek, as well as many other operas by many composers. But when I listen to the Ring, I feel transported to another world that Verdi just never reaches. Or Tristan,Meistersinger and Parsifal.
  And cutting Wagner is a bad idea, although I suppose it's sometimes unavoidable given the sheer strain on the singers. It has the ironic effect of actually making them seem longer ,as Arnold Schoenberg pointed out.
  Verdi's early operas can be rather crude and formulaic at times, but they certainly have  their admirable qualities. For me,Macbeth is the most original and interesting of them. But Don Carlo, Otello ,Falstaff and Aida are absolute masterpieces. Wagner's early operas,such as the Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser and Lohengrin,may not be as great as his mature works, but they are in no way formulaic or crude, and they are still great operas,anyway. Rienzi ,which I know from recordings,is immature and influenced by Meyerbeer, but not nearly as bad as many have claimed. It's definitely worth hearing, and certainly not boring.
  But you don't have to love Wagner and sneer at Verdi, or vice-versa.
  The two composers are in no way mutually exclusive.
 
 

Tsaraslondon

In all this talk of modern versus traditional productions, I think we are sometimes losing site of the music. I have no objection to modern productions if they don't go against the music. I haven't seen the Netrebko La Traviata talked about on here, but an aggressive, assertive Violetta would seem to me to be the opposite of the character as portrayed in Verdi's music, and for that reason, I would aver that Stratas, a wonderful actress/singer, hardly given to "arm extension and eyebrow raising", in Zeffirelli's traditional film version, is much closer to what we have in the music. I often feel that many modern producers haven't a musical bone in their bodies, whether they are producing a version which is updated or set in the time the action was originally placed.

An example of an updated production, which worked perfectly, was Jonathan Miller's New York gangster version of Rigoletto. It worked because Miller is a man who understands and loves music. Quite often I have watched productions, where I get the impression that the producer actually hates opera, and I find myself wondering why they ever bothered to produce it in the first place. Graham Vick is someone else who has produced some fine, fresh performances of work, which illuminate, rather than detract from, the music.

I remember reading somewhere what Visconti said about the production of Anna Bolena he did for Callas at La Scala. He said that people thought it was extremely authentic and true to Tudor England, when in fact it was anything but. What he actually produced was a misty Tudor England, seen through the eyes of the Romantics. In other words he never lost sight of the fact that it was a Romantic opera. It also reminds me of what Callas said about performing the same opera. She said that when she knew she was going to be playing the part of Anne Boleyn, she read all sorts of history books about her and researched paintings of the queen, but quickly set them aside, as they had nothing to do with the character of Anna as portrayed by Donizetti. That is what is meant by being true to the composer.




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

Franco

I just borrowed form the library two in the Lamberto Gardelli series of early Verdi operas on Phllips:

I Lombardi and I Masnadieri

Most were recorded in the 70s and feature many singers just entering their vocal prime.

These are wonderrful! And I plan on finding as many as I can. 

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Franco on July 16, 2009, 09:18:09 AM
I just borrowed form the library two in the Lamberto Gardelli series of early Verdi operas on Phllips:

I Lombardi and I Masnadieri

Most were recorded in the 70s and feature many singers just entering their vocal prime.

These are wonderrful! And I plan on finding as many as I can. 

I have quite a few of these Philips sets. Ah, what a golden age that was! Can anyone imagine any company embarking on such a series nowadays? Just as well those were better times for the recording industry. Apart from the ones you mention, I also have Un Giorno di regno, Attila, Il Corsaro, La Battagila di Legnano, and Stiffelio, all worth acquiring. I have the Orfeo version of Alzira, again conducted by Gardelli, which is, on balance, the best version of that much maligned, and, it appears to me, underrated opera.

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

knight66

Here is a singer who brings all that is needed to this part. Recently we have had to be grateful for singers either a size too small for the piece, or singers whose tone spreads uncomfortably. Here is someone I have never heard of before, it is excellent singing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riKGpYitPbA&feature=related

Virginia Zeani: a voice of the right size, beautifully produces, dramatic singing with great enunciation.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

Wendell_E

Quote from: knight on September 27, 2009, 11:30:21 AM
Here is someone I have never heard of before, it is excellent singing.


Virginia Zeani: a voice of the right size, beautifully produces, dramatic singing with great enunciation.

Mike

I've heard of her a lot more than I've heard her.  She made few commercial recordings, none of complete operas, AFAIK.  Charlie Handelman's a big fan, and often includes her in his podcasts:  http://handelmania.libsyn.com/?search_string=zeani&search=1
"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ― Mark Twain

Sarastro

Quote from: Wendell_E on September 28, 2009, 03:32:19 AM
none of complete operas, AFAIK

Apparently, you don't know as far. ;D A simple search shows the following:

Virginia Zeani (Singer)     

1950 - 1959:
1954 - Ivan Susanin (Glinka) - Alfredo Simonetto: Virginia Zeani (Antonida)
1956 - La traviata (Verdi) - Angelo Questa: Virginia Zeani (Violetta Valery)
1957 - I Puritani (Bellini) - Francesco Molinari-Pradelli: Virginia Zeani (Elvira)
1957 - Demon (Rubinstein) - Maurizio Arena: Virginia Zeani (Tamara)
1958 - Assassinio nella Cattedrale (Pizzetti) - Ildebrando Pizzetti: Virginia Zeani (Prima Corifea)

1960 - 1969:
1960 - Otello (Rossini) - Fernando Previtali: Virginia Zeani (Desdemona)
1961 - Il piccolo Marat (Mascagni) - Oliviero de Fabritiis: Virginia Zeani (Mariella)
1962 - Maria di Rohan (Donizetti) - Fernando Previtali: Virginia Zeani (Maria)
1962 - Il piccolo Marat (Mascagni) - Ottavio Ziino: Virginia Zeani (Mariella)
1965 - Zelmira (Rossini) - Carlo Franci: Virginia Zeani (Zelmira)
1967 - Alzira (Verdi) - Franco Capuana: Virginia Zeani (Alzira)
1968 - La traviata (Verdi) - Jean Bobescu: Virginia Zeani (Violetta Valery)

1970 - 1979:
1971 - Elisa e Claudio (Mercadante) - Ugo Rapalo: Virginia Zeani (Elisa)
1971 - Werther (Massenet) - Antonino Votto: Virginia Zeani (Charlotte)
1972 - The Consul (Menotti) - Thomas Schippers: Virginia Zeani (Magda Sorel)
1975 - Tosca (Puccini) - Giuseppe Morelli: Virginia Zeani (Floria Tosca)
1977 - Tosca (Puccini) - Cornel Trailescu: Virginia Zeani (Floria Tosca)


Quite a few of those recordings are sold on Amazon.