VERDI King of Italian Opera

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

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Jaakko Keskinen

#440
I did celebrate Verdi's birthday but for some reason I forgot to comment here yesterday. And that Myung Whun-Chung recording of Othello that marvinbrown mentioned, is my personal favorite. From all the Iagos I've hard, Sergei Leiferkus not only has the best voice but also perhaps the greatest villain laugh in the history of opera! Viva Verdi indeed!

La morte e il nulla...
e vecchia fole il ciel! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...however, Simon Boccanegra still is probably my favorite Verdi opera.
"Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand."

- Victor Hugo

marvinbrown

Quote from: Fafner on October 11, 2013, 04:06:43 AM

I eventually had to cancel my order from Vivace Classical (after waiting in vain for a few months) and I ordered it for a bit more at Amazon.es.  It arrived within days.  It is a great box promising many more hours of listening pleasure. Viva Verdi!

  Congratulations! I believe you will find it as I did quite stunning! The very high performance quality of the recordings in this box set sets it apart from any other COMPLETE works boxset I have come across.

  marvin

Fafner

Quote from: marvinbrown on October 11, 2013, 10:11:49 AM
  Congratulations! I believe you will find it as I did quite stunning! The very high performance quality of the recordings in this box set sets it apart from any other COMPLETE works boxset I have come across.

  marvin

Incidentally, I had many of the Gardelli/Philips recordings on tape from when they were broadcast here on the radio in the 90's, so they were instantly familiar.  I would also prefer the Gardelli/Caballé recording of I Masnadieri over the Bonynge/Sutherland one.  Overall, I am not a big fan of Dame Joan. And it is great to have Kleiber's La Traviata included.
"Remember Fafner? Remember he built Valhalla? A giant? Well, he's a dragon now. Don't ask me why. Anyway, he's dead."
   --- Anna Russell

Tsaraslondon

Listening at present to Act II of Ballo in the live recording from La Scala with Callas, Di Stefano and Bastianini, and Gavazzeni a much more propulsive conductor than Votto on the studio set. All three principals are superb, Callas singing with absolute security above the stave on this occasion, and pouring out phrase after phrase of true spinto tone. If there is a more erotically charged love duet (one of the greatest in all Verdi) than this on record, then I have yet to hear it, both singers at their peak.

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


Drasko

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on October 12, 2013, 01:52:43 AM
Listening at present to Act II of Ballo in the live recording from La Scala with Callas, Di Stefano and Bastianini, and Gavazzeni a much more propulsive conductor than Votto on the studio set. All three principals are superb, Callas singing with absolute security above the stave on this occasion, and pouring out phrase after phrase of true spinto tone. If there is a more erotically charged love duet (one of the greatest in all Verdi) than this on record, then I have yet to hear it, both singers at their peak.

That is really superb performance all around. I usually stream it from Opera Today site, but don't have it on CD. Any idea what is these days considered to be the best transfer? EMI has had some copy/paste job done because some missing bits, Melodram is hard to find, Opera d'Oro is supposedly same as EMI, Myto which is easiest to find some consider best but others claim to be sharp throughout. All in all confusing. :-\ 

Fafner



I like Anna (I liked her better before her maternal leave), but this is a wrong choice of repertoire for her. Especially Lady Macbeth is way too heavy for her voice.
I enjoyed her performance as Tatyana in last week's MET HD transmission of Eugene Onegin, but this disc truly showcases her faults: she articulates as if she had a potato in her mouth and there is a sign of the ugly wobble that troubled my beloved Scotto in her later years.
"Remember Fafner? Remember he built Valhalla? A giant? Well, he's a dragon now. Don't ask me why. Anyway, he's dead."
   --- Anna Russell

knight66

That's interesting, as I thought the Macbeth and Don Carlo arias were the best pieces. Some of her singing is plain out sloppy; but overall the many reviewers I have read like the Macbeth and don't mention the doubtful areas of her singing. I never believed her in the lighter range of roles such as Guilda. i always thought her voice had a dark quality to it and her best recital was of Russian arias, which do tend to draw on a darker timbre.

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

Fafner

Quote from: knight66 on October 13, 2013, 10:22:50 AM
That's interesting, as I thought the Macbeth and Don Carlo arias were the best pieces. Some of her singing is plain out sloppy; but overall the many reviewers I have read like the Macbeth and don't mention the doubtful areas of her singing. I never believed her in the lighter range of roles such as Guilda. i always thought her voice had a dark quality to it and her best recital was of Russian arias, which do tend to draw on a darker timbre.


I don't know, I may grow to like it more over time. But the sloppiness and the wobble were too distracting for me on the first listen.
"Remember Fafner? Remember he built Valhalla? A giant? Well, he's a dragon now. Don't ask me why. Anyway, he's dead."
   --- Anna Russell

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Drasko on October 13, 2013, 04:25:14 AM
That is really superb performance all around. I usually stream it from Opera Today site, but don't have it on CD. Any idea what is these days considered to be the best transfer? EMI has had some copy/paste job done because some missing bits, Melodram is hard to find, Opera d'Oro is supposedly same as EMI, Myto which is easiest to find some consider best but others claim to be sharp throughout. All in all confusing. :-\

Sorry for late response.

I wasn't aware that EMI had done any copy/paste job on this set, as they undoubtedly did with the Macbeth. In the Macbeth, a few bars of the ensemble which closes Act I were lost in transmission and the Hunt CD issue spliced in the missing music from a performance with Gencer (they mention this in the booklet). The EMI is exactly the same as the Hunt, though EMI make no mention of the fact in their booklet, presumably because they just copied the Hunt version without referencing it.

However there are no such problems with the Ballo, which is one of the best live Callas relays in terms of sound (and performance). If Divina records get  round to issuing it, then that would definitely be the one to go for. In the meantime, I would expect most of the others to be quite adequate.


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

douglasofdorset

I celebrated Verdi's birthday (though well after the date) by going to a performance of 'Les Vêpres Siciliennes' at Covent Garden.  If anyone else saw it, I wonder what you made of it?  I thought Stefan Herheim's production, while striking, at times militated against the drama - for instance, by having the French soldiers (mostly) confined to theatre boxes and the Sicilian people to the stage there was not the physical confrontation there should have been in Act I.  And parts of Act II and Act V (in particular) veered close to farce - though perhaps Verdi's music invites it.  It certainly needs something visually entertaining to sustain interest in the fifth Act, which is, dramatically speaking, far too drawn out.

As regards 'La Forza del Destino' - which would be more appropriately called 'The Concatenation of Curious Coincidences' - I also have the Decca  'Ace of Diamonds' set, with Del Monaco, Tebaldi et al.  I have always thought the acoustic rather 'tinny', and orchestra and chorus get badly out of sync in the ensemble at the end of Act II Scene i.  (How much more dramatically satisfying it would have been to have had don Carlo appear at the end of Act I - following the servants with lighted candles - in time to witness the death of his father, and swear vengeance on Alvaro and his sister - at least we would then have a clue as to who 'the Student' is in the next scene.  And the extended ending of Act III, giving colour to the battlefield environment, which I believe was an addition by Verdi when he revised the score in 1869, interrupts the narrative flow of the drama to no purpose - apart from 'colour'.)

Fafner

Verdi - La traviata
Callas, Valetti, Zanasi
The Covent Garden, Orchestra, Nicola Rescigno

[asin]B004FFBMI0[/asin]

This is an amazing performance!  And Violetta's arioso in Act 2 ("Ammami Alfredo!") is simply tear-inducing. 
"Remember Fafner? Remember he built Valhalla? A giant? Well, he's a dragon now. Don't ask me why. Anyway, he's dead."
   --- Anna Russell

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Fafner on December 17, 2013, 05:55:44 AM
Verdi - La traviata
Callas, Valetti, Zanasi
The Covent Garden, Orchestra, Nicola Rescigno

[asin]B004FFBMI0[/asin]

This is an amazing performance!  And Violetta's arioso in Act 2 ("Ammami Alfredo!") is simply tear-inducing.

This is my favourite of all Callas's recorded Violettas, which makes it, by default, my all time favourite La Traviata.

There is a curious anomaly regarding this transfer though. In all previous incarnations, the microphone picks up Callas quietly singing a couple of notes during the prelude. It's a charming moment, which most of us collectors listen out for. However those notes are entirely absent in this pressing, and I wonder a) how they were ommitted or b) whether some jiggery pokery has gone on and ICA have spliced in some bars from another performance. It's all very mysterious and ICA could shed no light on the matter when I wrote to them.

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

Fafner

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on December 18, 2013, 12:45:00 AM
This is my favourite of all Callas's recorded Violettas, which makes it, by default, my all time favourite La Traviata.

My all time favourite is Scotto with Raimondi and Bastianini. It was my first Traviata and I played it over and over ad nauseam when I was a teenager.

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on December 18, 2013, 12:45:00 AM
There is a curious anomaly regarding this transfer though. In all previous incarnations, the microphone picks up Callas quietly singing a couple of notes during the prelude. It's a charming moment, which most of us collectors listen out for. However those notes are entirely absent in this pressing, and I wonder a) how they were ommitted or b) whether some jiggery pokery has gone on and ICA have spliced in some bars from another performance. It's all very mysterious and ICA could shed no light on the matter when I wrote to them.

Yet they still mention the anomaly in the booklet, which made me wonder when I could not hear it.
"Remember Fafner? Remember he built Valhalla? A giant? Well, he's a dragon now. Don't ask me why. Anyway, he's dead."
   --- Anna Russell

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: Fafner on December 18, 2013, 06:56:24 AM
My all time favourite is Scotto with Raimondi and Bastianini. It was my first Traviata and I played it over and over ad nauseam when I was a teenager.

It's odd how the recordings we grew up on are the ones we cling to in later life. I grew up on the Karajan Otello, with Del Monaco and Tebaldi, and for years it was my favourite. However I now prefer both Vickers and Domingo in the role, and would prefer both Scotto and Freni to Tebaldi, who sings beaitifully, but a little anonymously.

For me Violetta was Callas's greatest role. greater even than her Norma. It was the role that she was continually refining, which is possibly why I find this Covent Garden performance (one of her very last Violettas) the best of them all.

Quote from: Fafner on December 18, 2013, 06:56:24 AM
Yet they still mention the anomaly in the booklet, which made me wonder when I could not hear it.


Do they? How weird. I have no idea why those notes should suddenly disappear. It reminds me of a scene at the beginning of Terence McNally's The Lisbon Traviata, written before the Lisbon performance had been released. Rumours of it having been recorded had been circulating for years and every Callas fan in the world was trying to get hold of it. The play opens with the lead character listening to the prelude to the opera. When I saw the play, I recognised the recording immediately as the Covent Garden performance because of Callas's singing during the prelude. The first lines in the play are, and I paraphrase,

"No. No. No! That's Covent Garden 1958. Not Lisbon!"

Those notes sung by Callas during the prelude are part of legend it would seem, and ought to be preserved.

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

marvinbrown

Quote from: Tsaraslondon on December 18, 2013, 07:23:56 AM
It's odd how the recordings we grew up on are the ones we cling to in later life. I grew up on the Karajan Otello, with Del Monaco and Tebaldi, and for years it was my favourite. However I now prefer both Vickers and Domingo in the role, and would prefer both Scotto and Freni to Tebaldi, who sings beaitifully, but a little anonymously.



  This is especially true for me as well.  I grew up with the Chung Otello and the Karajan Aida with Tebaldi. I have yet to find a recording that I prefer to those 2 respectively.  It's all about conditioning I guess. We are conditioned to like what we like. I feel the same about Giullini's Rigoletto.  That faint chorus after the opening prelude, which many listeners complain is too faint is what I love most.  It sets a mood that I am sensitive to, and then the opera takes off.  I am referring to this recording:

  [asin]B00000J9HF[/asin]

  marvin

Fafner

 Yes, we all sometime have peculiar preferences. I particularly like the few lines of frenzied dialogue at the very end of La Traviata ("O cielo...Violetta...Oh Dio, soccorasi.. E spenta...Oh mio dolor") that usually get cut. It somehow feels incomplete without it.  ;D
"Remember Fafner? Remember he built Valhalla? A giant? Well, he's a dragon now. Don't ask me why. Anyway, he's dead."
   --- Anna Russell

Tsaraslondon

Quote from: marvinbrown on December 19, 2013, 01:35:52 AM
  This is especially true for me as well.  I grew up with the Chung Otello and the Karajan Aida with Tebaldi. I have yet to find a recording that I prefer to those 2 respectively. 


As I say, it was the Karajan Otello for me, though I seem to have weaned myself off it now. That said, it's left me without a favourite. I lean towards the Serafin because of Vickers and Gobbi, but don't much like Rysanek as Desdemona. I also like the earlier Domingo, and very much enjoy Scotto's Desdemona, while accepting Domingo doesn't quite get to the heart of the role as he was later to do. Vickers's second recording with Karajan (also his second) is out of the running for me because of the swingeing cut in the Act III ensemble; a shame because Freni and Glossop are very good, though I don't think any Iago really rivals Gobbi, even Leiferkus on the Chung, excellent though he is. Here my problem is Studer, who is a singer I never really enjoy.

I got to know most of my other Verdi operas through Callas, and hers are all still my favourite versions for the operas she recorded, despite the traditional cuts in the score. I sometimes turn to alternatives, but always find myself missing the peculiar colours and insights she would bring to her various roles.



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

Fafner

As per Otello, for me it is Domingo-Leiferkus-Vaness MET broadcast from the mid-nineties.  My first and only Otello for a very long time. Especially Leiferkus. He is THE Iago for me and I have trouble accepting any other voice in the role.
"Remember Fafner? Remember he built Valhalla? A giant? Well, he's a dragon now. Don't ask me why. Anyway, he's dead."
   --- Anna Russell

mc ukrneal

I am happy with many Otellos, though I think Domingo is probably my favorite. He was certainly consistently good in the role that seemed to suit his voice well. I love the end of Act I when he sings with Scotto on the RCA version. Divine!
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