Romantic Opera goes HIP!

[Que]

              click pictures for samples

Well, I know De Marchi from Vivaldi operas - he knows his stuff, an excellent conductor!

Latest release - La sonnambula

The latest L'Oiseau Lyre release is a brand new studio recording and the most complete and authentic recording of La sonnambula ever. This recording features the two leading bel canto super stars of today, Cecilia Bartoli and Juan Diego Flórez, joining forces for the first time.

It is the first ever recording with a mezzo-soprano in the lead role, and the first ever recording with a period instrument orchestra. Many of the cadenzas sung by Cecilia Bartoli are those used by the great 19th Century interpreter of the role, Maria Malibran; this release concludes Cecilia's celebration of the bicentenary year of Maria Malibran (1808 - 1836).

The album is released on October 17th and will be accompanied by a continued global tour covering Europe, Japan and America.

Q

[knight66]

I was really interested in this until I read Bartoli's name. I am pretty allergic to her vocal technique. I will wait to see what is said about her performance. An alternative to my Callas would be welcome and I have an instinct that Bellini was after a cooler more classical sound than the rather full bodied sound I customarily hear.

Mike

[Que]

I was really interested in this until I read Bartoli's name. I am pretty allergic to her vocal technique.

I know what you mean: her "wobble" or "flutter". Funny, I can accept it from Conchita Supervia, but it gets on my nerves with Bartoli. Probably beacuse its not just a natural characteric of the voice - as with Supervia - but, as you say, of her personal technique. But it was (nearly) absent in her early recordings, you know. It became later much more prominent, though it seems it very much varies from recording to recording. The Gluck opera arias disc I got a while ago is very enjoyable.

Q

[The new erato]

I was really interested in this until I read Bartoli's name. I am pretty allergic to her vocal technique.

So am I. She sings lot of repertory I'm interested in, but her singing often leaves me completely exhausted. Her Vivaldi album gives me a headache, one of very few discs to do that.

[knight66]

She is certainly capable of producing beautiful sound and in a French song disc, she has no pretext for the machine-gun rattle. I would have thought her timbre to be too dark for the Bellini. We shall see.

Mike

[Que]

machine-gun rattle

[yashin]

strange, in the world of ego to have Bartoli only on the front. where is florez? on the back?  Cover not big enough for noth ego i guess and she probably out sells him

[The new erato]

......rattle.

I thought Rattle was Kozena's prerogative? 

[Tsaraslondon]

I was really interested in this until I read Bartoli's name. I am pretty allergic to her vocal technique. I will wait to see what is said about her performance. An alternative to my Callas would be welcome and I have an instinct that Bellini was after a cooler more classical sound than the rather full bodied sound I customarily hear.

Mike

Ditto, Mike. I have heard the Sonnambula aria she does on her Maria CD, and it does not predispose me favourably towards this set; her manner hectoring and over vibrant, quite at odds with the character of Amina. Whatever scholarship went into the recording of this album, I refuse to believe that Maria Malibran sounded like this. Callas and Sutherland may not have the weight of scholarship behind them, but I am convinced they get closer to the spirit of Bellini.

[Wendell_E]

strange, in the world of ego to have Bartoli only on the front. where is florez? on the back?  Cover not big enough for noth ego i guess and she probably out sells him

Well the opera is called La Sonnambula, not Elvino.  A quick look a album covers on amazon.com reveals covers with Callas, Sutherland (even Pavarotti doesn't make it to the cover), Dessay, and, on DVD, Moffo and Mei all by their lonesomes.

The only cover a saw with a guy on it was a live performance from the 1967 Edinburgh that has Callas with some guy in a kilt.   

[Heather Harrison]

I will be interested to hear this.  Bartoli's technique can be rather hit-and-miss; hopefully this will turn out to be one of her better recordings, but it is hard to predict.  At least she has been exploring little-known repertoire and (lately) exploring historically informed performance practices in early Romantic opera.  Most of the big stars aren't nearly so adventurous.  Maybe others will follow in her footsteps and there will be more options available in the near future for HIP early Romantic opera.

Heather

[Hector]

It occurs to me that this will not be the first.

Opera Rara issued Donizetti's 'Imelda de' Lambertazzi' with the OAE under Mark Elder earlier this year.

How do they know this was the way people sang in 1830?

[Wendell_E]

It occurs to me that this will not be the first.

Opera Rara issued Donizetti's 'Imelda de' Lambertazzi' with the OAE under Mark Elder earlier this year.

And ten years ago, the Sony recording of Lucia di Lammermoor with Mackerras conducting the Hanover band.

[M forever]

And Rattle did "Das Rheingold" with the OAE at the Proms not too long ago.

How do they know this was the way people sang in 1830?

Circumstantial evidence.

[Hector]

And ten years ago, the Sony recording of Lucia di Lammermoor with Mackerras conducting the Hanover band.

This had completely dropped off my radar screen probably because it isn't any good.

[Drasko]

Bartoli's La sonnambula is currently the disc of the week on BBC radio 3, so you can listen to about last 25 minutes of the opera online, at their site, for the next five days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fvkn9

click on Listen and then move the player slider to 2h 47min 30sec

[Tsaraslondon]

The Bartoli La Sonnambula is reviewed in February's Gramophone and January's BBC Magazine. Writing for BBC Magazine, Christopher Cook, though finding much to admire in the singing of Florez and D'Arcangelo, and the conducting of Scintilla, is not impressed by Bartoli's Amina, concluding , "No Amina. No Sonnambula.

The Gramophone review, on the other hand is full of praise. The editor has entrusted the review to Patrick O'Connor, rather than their usual bel canto specialist, John Steane, presumably because his reactions are likely to have been less favourable. It is also one of their discs of the month. I can't help wondering if this has something to do with Decca demanding the set get as much favourable publicity as possible. Years ago, when I worked at the Music Discount Centre, I remember a similar thing happening when Decca released it's new recording of Tosca, with Kiri Te Kanawa, and conducted by Solti. Though the set was distinctly mediocre and certainly posed no challenge to most of the then extant recordings, it was released in a blaze of publicity to ecstatic reviews in the Gramophone. The public weren't taken in; we sold very few copies and it was remaindered within months. I seem to remember Edward Greenfield, the original reviewer of that Tosca admitting, however, that he would not be throwing away his Callas/De Sabata or Price/Karajan sets. O'Connor similarly states that he will not be getting rid of his Callas or Sutherland sets of La Sonnambula. It remains to be seen if the Bartoli Sonnambula will suffer the same fate as that Solti Tosca, which is now all but forgotten.

[Sarastro]

I can't help wondering if this has something to do with Decca demanding the set get as much favourable publicity as possible.

Ah, that is what I am always talking about - over-promotion! I certainly won't listen to this Sonnambula unless I happen to be on an isolated island having nothing else to listen to. Enough was Bartoli's Ah, non guingi from Maria.

[knight66]

I have heard an extract from it in which Bartoli sounds very odd; breathy and childlike. The reviews I met mention this as a characteristic of her singing. She has become increasingly mannered. The project seems like a ego stroking. I think her best earning years for her record company are years behind her.

Mike

[Sarastro]

I think her best earning years for her record company are years behind her.

One of my acquaintances, a great fan of Bartoli, has stated the same recently. She said she couldn't even finish listening this Sonnambula.