What Opera Are You Listening to Now?

[André]

Recorded in studio in 1954 in beautiful, wide-ranging mono. Top honours go to Keilberth's urgent, fluid conducting. The excellent Kölner Rundfunk orchestra is meticulously balanced, producing elegant, transparent textures.

The most impressive singer is Josef Greindl, a noble Sarastro endowed with a large, resonant yet perfectly focused bass voice. I found him substantially better than his own self in the 1955 Fricsay version. Schock (Tamino) and Kunz (Papageno) are very good, if ultimately serviceable rather than memorable. Wilma Lipp's Astrafiammante is vocally cool and accurate, but in her first aria she sounds emotionally distant. She doesn't help her case with lazy coloratura runs. Her revenge aria is suitably dynamic, with diamond-like staccato high Fs. She was the reigning Queen of the Night, singing the role under Furtwängler, Böhm, Karajan.

One of the work's important supporting roles is the Monostatos, pointedly sung by the excellent Kurt Marschner. Stich-Randall is in splendid voice as Pamina. Her creamy soprano sounds marvellously pure. Her act II aria is infinitely touching. Definitely a top three performance, up there with Price and Janowitz. Hans Hotter is an imposing, warm-voiced Sprecher. Excellent choristers, well-blended but incisive.

The main character of this production happens to be the Narrator. No spoken dialogues between characters then, but a 1-2 minute narration between each musical number. Tamino and Papageno have some spoken bits, too. It's the first time I hear The Flute in that concept. I've heard The Flute with and without dialogue, but never with a narrator. At first I feared that all these interruptions would cause the whole thing to sound too much oratorio-like, hanging fire. But no, it all segues naturally. I think this fits with the concept of a 1790s singspiel vs the modern-day opera production we may have come to expect.

In short, a performance worthy to stand near the top, with superb contributions from Keilberth, the Kölner Rundfunk orchestra, Stich-Randall, Greindl - all comparable to the very best. Schock's Tamino sounds well but is rather generic in feeling and unsubtle of voice (Simoneau, Dermota and Wunderlich are unassalaible in the role). A very satisfying mozartian experience.

[king ubu]

Agree, that Keilberth recording is pretty darn good!

I wish the 1951 live one by Furtwängler would turn up in pristine sound, then I'd have a clear favourite - but as it is, this one is a very good addition to the recordings from that era, which was a great one for Mozart singing (the finest maybe?).

[Ciaccona]

So many good recordings of this opera.

I have Britten/Pears and Davis/Vickers, both of which I really like.

I had given away my copy of Britten/Pears to charity a few years back after finding the work a bit hard to get into - Pity as I really like Britten's music now. I wish I still had that recording.

[Tsaraslondon]

I don't know if I was actually at this performance, but I was definitely at one of the series this recording was taken from.

My memory hasn't failed me and it really is as good as I remember.

Sir Colin Davis already had a famous studio recording to his credit and common to both are the saturnine Alfonso of Richard Van Allan. Other than that, his cast here is easily equal to that on the studio set, and, as far as the men are concerned, possibly surpasses it, with Burrows a more melifluous, if les characterful, Ferrando than Gedda and Allen absolutely splendid as Guglielmo.

On the distaff side, I find it hard to choose between the two casts. Caballé was a glorious Fiordiligi in the studio, but Te Kanawa is hardly less so, and she is a much more volatile performer here than she often was, possibly spurred on by the vividly acted and sung Dorabella of Baltsa. Baker, in the studio set, is less histrionic, more gently lovable. I love both performances. Mazzucato is a sprightly Despina, delightfully knowing in her exchanges with Alfonso, but yields something in individuality to Cotrubas in the studio set.

This is 1981, and speeds are occasionally a little slower than we are used to these days, and one should note that, being live, there is a fair amount of stage noise, audience laughter and applause. Otherwise the sound is fine, if not as well balanced as a studio production.

I really enjoyed re-aquainting myself with this wonderful performance, and, though I won't be throwing my studio Davis or Böhm/EMI recordings, it sits quite happily on the shelf beside them.

[JBS]

This new recording of the 1847 version of Verdi's Macbeth on what sounds like period instruments is completely ruined by Nadja Michael's horrible Lady. She's flat, she drags and smudges the coloratura. Absolutely horrible singing. A shame, because the orchestral playing is very good. The other voices are fine, if not top drawer.

Listening to this recording now. I would say Lady M's vibrato is the only noticeable flaw...but reading the liner notes, I am wondering if perhaps the flaw was not intentional on Biondi's part.

I say this because liner notes devote a full paragraph to Verdi's comments on what he wanted from the soprano in this role. He wanted a "nasty and ugly" Lady who couldn't sing and whose voice was "harsh, stifled, and hollow" with something of the "diabolic" in it. He objected to one candidate for the role because she was too good a singer and had a voice that was too beautiful.

Still, if you listen to this recording be prepared for that vibrato. Or skip the scenes that include Lady Macbeth.

[Tsaraslondon]

Listening to this recording now. I would say Lady M's vibrato is the only noticeable flaw...but reading the liner notes, I am wondering if perhaps the flaw was not intentional on Biondi's part.

I say this because liner notes devote a full paragraph to Verdi's comments on what he wanted from the soprano in this role. He wanted a "nasty and ugly" Lady who couldn't sing and whose voice was "harsh, stifled, and hollow" with something of the "diabolic" in it. He objected to one candidate for the role because she was too good a singer and had a voice that was too beautiful.

Still, if you listen to this recording be prepared for that vibrato. Or skip the scenes that include Lady Macbeth.

Condisering that Lady Macbeth is the character who drives the opera, much more so than Macbeth himself, that's pretty hard to do.

I always think one should take Verdi's notes with a pinch of salt. His main purpose was not to offend the originally engaged Tadolini, who had a beautiful, silvery voice  and whom he thought was completely miscast. Looking at the music, it is clear that it still requires someone who can sing the notes.

You only have to hear the role sung by a Callas or a Verrett to hear how it should sound. Michael is unlistenable, much worse n fact than Souliotis, who was practically voiceless by the time she recorded it for Decca with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

[betterthanfine]

Listening to this recording now. I would say Lady M's vibrato is the only noticeable flaw...

Do you not hear how flat she is at times? Or that awfully imprecise coloratura? The way she forces her voice in the higher regions (which also partly causes that very wide vibrato)? Or the fact that the orchestra has to slow down so she can keep up (try the banquet scene for this)? I agree with Tsaraslondon, any succesful Lady has to at least be able to sing the notes, beautiful voice or not.

[JBS]

Do you not hear how flat she is at times? Or that awfully imprecise coloratura? The way she forces her voice in the higher regions (which also partly causes that very wide vibrato)? Or the fact that the orchestra has to slow down so she can keep up (try the banquet scene for this)? I agree with Tsaraslondon, any succesfulLady has to at least be able to sing the notes, beautiful voice or not.

I said it might be a conscious decision by Biondi to have an "ugly" singer in the role. I didn't say it was a good decision.

[JBS]

Condisering that Lady Macbeth is the character who drives the opera, much more so than Macbeth himself, that's pretty hard to do.

I always think one should take Verdi's notes with a pinch of salt. His main purpose was not to offend the originally engaged Tadolini, who had a beautiful, silvery voice  and whom he thought was completely miscast. Looking at the music, it is clear that it still requires someone who can sing the notes.

You only have to hear the role sung by a Callas or a Verrett to hear how it should sound. Michael is unlistenable, much worse n fact than Souliotis, who was practically voiceless by the time she recorded it for Decca with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Another point the liner notes make is that Verdi said he especially wanted people who could act in these roles. I think it is safe to say Callas would at least have satisfied him there.

[Tsaraslondon]

Marriner and his Academy of St Martin in the Fields were well already known for their performances of Rossini Overtures and String Sonatas, when they turned to the operas, first with Il Barbiere di Siviglia (also with Baltsa) and then La Cenerentola, and playing here is as deft and sprightly as it is on the orchestra only discs.

Marriner also has an excellent cast at his disposal, though Baltsa might be thought to have a bit too much vocal muscle for the role of gentle Angelina, at least at the beginning of the opera, she develops the character wonderfully well, and a touch of darkness is not at all inappropriate for the put upon Angelina, whose "goodness triumphs" over all. Araiza is a forthright and masculine presence as the Prince, coping well with the intricacies of his role, if not without a hint of aspirates. Raimondi is an experienced Rossinian, but he can overdo the buffo on occasions.

All in all excellent traversal of the score, though it doesn't oust my favourite, which is the Ponnelle/Abbado DVD with Von Stade the best of all Angelinas.

[Tsaraslondon]

Another point the liner notes make is that Verdi said he especially wanted people who could act in these roles. I think it is safe to say Callas would at least have satisfied him there.

I think it's safe to say Callas would have satisfied him in every aspect of the role. Hers is not only the most pschologically probing, but also the most accurate execution of the score you are ever likely to hear.

[betterthanfine]

I said it might be a conscious decision by Biondi to have an "ugly" singer in the role. I didn't say it was a good decision.

Fair enough, but you mentioned the vibrato as the 'only noticable flaw'. I beg to differ.

[Tsaraslondon]

Like the Karajan Der Rosenkavalier, Warner's luxury presentation of this latest re-mastering of the famed Giulini Don Giovanni just adds a little more lustre to one of the greatest opera recordings of all time.

It seems incredible now that Giulini was a last minute replacement for Otto Klemperer, who was originally scheduled to record the opera with this cast. We can be thankful now that he was available, for I can't imagine that Klemeperor could have produced the kind of quicksilver, thrillingly exciting performance we get here. The cast is, without exception, superb; Sutherland, in her first major recording, a beautiful and technically assured Anna; Schwarzkopf, who adopted, in her words, "a sharp, unfriendly tone" to offset Sutherland's creaminess, a real firebrand of an Elvira; Sciutti a delectably seducable Zerlina. The men are hardly less brilliant, with Wächter's dangerously seductive Don and Taddei's manipulative Leporello nicely differentiated. Cappuccilli is a real bully of a Masetto and Frick a commanding and ultimately terrifying Commendatore. If Alva makes slightly less of an impression, that has more to do with the rather passive character of Ottavio than his singing of Ottavio's lovely arias.

One of the all time classics, beautifully re-furbished in this new re-master.

[Tsaraslondon]

When did the sheer joy of music making get lost? Ok, so the edition of the score used here wouldn't bear scrutiny now but the performance, as a whole, exudes such fun, such joi de vivre, such pleasure in the act of making music (a joy shared by such old time recordings as the Gui Barbiere di Siviglia, the old Glyndebourne Le Comte Ory, the Gavazzeni Il Turco in Italia and the Sabajno Don Pasquale) that reservations are swept aside.

Callas's Rosina was famously her only La Scala flop, but here she proves herself to be as adept at comedy as she was at tragedy, and her Rosina is a wonderfully spirited, mettlesome minx, the character perfectly summed up in that explosive 'ma' she utters in her aria Una voce poca fa, and technically and vocally she is at the top of her form, the coloratura executed with a fluidity and accuracy rarely encountered (and please note not an aspirate to be heard).

Gobbi is a superbly scheming Figaro, with a touch of the venal entirely apt for the character. Not surprisingly he and Callas play brilliantly off each other, as they do off Alva, who is here recording for the first time a role he would go on to record two more times. His divisions may not be quite as fluent as say Florez today, but he is alive to every comedic turn and presents a real character.

Great contrubutions from the buffo basses, Ollendorff and Zaccaria, and a nicely turned Berta from Gabirella Carturan.

Alceo Galliera conducts with a great sense of pace, and the whole enterprise fizzes and pops like a vintage champagne. Pure joy from beginning to end.

A fuller review of the set on my blog here https://tsaraslondon.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/il-barbiere-di-siviglia/

[Tsaraslondon]

For some reason I always thought this recording of Le Nozze di Figaro was recorded after Giulini's Don Giovanni, when he was deputising for an indisposed Klemperer, but, no, it was recorded a couple of weeks beforehand.

It has never enjoyed quite the classic status of Giulini's Don, but I've always really liked it and it has an excellent cast, with plenty of Italians to make sure the recitatives go well. There are cuts (no arias for Marcellina and Basilio), but that doesn't bother me unduly. Taddei is a genial Figaro with a dark side to his character and a perfect foil for Wächter's blustering, arrogant Count, as he was to his Giovanni. Moffo is a charming, flirtatious Susanna and Schwarzkopf a Countess of patrician status, both her arias beautifully moulded. I find her final forgiveness of the Count almost unbearably moving. Cossotto might seem heavyweight casting for Cherubino, but this was recorded quite a few years before her assault on dramatic mezzo territory. One would never suspect that she would go on to sing Amneris and Lady Macbeth.

I like the fact that, in Giulini's hands, musical values are paramount and there isn't too much comedic mugging. We never forget that there is a serious side to this comedy.

[André]

Interesting cover, suitable for internet blather. The conductor's baton thrust in the apple above his head is a nice idea. "William Tell in the original French" is an oxymoron. If it's the original French, then it's Guillaume Tell. If it's the italian translation, then it's Guglielmo Tell. Rossini's opera is an adaptation of Schiiler's play Wilhelm Tell. "William Tell non esiste", as Ping, Pang and Pong would have said.

The slimcase box houses a nice, fat booklet (190 pages) with a good historical essay, texts and translations. The sound is very good. The text is incomplete. A couple of numbers have been cut, rather inexplicably IMO. The role of Hedwige in particular got the axe. There would have been time to include them, as they amount to some 10 minutes of music and the last disc runs for less than 55 minutes. Also, the layout could have been improved: acts 3 and 4 could have been contained on the last disc instead of cutting act 3 between discs. Disc timings would thus have been 55+79 instead of the actual 79+55. Go figure... 

This recording stems from a Rome concert. It was not staged, so there are no extraneous noises (except for occasional  cheers and bravos from the exceptionally well-behaved audience). This is a major blessing, since Tell is an opera where the scene is always crowded and where a lot of action goes on at all times. The excitement of a performance remains, Pappano making sure everything goes at a smart clip. His conducting - and the Santa Cecilia forces' playing - is the main reason to cheer this version. Rarely have I heard a grand opera move along so smartly.

The singing cast assembled is almost all anglophone, with the exception of Marie-Nicole Lemieux' Hedwige. None of the main singers is better than those on the EMI version - I haven't heard it complete - yet -, I'm figuring this from their work in other operas. Be that as it may, they are mostly very good. Gerald Finley's Tell is especially commendable, singing with good voice from top to bottom, dramatically involved and with a good french diction (easily the best of the cast in that respect). Malin Bystrom's Mathilde develops nicely after an initially shaky start - her voice has a bit of a hard time settling in her opening aria. Osborn's Arnold is quite well sung. The notes tell us that Arnold delivers 54 B flats, 15 Bs, 19 high Cs and 2 C sharps. Osborn struggles sometimes but never to the point of questioning his ability to get through the role - it's a cruelly taxing part. The booklet also informs us that Rossini bemoaned the fact that the then latter-day tenors like Duprez had taken to singing the role in chest voice rather than with the head voice as Nourrit sang it. As far as I can tell Osborn uses the head voice in his top register, resulting in sweeter, less stentorian top notes. BTW, Arnold's big scene surely inspired Verdi in Il Trovatore. The prayer, cabaletta and call to arms are eerily similar (Ah si ben mio...Di quella pira).

I doubt that Gardelli conducts as well as Pappano. I used to have a disc of highlights on lp and I recall being sorely disappointed with the famous overture, which lacked panache. Pappano is incredibly good here, making you notice how attentive he is to the many moods of that famous piece - surely one of the best operatic "tone poems" along with Beethoven's Leonore III.

Warmly recommended as a modern-day adjunct to the Gardelli version.

[Tsaraslondon]

Thanks for the run down, Andre.

I assumed it would be worth hearing for Pappano, who impressed me a lot in his Aida, though none of the singers save Kaufmann can really compare with the greats of the past.

I suppose that is the age we live in.

[André]

I rarely recommend listening to an opera set for its conductor, but that is definitely the case here, and it's not a case of faute de mieux. Conducting and playing are that good.

Mind you, none of the singers is weak, but as you say, I suppose we have to be content with what we have nowadays. If the opera had been recorded complete and another take on Sombre forêt spliced in, this might have swept the board.

[Tsaraslondon]

Ravel's two short operas in these justly well known Maazel recordings. Both operas are, as you might imagine, wonderfully scored, though I prefer the magical L'Enfant et les Sortièges to L'heure Espagnole, which is nonetheless great fun. Both are superbly cast, and still among the best recordings of each piece.

[Tsaraslondon]

This doesn't replace the Böhm recording in my affections, but, out of all the HIP recordings out there, it has much to commend it, not least the fact that it is based on actual performances from the Aix-en-Provence Festival. There's a tad too much dialogue included, which, for home listening, can get a bit tedious, but Christie's conducting is wonderfully stylish and high spirited, with the solemn moments still gven their due.

Mannion is a lovely Pamina, Blockwitz a lyrical but manly Tamino (though he doesn't erase memories of the sublime Wunderlich on the Böhm). Dessay is an accurate Queen, but she makes less of the role dramatically than one would expect. Roberta Peters on Böhm is more menacing (and Edda Moser, on a recital record, even better). Willard White is a gravely thoughtful Sarastro and the other roles are all well filled.