What have you been listening to, lately?

[Schigolch]

[Soave_Fanciulla]

This DVD is absolutely worth it for Patrizia Ciofi singing "Oh quante volte, quante" which is now my favourite bel canto aria. So beautiful and heartbreaking, and perfectly interpreted here (the audience thought so too).

[Schigolch]

Sometimes Ciofi can just enraptures you....

Sometimes, she rather can't, admittedly.

[Schigolch]

[Soave_Fanciulla]

I preferred this to the fairly recent Met production with Graham and Domingo. Musically wonderful, and I liked the production with the marionettes acting out the backstory.



Robin Blaze - another name to add to favourite countenors. The combination of voices in these beautiful duets is truly lovely.

[Schigolch]

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Ha ha, coincidence, I just watched this and while on one level I enjoyed Ms Dessi's performance I didn't like the singing. Wobbly and harsh.



Fabio Armiliato looked rather dashing in his military coat though, and Kate Aldrich was a fine Adalgisa.

[Schigolch]

[Anne of Green Gables]

Donizetti. Lucia di Lammermoor. Diana Damrau. Piotr Beczała. Vladimir Stoyanov. Ildar Abdrazakov. Ronald Naldi. Michaela Martens
Conductor: Marco Armiliato (from 2008, Met).

Not one complain, all singers are great - even Arturo isn't one of those tenors that they often get for such roles like they would think "let's get some entirely unejoyable voice so the minor character won't overshadow the main tenor, just in case". And there's also that glass harmonica in the mad scene, not the flute replacing it. I'm not sure if they did take some liberties with it, I remember other performance with glass harmonica but don't recall it having so much to say in final cabaletta.

[sospiro]

Part ghost story, part psychological drama, this opera is based on the true story of three lighthouse keepers who disappeared mysteriously from a remote Scottish lighthouse in 1900. In the prologue, three officers from a lighthouse ship report to a Court of Enquiry how they arrived to relieve the three keepers and found the place deserted. The main act flashbacks to the keepers, working the lighthouse far longer than usual. They are nervous and pass the time by singing characteristic ‘set piece’ songs – which express their individual guilt. Out of the fog, their past emerges to taunt them. They see the arrival of a blinding light as Antichrist, in which they are replaced by the relief officers: the mystery is unresolved.

Sandy: Neil Mackie
Blazes: Christopher Keyte
Arthur: Ian Comboy

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies

It's taking a while to get to know it & very different from my usual fare but it's intriguing.

[MAuer]

Several recordings I'd ordered this month and last all arrived within the last few days. I started with the Idomeneo CD, which appealed to me because of the casting of Werner Krenn as Idamante and Sena Jurinac as Elettra. This is a live recording from the Vienna State Opera, 1971, and so far has been a mixed bag. It's different from previous recordings I have of this opera, particularly in the treatment of the chorus "Nettuno s'onori" which ends the first act. The solos have been cut, and an orchestral intermezzo substituted. Speaking of cuts -- both Idomeneo's "Vedrommi intorno" and Idamante's "Il padre adorato" are missing, much to my displeasure. Krenn is a wonderful, sweet-voiced Idamante, and I would have liked to hear him sing all of this role's music. Jurinac is a terrific Elettra; definitely better than the singers on my other two recordings. Waldamar Kmentt in the title role makes a much more favorable impression on me here than he did in his 1980s studio recording, with an attractively baritonal, spinto quality in his voice. Lisa Della Casa's Ilia is less impressive and sounds a bit long in the tooth. And all of these folks, with the exception of Jurinac, could stand a little improvement in their Italian diction. No "qvestas" or "qvellas," but I can hear Germanic vowels creeping in now and then.

Still, I'm glad I have the recording and am looking forward to listening to the second disk this evening.

[Couchie]

Today I've been listening to La Bohème while doing housework, I'll be seeing it live tonight at Calgary Opera.

[Anne of Green Gables]

12 December 2011

ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN

LA TRAVIATA

Violetta Ailyn Pérez
Alfredo Piotr Beczała
Germont Simon Keenlyside

Conductor Patrick Lange

Then:



My first of her solo albums. Great to have it, it has wonderfully recorded mad scene from I Puritani which makes it possible to listen to her performance of it out of that not very marvelous DVD she made as her only complete I Puritani recording.

[Schigolch]

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Rinaldo from Glyndebourne, with Luca Pisaroni, Sonia Prina and Tim Mead, captured from the BBC by darling Annie and sent over the oceans to wild and woolly NZ. I'm loving it.