Reply With QuoteDEFINITELY!!!!!!'Originally Posted by Hoffmann
She's great in this. The stereo recording is great too. And Bergonzi is great too.
Snap it up if you can. It's been out of print for awhile.
I'm a BIG Lucia guy.
And I like my Lucia's complete.
Hey, Itullian! Just by chance, I ran across this online last night, and thought 'Hmmm', Anna Moffo. I certainly know her name and reputation, but don't have any recordings with her. So, this one is worth adding to my collection, you say?What do you guys know.
This is the best COMPLETE recording of Lucia out there.
Moffo and Bergonzi are killer and Pretre nails it.
The Sills is a great one too.
I'm talking COMPLETE guys. Which reveals this opera for the masterpiece it is.
DEFINITELY!!!!!!'
She's great in this. The stereo recording is great too. And Bergonzi is great too.
Snap it up if you can. It's been out of print for awhile.
I'm a BIG Lucia guy.
And I like my Lucia's complete.
It is a light rain in Berko today. Somewhere between a drizzle and a refreshing rain. We have had a full spectrum of precipitation in the past day, from gentle mizzle to smiting shards of hail.
The sky is a warm grey, the sort of grey that is fashionable in modern city dockland apartments.
The only signs of winter are the chimneys dispensing smoke. Some are puffing white cotton wool, they're the green wood fires. Some are discharging blue smoke, the coal fires. I love the smell of coal fires. All the canal boats use coal fires and a walk along the towpath in the morning is like a walk through a Victorian picture.
I meet two of my neighbours in the garden. Princess and Tiger teeth. They are both very chattery this morning, though they both hold different positions in court and so keep a mutual respectful distance from each other...
This opera was pretty much decided on last night.
Anna Bolena
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, April 4, 1957
Anna Bolena: Maria Callas
Lord Riccardo Percy: Gianni Raimondi
Enrico VIII: Nicola Rossi Lemeni
Giovanna Seymour: Giulietta Simionato
Lord Rochefort: Plinio Clabassi
Sir Hervey: Luigi Rumbo
Smeton: Gabriella Carturan
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala: Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Belisario
Nicola Alaimo (Belisario), Joyce El-Khoury (Antonina), Camilla Roberts (Irene), Alastair Miles (Giustiniano), Peter Hoare (Eutropio), Russell Thomas (Alamiro),
BBC Symphony Orchestra,
Sir Mark Elder
One of my new purchases:
So far, I like it lots better than L'incoronazione di Poppea , and really well sung!
Yep. I have that one.
"Every theatre is an insane asylum, but an opera theatre is the ward for the incurables."
FRANZ SCHALK, attributed, Losing the Plot in Opera: Myths and Secrets of the World's Great Operas
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
Janet Baker, Beverley Sills, Nicolai Gedda, Robert Lloyd, Raimund Herincx
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Giuseppi Patane
Of course I only bought the CD but this original cover is so much nicer I think, so this is how it is filed.
A question of do you prefer the smell of Philadelphus Belle Etoile or Magnolia Grandiflora? Well at the moment I still prefer the pretty Luisi/Netrebko/Garanca recording at the moment.
However no question that Gedda and Baker make a powerful (emotionally) set of voices that take romance to a different level in this recording, a tragedy of Shakespearean...
Exactly what I am listening to at the moment, (thought I'd better give Anna Bolena another spin, as it is spoken of so highly by many OL friends). Mine is on a different label and the murky sound, coughing audience and prompter are driving me bananas. Maria doing a lovely job; don't like the Smeton at all.It is a light rain in Berko today. Somewhere between a drizzle and a refreshing rain. We have had a full spectrum of precipitation in the past day, from gentle mizzle to smiting shards of hail.
The sky is a warm grey, the sort of grey that is fashionable in modern city dockland apartments.
The only signs of winter are the chimneys dispensing smoke. Some are puffing white cotton wool, they're the green wood fires. Some are discharging blue smoke, the coal fires. I love the smell of coal fires. All the canal boats use coal fires and a walk along the towpath in the morning is like a walk through a Victorian picture.
I meet two of my neighbours in the garden. Princess and Tiger teeth. They are both very chattery this morning, though they both hold different positions in court and so keep a mutual respectful distance from each other...
This opera was pretty much decided on last night.
Anna Bolena
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, April 4, 1957
Anna Bolena: Maria Callas
Lord Riccardo Percy: Gianni Raimondi
Enrico VIII: Nicola Rossi Lemeni
Giovanna Seymour: Giulietta Simionato
Lord Rochefort: Plinio Clabassi
Sir Hervey: Luigi Rumbo
Smeton: Gabriella Carturan
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala: Gianandrea Gavazzeni
In desperation I turned to rewatch this which I am enjoying immensely - three great leads, one of them a sexy bass-baritone, what more could you want.
Some of the music is pretty but with regard to this historical period I prefer this opera:
Natalie
This opera was pretty much decided on last night.
Anna Bolena
Teatro alla Scala
Milan, April 4, 1957
Anna Bolena: Maria Callas
Lord Riccardo Percy: Gianni Raimondi
Enrico VIII: Nicola Rossi Lemeni
Giovanna Seymour: Giulietta Simionato
Lord Rochefort: Plinio Clabassi
Sir Hervey: Luigi Rumbo
Smeton: Gabriella Carturan
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala: Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Giulietta Simionato appears with Callas in many of her greatest recordings, what a team they were! So many great moments in Anna Bolena, the final aria Coppia Iniqua 1:10:40 is unforgettable......
Clayton you need to bookmark this wonderful chap on youtube named turnipoverlord, he has done wonderful service to opera lovers by posting many of his vinyl Callas recordings for BJR record label in really fabulous sound quality, I salute him!
Thank you for this pointer. I have booked marked this account; in anticipation of the day when local telecoms network is upgraded.Giulietta Simionato appears with Callas in many of her greatest recordings, what a team they were! So many great moments in Anna Bolena, the final aria Coppia Iniqua 1:10:40 is unforgettable......
Clayton you need to bookmark this wonderful chap on youtube named turnipoverlord, he has done wonderful service to opera lovers by posting many of his vinyl Callas recordings for BJR record label in really fabulous sound quality, I salute him!
I can't watch youtube yet due to poor network. Too many stupid circles in the centre of the screen.
I was reminded yesterday and this morning what an incredibly great remastering job Divina has done for the Anna Bolena '57 Scala. Truly a must for Anna and Maria fans.Exactly what I am listening to at the moment, (thought I'd better give Anna Bolena another spin, as it is spoken of so highly by many OL friends). Mine is on a different label and the murky sound, coughing audience and prompter are driving me bananas. Maria doing a lovely job; don't like the Smeton at all.
In desperation I turned to rewatch this which I am enjoying immensely - three great leads, one of them a sexy bass-baritone, what more could you want.
Some of the music is pretty but with regard to this historical period I prefer this opera:
Smeton is difficult; a small (one romanza and one cavatina?) but maybe significant role. A naive boy/young man appointed to court as a page, falling for the queen and then the young wretch is tortured as a pawn in a plot against Anna!
Helene Schneiderman plays the part well in the Boncompagni recording (AKA Edita's Anna!) and Patricia Kern in Rudel's (AKA Sills' Anna) is also good but otherwise sometimes the voice is too dramatic for the role and just doesn't fit a young page.
I have decided to purchase the Anna Anna DVD. I have no choice. Anna has completely taken my heart.
Netrebko Anna Bolena DVD in general is really great, the only let down is a wimpy Percy (compared to the dashing king of D'arcangelo) worth spending extra to get the blu ray version so you can see fabulous costumes/fabrics in fine detail.......
You can ponder the cryptic ending with symbolic child figure appearance, hmmmmm.......????
This afternoon/evening, a real guilty pleasure I haven't listened to in a really long time:
Also nice listening to the young Carreras instead of the ubiquitous Pavarotti as Calaf.
What wrong have you done in listening to this?
How is Carreras as Calaf and as compared to Pavarotti?
Ah, well. No wrong, of course. I think it's more my sneaky feeling that Turandot is the original, most accessible of all operas - even opera haters seem to be willing to admit they like 'Nessun Dorma'. I think that when we talk about a theoretical "best first opera", maybe we are remiss in leaving Turandot off the list - whether on purpose or by oversight.
Carreras is, to my ear, a relief. He comes across as maybe a little earnest (probably a good thing with Calaf), but hits his notes cleanly, albeit he's not as flashy as Pavarotti. My problem with Pavarotti is that he was everywhere as the 'go to' tenor on 1980s studio recordings. Not that there is anything wrong with that. However, his voice and style are so distinctive, and he was so notoriously undisciplined toward the end of his career, that, aside from his very early recordings when there is something refreshing about his singing, I try and avoid him when I can. I suppose it's fair to say that I was turned off by his antics and near self parody as he grew older and less discreet in his off-stage behavior and unprofessionalism in cancelling performances. No question, though, that he was among the best.
Given that I am now on the subject, permit me to add another of my stories. I saw Pavarotti sing Riccardo/Gustavo in Un Ballo in Maschera when the Met brought it to Washington ca. 1978, and he really was a dazzling performer back in the day. Way too early for him to have become a self caricature, he was even convincing as an actor. I went to the performance with my colleague, Stella, and dragged her downstairs to the dressing rooms afterwards to collect his autograph. We met and chatted with him for a couple of minutes until his handlers chased us away. He was a little nonplussed by Stella, a very grand African-American woman who had lived in Europe, who held out her hand for him to kiss. When I handed him my sort of ratty copy of the The Victor Book of the Opera to sign, with its photo of Marian Anderson as Ulrica on the Ballo page, he looked at me, gestured dismissively, and said "This is not me". I didn't know if he was joking or not, did not retreat, and he signed my book anyway. So, there you have the story of "my life with Luciano Pavarotti".
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