What opera have you been listening to, lately?

[Clayton]

When my husband and I watched this, he liked it. No one died !

A tried and tested formula for years with the opera seria


they rode in to the sunset and lived happily ever after...

[Luiz Gazzola (Almaviva)]

I love it so much that it's my avatar.

Oh, so that's what it is! Cool!

Well, I love *me* so much that it's my avatar!

[Hoffmann]

I couldn't resist - but probably should have. It's good, but not great. Montserrat Caballe is excellent, as is Alfredo Kraus, but I don't think this opera's success depends on the roles of Elvira and Arturo.

Rather, it is in music he wrote for the lower male voices where I think Bellini really got inspired in I Puritani. And the bass and baritone in this CD set, Matteo Manuguerra and Agostino Ferria, their voices are just too light. Especially when compared to the heady sound of Nicolai Ghiaurov and Piero Cappuccilli in Decca's recording of 1975 (which also features Joan Sutherland). Also not in the same league with the Callas remaster with Rolando Panerai and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni.

[Soave_Fanciulla]

A tried and tested formula for years with the opera seria


they rode in to the sunset and lived happily ever after...

Not to mention an epic 'cheating a poker to save my lover" scene and a last minute reprieve from hanging, thanks to the gallant Minnie.

[Amfortas]

Well, I love *me* so much that it's my avatar!

I love you so much that I wanted it to be *my* avatar.

But it was taken.

[Clayton]

more Giacomo

Puccini: Il Trittico
Il Tabarro:
Carlo Guelfi (Michele), Maria Guleghina (Giorgetta), Neil Shicoff (Luigi), Ricardo Cassinelli (Il Tinca), Enrico Fissore (Il Talpa), Elena Zilio (La Frugola), Barry Banks (Venditore di canzonette), Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu (Due Amanti)
Suor Angelica:
Cristina Gallardo-Domás (Angelica), Bernadette Manca Di Nissa (La Zia Principessa), Felicity Palmer (La Badessa), Elena Zilio (La Zelatrice), Sara Fulgoni (La Maestra delle novizie), Dorothea Röschmann (Suor Genovieffa), Judith Rees (Suor Osmina), Rachele Stanisci (Suor Dolcina), Francesca Pedaci (La Sorella Infermiera), Anne Maria Panzarella (La Cercatrice 1/La Conversa 1), Susan Mackenzie-Park (La Cercatrice 2), Rosalind Waters (Una novizia), Deborah Miles-Johnson (La conversa 2)
Gianni Schicchi: José van Dam (Schicchi), Angela Gheorghiu (Lauretta), Felicity Palmer (Zita), Roberto Alagna (Rinuccio), Paolo Barbacini (Gherardo), Patrizia Ciofi (Nella), James Savage-Hanford (Gherardino), Carlos Chausson (Betto di Signa), Luigi Roni (Simone), Roberto Scaltriti (Marco), Elena Zilio (La Ciesca), Enrico Fissore (Spinelloccio), Simon Preece (Pinellino), Noel Mann (Guccio)

Philharmonia Orchestra (Suor Angelica), London Symphony Orchestra (Il Tabarro & Gianni Schicchi), Antonio Pappano
1997

[Clayton]

followed by some more Puccini

Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Angela Gheorghiu (Butterfly), Jonas Kaufmann (Pinkerton), Enkelejda Shkosa (Suzuki), Fabio Capitanucci (Sharpless), Gregory Bonfatti (Goro) & Raymond Aceto (Bonzo)
Orchestra e Coro dell’Accadmia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano
2008



err... actually I love this one too

[Clayton]

and another GP

Puccini: Tosca
Maria Callas (Tosca), Giuseppe di Stefano (Cavaradossi), Tito Gobbi (Scarpia), Franco Calabrese (Angelotti), Melchiorre Luise (Il Sagristano), Angelo Mercuriali (Spoletta), Dario Caselli (Sciarrone), Alvaro Cordova (Un pastore), Dario Caselli (Un carceriere)
Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala Milan, Victor de Sabata
1953



I don't know why the Pristine cover says Giuseppe Taddei

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Sorry everyone, but Handel did it better...

Gasparini: Il Bajazet
Leonardo De Lisi (Bajazet), Filippo Mineccia (Tamerlano), Giuseppina Bridelli (Asteria), Ewa Gubanska (Irene), Antonio Giovannini (Andronico), Benedetta Mazzucato (Clearco), Raffaele Pe (Leone), Giorgia Cinciripi (Zaida)
Auser Musici, Carlo Ipata

[Clayton]

Sorry everyone, but Handel did it better...

Oops! That sounds like you did not enjoy it

Not even act two?

[Clayton]

Like that leather wearing geezer in the film The Matrix, I have now acquired the ability to flit through different time dimensions without a time machine. Pfft! I spit on such petty tools. I am now in the nineteenth century (however, I still decide to carry a handy packet of antiseptic wipes where ever I go).

Bellini: Norma
Edita Gruberova, Elina Garanca, Aquiles Machado, Alastair Miles, Judith Howarth, Ray Wade
Vocal Ensemble Rastatt, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Friedrich Haider
Live performance recorded 2004



I hate this opera; it makes me angrier each time I hear it. Yes, you heard me right. I am aggrieved by Pollione, I am resentful of Norma and I am vexed by Adalgisa's actions. I become emotional when I listen to this opera and for that reason I love it. It is not that I suffer from a psychological disorder (well I might but that's irrelevant to this discussion) but that is where I think we're aiming for with opera; to evoke the mwwghhkaaa emotion within us and this one does do it for me.

This interpretation is very good and one of my favourites (okay, to be honest there are not many recordings of this opera that I do not like). It doesn't list high on the popular recordings of this opera but to be fair is is one of the most recorded operas and there is a lot of competition out there.

So why do I like it? Well I like the opera and it stands out amongst all the other tens of recordings for being a different interpretation that works well. This works around the partnership of Gruberova and Garanca. Gruberova has a very thin voice that is most well known for her technical florishes where as Garanca has a more dramatic and fuller character that has been more famous for roles such as Carmen ,Sesto or Romeo.
How this works for me is that the opera is taken away from Norma to more (balanced) a story of between Norma and Adalgisa. That might sound like I'm stating the bleeding obvious (which is my specially chosen subject) but aside from the fact that mostly this opera is discussed about as about Norma (Callas, Sutherand or Souliotis etcetera) this swings it more in an exagerrated fashion to that relationship with the performance of Garanca more powerful in relation to Gruberova.
Haider makes the music exciting, giving it plenty of drama but with enough room for the characters to take centre stage and the orchestra works around them.

The sound quality is excellent and although it is recorded as "live" it is studio conditions and indistinguishable.

I don't think many people will favour this interpretation over some of the other more popular recordings but I like it and think that some fans of this story and in particular Garanca (and of course Gruberova) will enjoy this version very much. I do.

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Oops! That sounds like you did not enjoy it

Not even act two?

I did quite like it - when I made the comment I was thinking about the start of the "Figlia mia" aria at the end, where Gasparini starts off well with a beautiful little phrase which raises expectations and then just peters off into recit accompagnato; while Handel does this:

[Hoffmann]

I had a Verdi type of day.





I hadn't listened to this for months - the voices are really gorgeous and Suliotis breathtaking. [Note: I especially like the cover]. I was tempted to go on to Suliotis' Macbeth when it finished to get a better sense of what happened to her voice between 1965 and 1970, but ended up listening to this instead:





I have lots of Caballe, but prefer to listen to her in the Bel Canto repertory than Verdi. She is Caballe, so still handles the role well, but doesn't have the (vocal) heft that one expects to hear with Verdi.

[Florestan]

Tosca Act II. Callas and Gobbi 1964.

[Adrian]

I had a Verdi type of day.





I hadn't listened to this for months - the voices are really gorgeous and Suliotis breathtaking. [Note: I especially like the cover]. I was tempted to go on to Suliotis' Macbeth when it finished to get a better sense of what happened to her voice between 1965 and 1970, but ended up listening to this instead:





I have lots of Caballe, but prefer to listen to her in the Bel Canto repertory than Verdi. She is Caballe, so still handles the role well, but doesn't have the (vocal) heft that one expects to hear with Verdi.

I saw a part of that cover in the former East Germany Museum just before the wall felt , I was baffled by it.
The original L.P cover is also very good. Black and Gold