According to Naxos' promotional blurb, the performance on this recording features a "new revised edition after the autograph and contemporary manuscripts by Florian Bauer." This is another production from that "other" Rossini Festival in Bad Wildbad, with Michael Spyres in the title role. I liked him well enough as Arnold in the Bad Wildbad production of Guillaume Tell that I decided to buy this recording. He doesn't disappoint, and neither does Jessica Pratt as Desdemona. This opera includes no less than six (!) roles written for tenors, which could present real casting problems, but the timbres of Messers Spyres, Giorgio Trucco (Iago), and Filippo Adami (Rodrigo) are sufficiently different that one can tell them apart. Geraldine Chauvet is a sympathetic Emilia with a lyric mezzo, and bass Ugo Guagliardo (the lone low voice among the men) an appropriately sonorous Elmiro.
Sospiro and I saw this live at the Barbican with Ian Bostridge as an amazing Ulisse (and sospiro's favourite bass Lukas Jakobski doing a great job as Tempo, Neptune and Antinoo)Originally Posted by Clayton
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Oh you do. It's wonderful.
Natalie
I'm glad to hear it was a good evening.
It might be a tall order but does Sospiro or Soave_Fanciulla have any recollection of how good Penelope and Minerva were? They are sung by another species in the opera world called a soprano.
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Of course not as grand as the species known as baritone or bass.
Sent you a PM
"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
Can these species cross-pollinate? Are they genetically compatible? I wonder if say, a soprano partnered with a bass-baritone, they'd be able to have offspring.
Experimentation seems to indicate that it is possible. It looks like the Netrebko-Schrott partnership did produce one Tiago Aruã.
"J'ai dit qu'il ne suffisait pas d'entendre la musique, mais qu'il fallait encore la voir" (Stravinsky)
Probably but preferably not in the same opera to give we bass/bass-baritone loving females a chance to opt out
Last edited by Ann Lander (sospiro); October 11th, 2015 at 12:49 PM.
"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
This is a lovely recording of a lively opera with June Anderson in very good voice and an always wonderful Samuel Ramey.
It is good, after a week of running around in Barcelona (with a side trip to the Principality of Andorra) without music - excepting the outing to the Liceu - to get back to walking and the opera of the day.
Just arrived today. Ah Janowitz! What a wonderful voice! If she were in a DVD of this I'd buy it in an instant. Also liked the violin concerto-like overture.
"Music is enought for a whole lifetime--but a lifetime is not enough for music." --Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff
A full day of listening today.
First, while at home:
This recording, with Natalie Dessay, is quite curious. I adore the remastered recording with Maria Callas (1957), which is significantly different from this - it's almost as if they are different operas, the style difference is so strong. I tried to figure out what is so jarring, and it seems it might be the tempo (but I didn't check the timing on the two sets). There also is a marked lyricism to the Callas set that is missing from Dessay's - kind of a plain, out-there recording without whistles or bells, so to speak. I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it will be a while before I play it again.
Then, for my walk:
I know this is a favorite of Natalie's, but I don't listen to it very often. It likely is more satisfying as a drama than other Puccini operas, as listening to it in audio, without a point of reference, it builds and builds and then kind of fades away. Shame that it isn't staged more frequently, it's beautiful.
Finally, because I ran out of opera before my walk was finished:
Today's listen - after I came to my senses after listening to the Grateful Dead this morning:
A wonderful cast on this with Gundula Janowitz, Lucia Popp, Nicolai Gedda and Walter Berry under Otto Klemperer's baton. I'm especially fond of Lucia Popp's Queen of the Night, which is absolutely dead-on.
Yesterday morning, while pondering my afternoon walking route:
Note: This is an opera that is delightful and charming on stage but doesn't play nearly as well solely as audio...
Then, for my walk, my weekly fix of Marilyn Horne (sigh):
Note: This is late Horne (1990), but she was still singing well with only minor strain in her top notes.
All I can say is "Wow!!" If we were voting for our favorite recording of Aida now, this one would be my pick. There isn't a weak link here, from Sir Tony and his forces from Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia to the fabulous cast headed by the Harteros-Kaufmann "dream team." Ekaterina Semenchuk's Amneris doesn't surpass Agnes Baltsa's for me, but she is still very good. And then there's Ludovic Tézier's Amonasro and Erwin Schrott's Ramfis. Like the top-notch studio recording this is, it comes with a complete libretto, translations included. One minor word of warning: Sir Tony really likes to highlight dynamic contrasts in the music. More than once, I was reaching for the volume control to keep from blasting out my neighbors.
Okay, straight in the shopping basket then.
All I can say is "Wow!!" If we were voting for our favorite recording of Aida now, this one would be my pick. There isn't a weak link here, from Sir Tony and his forces from Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia to the fabulous cast headed by the Harteros-Kaufmann "dream team." Ekaterina Semenchuk's Amneris doesn't surpass Agnes Baltsa's for me, but she is still very good. And then there's Ludovic Tézier's Amonasro and Erwin Schrott's Ramfis. Like the top-notch studio recording this is, it comes with a complete libretto, translations included. One minor word of warning: Sir Tony really likes to highlight dynamic contrasts in the music. More than once, I was reaching for the volume control to keep from blasting out my neighbors.
Hmm. I am intrigued that he who might be considered the most prominent member of the cast .. receives no mention. What's up with that?
All I can say is "Wow!!" If we were voting for our favorite recording of Aida now, this one would be my pick. There isn't a weak link here, from Sir Tony and his forces from Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia to the fabulous cast headed by the Harteros-Kaufmann "dream team." Ekaterina Semenchuk's Amneris doesn't surpass Agnes Baltsa's for me, but she is still very good. And then there's Ludovic Tézier's Amonasro and Erwin Schrott's Ramfis. Like the top-notch studio recording this is, it comes with a complete libretto, translations included. One minor word of warning: Sir Tony really likes to highlight dynamic contrasts in the music. More than once, I was reaching for the volume control to keep from blasting out my neighbors.
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