What opera have you been listening to, lately?

[Clayton]

[Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Rafael Kubelik 1967]

Ooooooh, that is a wonderful set with Gundula Janowitz! I would buy a copy of it but can't find a reasonable price.

Yes it is expensive; motivation to keep hunting for treasure bargains at those second hand/charity stores. Sandor Konya is an excellent Walther too.

>>>

and as I often find, one listening of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is never enough, I then came back here:

Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
1956 HMV recording
Elisabeth Grümmer (Eva), Ferdinand Frantz (Hans Sachs), Benno Kusche (Beckmesser), Rudolf Schock (Walther von Stolzing), Gerhard Unger (David), Marga Höffgen (Magdalena), Gottlob Frick (Pogner), Gustav Neidlinger (Kothner), Hermann Prey (Nachtwächter)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,
Rudolf Kempe



This is also an excellent recording, perhaps my favourite. Another excellent cast and Kempe's achingly deliberate treatment makes this the most beautiful music...

Though I purchased the Andrew Rose remaster (you have to sell both your kidneys price), there is a version on the Magdalen label at Presto Classical for GBP 22.

[MAuer]

Florestan, I'm not sure how much you're willing to pay for a CD recording, but I can recommend the 1964 live performance of Mozart's Idomeneo from Glyndebourne with Janowitz as Ilia and the young Pavarotti as Idamante.



Used copies on Amazon start around $8.00; Presto Classical offers it new for $13.25.

[Povero Buoso]

Recently my listening of other operas (bar my Il Trittico whose Suor I have been giving increasing attention two) has diminished in favour of one of my favourite Verdis that continues to grow on me the more I listen to it.
With lots of great choruses some powerful catchy arias and some great duets/trios truly one of Verdi's best and underrated in comparison to some of his others (Aida and Il Trovatore we're looking at you here!!)

Also if you want to dance along to Verdi! Moments include but are not limited to
dunque signori aspettovi (catchy to ridiculous extremes its the most ear wormy Verdi I know!)and anytime the ballroom dancers are dancing in act 3!

[Hoffmann]

A little morning listening: another of my new purchases:





A very nice opera - nothing flashy, mind you, but interesting music and very well sung.

[Ann Lander (sospiro)]

My friend has just recommended Mascagni's Guglielmo Ratcliff. I'd never heard of it but it's currently on iPlayer (for those who can get it).

She's raving about it so I'll have a listen and report back.

[Luiz Gazzola (Almaviva)]

Somewhere in an interview that Luiz did (I think with Alagna) the latter said that the DVD had a studio version dubbed over the live performance.

I always wondered if I should believe in that.

[Clayton]

Verdi: Il Trovatore
Franco Corelli (Manrico), Antonietta Stella (Leonora), Ettore Bastianini (Il Conte di Luna), Fiorenza Cossotto (Azucena), Piero de Palma (Ruiz), Mirella Fiorentini (Ines), Ivo Vinco (Ferrando)
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala
Gianandrea Gavazzeni
7 December 1962



Thrilling.

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Verdi: Il Trovatore
Franco Corelli (Manrico), Antonietta Stella (Leonora), Ettore Bastianini (Il Conte di Luna), Fiorenza Cossotto (Azucena), Piero de Palma (Ruiz), Mirella Fiorentini (Ines), Ivo Vinco (Ferrando)
Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala
Gianandrea Gavazzeni
7 December 1962



Thrilling.

Can't listen to Corelli because of his fuggy conshonants. Irritation rapidly shwampsh pleasure.

[Ann Lander (sospiro)]

Can't listen to Corelli because of his fuggy conshonants. Irritation rapidly shwampsh pleasure.

Are you sure it wasn't Sean Connery singing

[Amfortas]

Are you sure it wasn't Sean Connery singing

"I shat on the roof . . ."

[Festat]

I always wondered if I should believe in that.

I'm intrigued. I'd have to watch it again with that in mind, but honestly I doubt it's entirely true. I have recorded pretty decent sound in worse weather conditions — of course, in the 2010s not in the 1970s — but wind has been a quite overcomable obstacle in direct sound recording for a long time now. The microphone goes into a zeppelin and then the zeppelin goes into a "mitten" made of long fur, looking like an elongated windproof grey puppy.

Ok, I'm watching it on youtube now. You can see the many microphones planted throughout the stage didn't even need all this, they have only a foam or a short fur windshield.

Alagna in the interview says the singing was pre-recorded, which happens in some open air live performances, but in this case I find it hard to believe because 1) orchestra would be pretending to play [!] 2) singers would be lip-syncing to themselves, and that is VERY HARD to do properly 3) it is just too bad to be a studio recording. For me, this is out of the question, and so is post-dubbing, like any regular musical does, because that takes weeks/months of work and if done right the end result is nearly flawless. They could have built a complex windy ambiance and added every and any minor detail like steps, thumps and clothes moving over crystal clear singing to make it sound much more "realistic" than the supposed live does. And in 1974 they had every mean to do it if they wanted to.

An Amazon reviewer, though, says: "The audio was recorded in one evening and combined with video filmed during several performances." This makes much more sense. We do indeed have some sync problems and continuity inconsistencies that suggest this is not all the same performance. The one that most immediately caught my eyes was Caballé's hand at 32:43–32:47 jumping up quite a bit in the reverse shot. Some moments are evidence that this is indeed direct sound, like she going on and off microphones axis when she tilts her head slightly during the first part of Casta Diva. Others sound like bad editing, she saying "maturi" (31:09) sounds strangely wet with a big reverb that's cut off before it fades, seems edited in. That doesn't happen often, though.

My verdict is that, although the sound doesn't always actually belong to the images, it is, overall, a live recording.

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Dunno who the baritone is on this recording, but he is wonderful.



Some very weird stuff going on in the dialogues at the end. I was listening without the libretto, and someone started doing a funny voice like Papagena from the Magic Flute when she's pretending to be an old lady. Otherwise it's a good recording.

[Clayton]

err...

what about DEADS?

[Festat]

I've been listening to this for days.

[Festat]

I was avoiding this because I cultivate the same antipathy for Teodor Currentzis and Stanley Kubrick (WHO DOES 50 TAKES FOR GOD'S SAKE NOBODY NEEDS 50 TAKES RESPECT YOUR CREW) but I was in a Simone Kermes shopping spree anyway and I though "why not a 30th Così?"



Turns out it's very nice.
MusicAeterna is brilliant. It may very well be the best recording of this opera by a period ensemble I have heard, orchestra-wise. They don't sound like they've been recording for 13 hours at all. Singers, on the other hand, fine but not stellar. The whole things has a whisper-like quality that is very unusual. This wouldn't exist on a stage, without the microphone, and I have mixed feelings about it: if we are recording let's just admit it and explore aesthetic possibilities that the format offer, even though it may grow recording and live performance of opera further apart? Sounds legit to me, but the result here isn't always fully satisfactory, I think. Sometimes I am unable to tell if it was meant to be that way or the cast was just exhausted from the plain abusive recording schedule.

Kermes, usually bright and vivacious and after all the reason why I bought this, is a very fragile Fiordiligi. Her Come scoglio is the opposite of the very commanding standard set by Schwarzkopf. Per pietà, ben mio, perdona is different from anything I have seen, sung very softly — the way she does so beautifully — probably her best moment. Even though her lower register sometimes drops to the point of inaudible, I was listening to it in the car stuck in huge traffic under heavy rain just like this:



And I am #TeamDorabella.