REVIEW Il Trovatore (CD EMI) August 2002 Verdi: Il Trovatore, The Guardian CD choice: Il Trovatore, Financial Times ______________________________________________________________ Verdi: Il Trovatore Edward Greenfield, The Guardian, 9 August 2002 (4 out of 5 stars) Verdi: Il Trovatore: Gheorghiu/Alagna/Diadkova/ Hampson/d'Arcangelo/ London Voices/LSO/Pappano (EMI, 2CDs) All you need for Il Trovatore, said Caruso, are the world's four greatest singers. Record companies have been trying to assemble such a cast since complete opera sets were devised 80 years ago. It is not surprising that EMI, after its successful discs of Puccini and Massenet featuring the husband-and-wife duo of Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna with the conductor, Antonio Pappano, would look for other suitable operas to record. Il Trovatore can't have been their first choice. It is a much tougher nut to crack than even Puccini's Tosca and Massenet's Manon. Yet the first big success of this new version is Pappano's conducting. He brings out the drama and atmospheric warmth of the piece fully, helped by superb playing from the LSO. The problem of this opera is to thrust home the melodrama without sounding crude. Pappano comes near the ideal. By comparison, Zubin Mehta on the RCA set, red-blooded as his performance is, sounds a little heavy-handed. The problem for the two principals here is greater than in their previous recordings with Pappano, since their lyric voices are not, on the face of it, weighty enough for the roles of Leonora and Manrico. Gheorghiu characteristically capitalises on the problem, bringing a rare tenderness to her big arias. This is a portrait of a heroine younger and more ardently girlish in her love than we are used to, and the drama is the more intense for it. Only in the bravura aria, Tu vedrai che amore in terra, and the final scenes does she press the voice so it flickers in emotion. The casting of Alagna as Manrico is more controversial. Complaints are growing that he is forcing his tone, and the challenge of a role requiring heroic power means that in the outburst of Di quella pira at the end of act three, the voice acquires a rough edge, losing its beauty. Yet even that intensifies the drama, and undaunted he ends the act with a top C that he sustains outrageously. Thomas Hampson as di Luna gives one of the finest accounts of the role on disc, at once sinister yet ardently sincere in his expressions of love for Leonora, offering even finer detail than Sherill Milnes gives on RCA while Larissa Diadkova, with a Slavonic tang in her mezzo tone, is a formidable and moving Azucena. CD choice: Il Trovatore Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 30 August 2002 The big opera CD releases are arriving early this year. Usually the record companies wait until retailers put up the Christmas decorations - that is, any time from early October - but this first Verdi recording, from its "family" of opera stars, is an important one for EMI. The pairing of conductor Antonio Pappano with the husband-and-wife team of Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu has become familiar on disc. The trio won awards with their recording of Puccini's La Rondine and have followed up quickly with a run of releases that includes Massenet's Manon and Werther and Puccini's Tosca. Their new Il Trovatore is that unusual thing in the record shop these days: a glossy opera set made in the studio and featuring a hand-picked cast brought together solely for the purposes of the recording. (Several of the singers have yet to sing their roles on stage.) The trick is to weld these artists into a team and get them to perform as if they were in front of a live audience. By and large, Pappano manages that. His technique in the recording studio is to go over sections of the score time and time again, striving to instil more dramatic urgency as he goes along. That must be wearing, but it seems to work. Aside from his tendency to start scenes slowly and then whip up the excitement towards the end, this performance of Il Trovatore emulates the dramatic tension of a stage production, while being rather better played. Although opera orchestras generally have improved, not many of them can rival the London Symphony Orchestra. Gheorghiu has yet to tackle any of Verdi's heavier roles in the opera house, but her Leonora is one of the prime pleasures of the set. Admirers of Maria Callas or Leontyne Price may feel short-changed - Gheorghiu's voice remains basically a lighter soprano and attempts to darken it are obviously an effect - but she sings "D'amor sull'ali rosee" with an easy lyrical sheen at Pappano's flowing speed and makes the coloratura sparkle. Voices of caution have been warning Alagna against venturing into heavier repertoire and there are some passages here where the voice takes on a metallic thread, but he brings out his best for Manrico's aria "Ah s ben mio". This is eloquently expressive singing, nicely touched with light and shade. The American Thomas Hampson exceeds expectations with his vividly involved Conte di Luna, even if his soft-grained voice does not have the cut-and-thrust of the typical Italian baritone. Hampson proposes a more debonair figure, his vocal style not so far from the era of bel canto. Alone of the cast, Larissa Diadkova has proved herself memorably on stage in this opera and her Azucena goes at full throttle, notwithstanding Italian words that come with a strong Russian accent. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, by contrast, is a model of clarity as Ferrando. Riccardo Muti's recent recording for Sony was at the other extreme to this - a live recording made at La Scala, Italy's premier opera-house, and sung by a largely Italian cast - so anybody looking for a new set of Il Trovatore has a real choice in front of them. But if this EMI set gives an accurate taste of Italian opera under Pappano's forthcoming reign at Covent Garden, the future should not be half bad. ______________________________________________________________ See also: |
REVIEW Il Trovatore (CD EMI) August 2002 Verdi: Il Trovatore, The Guardian CD choice: Il Trovatore, Financial Times ______________________________________________________________ Verdi: Il Trovatore Edward Greenfield, The Guardian, 9 August 2002 (4 out of 5 stars) Verdi: Il Trovatore: Gheorghiu/Alagna/Diadkova/ Hampson/d'Arcangelo/ London Voices/LSO/Pappano (EMI, 2CDs) All you need for Il Trovatore, said Caruso, are the world's four greatest singers. Record companies have been trying to assemble such a cast since complete opera sets were devised 80 years ago. It is not surprising that EMI, after its successful discs of Puccini and Massenet featuring the husband-and-wife duo of Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna with the conductor, Antonio Pappano, would look for other suitable operas to record. Il Trovatore can't have been their first choice. It is a much tougher nut to crack than even Puccini's Tosca and Massenet's Manon. Yet the first big success of this new version is Pappano's conducting. He brings out the drama and atmospheric warmth of the piece fully, helped by superb playing from the LSO. The problem of this opera is to thrust home the melodrama without sounding crude. Pappano comes near the ideal. By comparison, Zubin Mehta on the RCA set, red-blooded as his performance is, sounds a little heavy-handed. The problem for the two principals here is greater than in their previous recordings with Pappano, since their lyric voices are not, on the face of it, weighty enough for the roles of Leonora and Manrico. Gheorghiu characteristically capitalises on the problem, bringing a rare tenderness to her big arias. This is a portrait of a heroine younger and more ardently girlish in her love than we are used to, and the drama is the more intense for it. Only in the bravura aria, Tu vedrai che amore in terra, and the final scenes does she press the voice so it flickers in emotion. The casting of Alagna as Manrico is more controversial. Complaints are growing that he is forcing his tone, and the challenge of a role requiring heroic power means that in the outburst of Di quella pira at the end of act three, the voice acquires a rough edge, losing its beauty. Yet even that intensifies the drama, and undaunted he ends the act with a top C that he sustains outrageously. Thomas Hampson as di Luna gives one of the finest accounts of the role on disc, at once sinister yet ardently sincere in his expressions of love for Leonora, offering even finer detail than Sherill Milnes gives on RCA while Larissa Diadkova, with a Slavonic tang in her mezzo tone, is a formidable and moving Azucena. CD choice: Il Trovatore Richard Fairman, Financial Times, 30 August 2002 The big opera CD releases are arriving early this year. Usually the record companies wait until retailers put up the Christmas decorations - that is, any time from early October - but this first Verdi recording, from its "family" of opera stars, is an important one for EMI. The pairing of conductor Antonio Pappano with the husband-and-wife team of Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu has become familiar on disc. The trio won awards with their recording of Puccini's La Rondine and have followed up quickly with a run of releases that includes Massenet's Manon and Werther and Puccini's Tosca. Their new Il Trovatore is that unusual thing in the record shop these days: a glossy opera set made in the studio and featuring a hand-picked cast brought together solely for the purposes of the recording. (Several of the singers have yet to sing their roles on stage.) The trick is to weld these artists into a team and get them to perform as if they were in front of a live audience. By and large, Pappano manages that. His technique in the recording studio is to go over sections of the score time and time again, striving to instil more dramatic urgency as he goes along. That must be wearing, but it seems to work. Aside from his tendency to start scenes slowly and then whip up the excitement towards the end, this performance of Il Trovatore emulates the dramatic tension of a stage production, while being rather better played. Although opera orchestras generally have improved, not many of them can rival the London Symphony Orchestra. Gheorghiu has yet to tackle any of Verdi's heavier roles in the opera house, but her Leonora is one of the prime pleasures of the set. Admirers of Maria Callas or Leontyne Price may feel short-changed - Gheorghiu's voice remains basically a lighter soprano and attempts to darken it are obviously an effect - but she sings "D'amor sull'ali rosee" with an easy lyrical sheen at Pappano's flowing speed and makes the coloratura sparkle. Voices of caution have been warning Alagna against venturing into heavier repertoire and there are some passages here where the voice takes on a metallic thread, but he brings out his best for Manrico's aria "Ah s ben mio". This is eloquently expressive singing, nicely touched with light and shade. The American Thomas Hampson exceeds expectations with his vividly involved Conte di Luna, even if his soft-grained voice does not have the cut-and-thrust of the typical Italian baritone. Hampson proposes a more debonair figure, his vocal style not so far from the era of bel canto. Alone of the cast, Larissa Diadkova has proved herself memorably on stage in this opera and her Azucena goes at full throttle, notwithstanding Italian words that come with a strong Russian accent. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, by contrast, is a model of clarity as Ferrando. Riccardo Muti's recent recording for Sony was at the other extreme to this - a live recording made at La Scala, Italy's premier opera-house, and sung by a largely Italian cast - so anybody looking for a new set of Il Trovatore has a real choice in front of them. But if this EMI set gives an accurate taste of Italian opera under Pappano's forthcoming reign at Covent Garden, the future should not be half bad. ______________________________________________________________ See also: |
This page was last updated on: September 2, 2002
