Rossini: The Barber Of Seville with Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, Alceo Galliera, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus
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Free Music Notes for Rossini: The Barber Of Seville with Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, Alceo Galliera, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus
Free Music Review: Poor Callas
Hit: 3 Stars
Maria Callas does not perform strongly on this album. That is too bad because she has many wonderful recordings. The included libretto was quite good and very easy to use.Free Music Review: FOREVER CALLAS
Hit: 5 Stars
IMAGINE AN 11 YEAR OLD IN CARACAS, VENEZUELA, WHO FINDS OUT THERE IS AN EARTH TREMOR BECAUSE THE NEEDLE SKIPS ON HIS CALLAS' LUCIA RECORDING! AN ADDICTION TO CALLAS CAN NEVER BE BROKEN, SHE SPOILS YOUR EAR FOREVER. THIS WAS THE LAST CALLAS COMPLETE OPERA I BOUGHT--SIMPLY BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS SHIED AWAY FROM OPERA BUFFA. WELL, HAVING HEARD IT, THE OLD MAGIC IS BACK IN FORCE. BUT IT'S NOT ONLY HER. LUIGI ALVA IS HEAVENLY, AND GOBBI, PEERLESS.Free Music Review: Bravo a tutti!
Hit: 5 Stars
This "barbiere" is outstanding. The singing of Maria Callas (although the role of Rosina is intended for a mezzo) is clear and beautiful and transmits joy and determination. Tito Gobbi as Figaro is marvelous: humorous, hillarable and potent, he really makes Dr. Bartolo life a hell. Luigi Alva as the Count is great but sometimes his voice is too thin yet pretty. Fritz Ollendorf's Dottor Bartolo is very good, dark sometimes but very good.
The orchestra and the chorus are very well conducted by Maestro Alceo Galliera: good tempi and pretty good strenght. If you're getting into opera, this is the opera to start with and this is the version to listen.
Free Music Review: Doing Rossini Right
Hit: 5 Stars
My desert island list would include a recording of "Il Barbiere di Sevilia" but the choice of either this EMI set or RCA's Living Stereo Edition, would cause me to attempt smuggling in one or the other recordings of this work. My heart belongs to the Callas/Gobbi set because it was one of the first opera recordings I owned. What grabbed me as a pre-teen was that I could visualize the action through nothing more than the voices of the two lead singers and their ability to shade words. I was oblivious to the reservations many had about both singers in 1958. Gobbi's dry baritone and Callas's edgy and unsteady high notes were for me easy to excuse and I still feel the same way. The RCA set has Robert Merrill and Roberta Peters in their prime. Their voices are simply gorgeous and just as theatrically real as Gobbi/Callas. The RCA set is virtually uncut on 3 disks, the EMI set has some traditional cuts on 2 disks.
But the RCA set distances itself with the presence of coloratura lyric tenor, Cesare Valletti as Almaviva, not that Luigi Alva is second best but the RCA set reinstates Rossini's original closing to the final act with a show stopping coloratura tenor aria that would eventually end up as the closing aria for his Cinderella, "La Cenerentola". There is a passage here with music as fleet and difficult that I thought only a coloratura counter-tenor could sing. Valletti's voice is not as handsome as Alva's but the coloratura work is amazing.
I give both recordings four stars and as much as I dislike having more than version of an opera in my collection, these two recordings are recordings I turn to many times when I want to hear some extraordinary singing.
Now to sonics. Both recordings were made in 1958 but the RCA edition, the second CD edition of this recording, will be of interest to audiophile fans. The sound is splendid, open, with full fidelity. Some ensembles at full tilt distort a bit but the digital master was made using the original tapes on the original tape decks. RCA chose to not clean up the sound (tape hiss) for fear that the original fidelity and crispness would diminish the overall effect. They were right. The EMI remastering is good but I'm always cautious with these Callas Editions because EMI ruined several Callas mono recordings, mistaking the work of adventurous producers and engineers and even pitching some of the recordings incorrectly. But the sound is close to what I remembered with the LP editions. There is a hint of tape hiss, but I would rather have the hiss than the flat line noise reduction systems that deaden the brightness.
Free Music Review: A Magnificent Performance !
Hit: 5 Stars
I can only say that Tito Gobi has a voice and performance that is, in this opera, the very best that I have ever heard.