verdi: Aida
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Composer: Giuseppe VerdiEdition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 1998-12-15
Music Label: Decca Classics
Soundtracks:
- Preludio
- S?- Corre Voce Che L' Etiope Ardisca
- Se Quel Guerrier Io Fossi!...... Celeste Aida
- Quale Insolita Giola
- Alta Cagion V'aduna
- Ritorna Vincitor!
- Possente, Possente Fth?
- Mortal, Diletto Ai Numi
- Chi Mai Fra Gl' Inni
- Fu La Sorte Dell' Armi A' Tuoi Funesta
- Su! Del Nilo Al Sacro Lido
- Gloria All' Egitto
- Marcia E Ballabile
- Vieni, O Guerriero Vindice
- Salvator Della Patria
- Che Veggo!.... Egli-..... Mio Padre!
- Atto Ii (Cont'd) - Quest'assisa Ch'io Vesto Vi Dica
- Ma Tu, Re, Tu Signore Possente
- O Re- Pei Sacri Numi
- Gloria All' Egitto, Ad Iside
- Atto Iii - O Tu Che Sei D'osiride
- Qui Radames Verra! ... O Patria Mia
- Ciel! Mio Padre!
- Pur Ti Riveggo, Mia Dolce Aida
- Fuggiam Gli Ardori Inospiti
- Tu ... Amonasro! ..Tu!
- Atto Iv - L'aborrita Rivale A Me Sfuggia
- Gia I Sacerdoti Adunansi
- Ohime! ... Morir Mi Sento! Oh! Chi Lo Salva-
- Radames! Radames! Radames! Tu Rivelasti
- La Fatal Pietra Sovra Me Se Chiuse
- Presago Il Core Della Tua Condanna
- O Terr, Addio
Free Music Notes for verdi: Aida
Free Music Review: The incomparable Price and a few other Aidas
Hit: 5 Stars
This repeats a review posted for the Aida with Caballe and Domingo under Muti on EMI. I had so many opinions about this opera on records that I thought I might repeat them here, with apologies.
It's peculiar that no single performance of Aida on records has ever attained consensus as 'the one', the closest candidate being the RCA-Decca performance with Leontyne Price and Jon Vickers. After decades of listening to most of the major contenders, here's how I would size them up.
Best conducting: Karajan on both his readings, the first for Decca in the early Sixties, the second for EMI in 1980. He has the glorious Vienna Phil. on both--for richness, depth, drama, and splendor nothing equals them. Karrajan himself provides a continuous outpouring of insights into Verdi's deceptively simple score.
Best Aida: For many, Leontyne Price will always be defined by this role, her signature for two decades and perfectly suited to her voice, with its dusky low range and incredible floated high notes. She sounds much fresher in her first RCA recording with Solti than in the remake with Leinsdorf. For other listeners there is no replacement for Callas and her intense involvement with the role, while Tebadi stands out for sheer lusciousness of voice.
Best Rhadames: Bjorling really didn't have the heft to sing this role onstage, but pairing Milanov in a classic RCA mono recording he sounds, as always, ravishing in style and tone. Vickers attacks the role with incredible intensity but is singularly un-Italian despite his glorious, heroic volume of sound. Among stylish tenors with smaller voices, Bergonzi under Karajan, paired with Tebaldi, wins high critical praise. Domingo, for all his virtues, always seems to come in second best.
Let's say we stop there; it's easy to see why the Price-Vickers-Solti set has such a strong following, and also the Tebaldi-Bergonzi-Karajan set. But complaints have always arisen about both, that Vickers has no Italian style and Solti conducts with brazen vulgarity. In the other set, the grouse is that Tebaldi wasn't in best voice and sounds too imperious, while Bergonzi, for all his polish, isn't a viscerally exciting Rhadames.
This carping opened the way for the 70's EMI set with Caballe and Domingo in their vocal prime. Muti conducts skilfully, moving the drama along quickly and with a refreshing lack of overdone sentimentality. Caballe isn't a spinto-dramatic soprano as called for, but she sings for the microphone with wonderful nuance and pathos (I find her less droopy than she often was). Domingo exhibits perfect tone and style, but his reading is a bit callow compared ot what he would achieve later in his career. In other words, there's no true greatness in any part but the whole hangs together nicely. It must be noted, though, that the bland Capuccilli as Amonasro ruins the drama of the Nile scene.
My review, such as it is, stops here, since other reviewers listed below have detailed the specifics of this recording. But I'd like to offer some notes about all the Aidas I've encountered over the years.
--Aida was Birgit Nilsson's best Italian role, and in her EMI recording she softens her steely tone and makes quite a nice success for herself. She is partnered with Corelli, whose vulgar bawling makes him unlistenable to my ears, but if you admire him, this performance led by a young Zubin Mehta ranks with the Caballe-Domingo one.
--Callas must be listened to on her own, or with Gobbi when he enters as her father in Act 3. Their Nile scene is incomparable, not to be missed. Too bad it's ruined by the entrance of the horribly stentorian, unstylish Richard Tucker, a huge blemish on this recording.
--Abbado should have come through with Aida from La Scala when he was musical director there, but his reading for DG is cautious and bland (the same goes for a live performance on Opera d'Oro with Arroyo and Domingo--they aren't great, either, though very good).
--Aidas who can't really manage the part include Katia Ricciarelli for Abbado and Freni for Karajan in his EMI remake (she's wildly overparted but moving and artistic nonetheless). Aprile Millo for Levine from the Met (Sony) can sing the notes but has nothing interesting to tell us. Heresy to say, but I feel the same way about the revered Zinka Milanov with Bjorling on RCA.
--A Rhadames who can't really sing the part is Carreras under Karajan, but he gives his all trying. Pavarotti sang the role both on stage and on disc (with an unknown and forgettable Aida), but his lyric tenor isn't right. Having said that, I was surprised at how enjoyable his Decca performance is. Domingo has sung the role for Muti, Leinsdorf, Abbado, and Levine. All are very good; probably the best is with Leinsdorf, a shame since the conducting is prosaic and the bloom was off Price's voice by then.
--Uninspired condcuting honors go to Leinsdorf, but I get little out of Levine's hectic, impesonal work on Sony, and the sainted Tulio Serafin on the Callas set is authentic but rather workaday. When it comes down to it, Solti for all his vulgarisms threw himself into his preformance, while Karajan is the greatest maestro to take on the opera, pace the fans of Toscanini, whose fiery reading isn't to my taste, even if it didn't have a second-rate cast and boxy, wooden sonics.
verdi: Aida Poster
In 1961 when this recording was made everyone in this stellar cast was in their vocal prime and deliver what surely must be one of the most thrilling studio performances of Aida ever offered to the public. Conductor Solti's well-considered judicious tempos heighten the power, drama and allure of Verdi's various settings and Decca's vintage stereo sonics still sound great.Classical Music CDs
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