verdi: Aida
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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.
Free Music Review: Theophrastus Bombastus Paracelsus von Hohenheim (II)
Hit: 3 Stars
Paracelsus was a great man of the Renaissance, a rough contemporary of Hans Sachs of "Die Meistersinger" fame. He was a scholar, philosopher, apothecary, physician and alchemist. He has a solid claim to being the founder of modern medicine. His most prominent quality, however, and certainly the one for which he is best remembered, gave the words "bombast" and "bombastic" to the English language. Georg Solti is very much the Paracelsus of Twentieth Century conductors. He even managed the imposing task of going over the top with Wagner.
In skimming over the Amazon customer reviews, I find that some regard this recording as too Wagnerian. It is not. It is, however, much too Solti-an. "Aida" has been described with considerable precision as an intimate drama with a circus in the middle. Solti's "Aida" is two three-ring circuses crashing into each other.
The singers on this recording are quite good on those occasions when Paracelsus-in-the-pit allows them to be heard. "Aida" has become a diva opera, and one's tastes in personal divas is seldom subject to rational bounds. One Amazon reviewer, referring to another edition of this recording, asked whether anyone listens to Tebaldi's Aida. Well, I do. And I listen to the Aidas of Milanov and Caniglia and Callas (despite, not because of any silly interpolated high notes.) Frankly, I prefer all four to Price, but that is a matter of personal taste, no more.
Vickers turns in a thoroughly un-Italian performance. But it is a performance quite in sympathy with Verdi's written score. His is a performance that no Italian of Verdi's time could or would have provided, but one, I think, the grand old man would have enjoyed.
This recording would have been a pretty good performance of "Aida" but for the fulminations of a conductor who was perfect for introducing the world to the sweep of stereophonic sound, but who never managed to move on.
Three stars.
Free Music Review: A brilliant recording of Verdi's opera
Hit: 5 Stars
This Christian Reico is a Callas fanatic and basher of Callas' rivals. [...]
This recording of "A?da" boasts a soprano with a beautiful, lush voice. Leontyne Price certainly is much easier on the ear than Callas is. Price sounding like a mewling cat? That could describe Callas! Price sounding like her nose is pinched? That could describe Callas! del Monaco a better Radam?s than Vickers? del Monaco the coarse bellower, the one to whom subtlety is a foreign language. Of course Vickers has the right to sing this role. And Gorr is a superb Amneris. We would kill for the likes of her today. Also, A?da is anything but an extremely complex role. It's pretty one dimensional. A?da was never one of Callas' best roles. Her studio recording is bad, and her live recordings suffer from atrocious sound. And that high E-flat at the end of the Triumphal Scene? It's NOT in the score. Callas' ugly voice could never do this role justice, not to mention that she struggled with the high notes, especially the "O patria mia" high C.
[...]
Free Music Review: Not a proper Aida...too overrated
Hit: 2 Stars
Ok, I spent a ton of money on the earlier issue of the set, and although Solti was amazing, Price and Vickers didn't impress me as the primary singers of the role. First of all, I would like to get to the subject of Price's voice. People would say that it is a lush voice, and lush it is indeed. However, it cannot inflect many colors on an extremely complex role, and such is the role that Aida is. There are several Aidas out there who have the capability to bring one to tears, and such are the Aidas of Zinka Milanov, Renata Tebaldi and Maria Callas. Listen to these sopranos, and you will understand what Aida really is. Also, I dislike the timbre of Price's voice--it sounds like she's pinching her nose or something like that--much like a cat's mewling. Then there's Jon Vickers. He was an excellent Wagnerian heldentenor, but what is his business sticking his nose into a heroic Verdian role? Great power? His Radames sounds big althrough out the opera, but that is where he stops--BIG voice, not heartfelt voice. Not a moving Radames such as Franco Corelli or Mario del Monaco. And then there's Rita Gorr, the epitome of the unitalianate Amneris. Giulietta Simionato, Fedora Barbieri, and Oralia Dominguez were great Amnerises, but Gorr simply was built for Wagner. That said and done, I would not think this recording is a proper opera to be a part of your collection. On the other hand, if you want a great Aida, you must buy the Tebaldi Bergonzi Karajan Simionato set, or even better, the Callas Mexico Aida with del Monaco. That had an astounding e-flat in the Triumphal scene. Not an Aida to be missed. Callas could have been great in her studio recording with Serafin, but it was recorded a bit too late. Her voice was pale in comparison to the 1951 performance, of course, but she was still a great singer. Listen to her duet with Gobbi, and her ability to inflect several colors on such a beautiful role, and you will understand why Aida has been such a favorite Verdi opera.Free Music Review: Yeah, it's exciting, but....
Hit: 4 Stars
This recording has many things going for it... in fact it may be the best version of Aida availible. But it has one tremendous, inescapable flaw: it doesn't sound Italian.
Price of course is a wonderful soprano, and a perfect Aida, as is most of the cast. Vickers would not be a good choice as Radames for any other performance; but since this is such a dramatic rendition, it works well.
Solti is truly a master at Wagner. Unfortunately he also has the reputation of being a master Mozart and Verdi conductor, neither of which he is. It isn't so much the heavy brass that does it, it's more of a deliberate reading of the score into shorter rhythmic units (think Beethoven) instead of long, lyrical lines. It's interesting and at times very effective. One should realize, however, what it is when making a decision on selecting music. If you normally do not like Verdi, or you are a fan of Solti's Verdi recordings (or Karajan for that matter) you will probably enjoy this recording. I prefer Giulini as a Verdi conductor, although unfortunately he never recorded this work. As far as I know, Chung also has not recorded it, although if he could be persuaded to, he could be a fantastic exponet (he studied under Giulini, and his Othello sounds very reminiscent of the lyrical, clear and fiery readings that Giulini could give).
So what does all of this mean? It is a good, well performed recording--it's just not as good as this Opera has the potential of being. Listening to Giulini's Rigoletto or Falstaff, one can get a sense of the tremendous genius of Verdi, and his very unique qualities as a composer--the dark sonoroties, human passions and bitter irony of beautiful singing but corrupt characters. Solti does not do justice to Verdi's unique genius. It is a very interesting conception, and a fairly thorough one, but it's just not complete. I do think it's worth getting though, and the price is quite reasonable. There are some wonderful highlights, and you may enjoy listening to several of the tracks just as individual 'numbers'. It should be mentioned that there is no libretto included. The older and more expensive set includes a libretto, and is spread onto three discs so that the second act can be divided at the end of a scene, instead of the middle (much in the same way that Madama Butterfly is often recorded). Also one might be interested in a wonderful collection of Verdi Librettos that is sold as a fairly cheap paper back edition--you can certainly get this cd and a copy of the book for cheaper than the full priced set.
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