Verdi - Great Operas from La Scala - Deutsche Grammophon - DGG B001303802 - 028947781219

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Works Summary

Verdi, Giuseppe : Rigoletto

Verdi, Giuseppe : Il trovatore

Verdi, Giuseppe : La traviata

Verdi, Giuseppe : Un ballo in maschera

Verdi, Giuseppe : Don Carlos

Verdi, Giuseppe : Macbeth

Verdi, Giuseppe : Simon Boccanegra

Verdi, Giuseppe : Aida

Verdi, Giuseppe : Requiem Mass

Performers

Ettore Bastianini (Baritone)
Renata Scotto (Soprano)
Mirella Freni (Soprano)
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Baritone)
Shirley Verrett (Soprano)
Fiorenza Cossotto (Mezzo Soprano)
Nicolai Ghiaurov (Bass)
Placido Domingo (Tenor)
Carlo Bergonzi (Tenor)
Antonietta Stella (Soprano)
Katia Ricciarelli (Soprano)

Conductors

Composer

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901)

Remarks:

The Verdi box set of the year! Eight great operas - including popular favorites Rigoletto, Trovatore, Traviata and Aida - recorded between 1961 and 1981 by Deutsche Grammophon at La Scala, Milan, the spiritual home of Italian opera. Claudio Abbado, who conducts Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra and Aida, completes the set with the Requiem. This limited edition set is attractively priced and packaged in a classic capbox. Also includes a 70 page booklet with short synopses in English, German and French.

Reviews

Good value for the price

Deutsche Grammophon's catalogue contains Abbado/La Scala recordings of Don Carlos (in French) and Un ballo in maschera, but this set contains older DG versions of these two operas. The CDs, each in a cardboard sleeve, are packaged in a sturdy box. As one might expect at this low price, documentation is minimal. A booklet contains cast lists, CD track listings, and very concise plot summaries (no more than two or three paragraphs for each opera). No texts or translations, of course. There is no information about the composer, the music, the literary and/or historical sources for the librettos, or the performers. The performances have in common uniformly good execution by the La Scala orchestra and chorus, and the presence of some famous singers, most of whom live up to their reputations. The conducting styles differ markedly. Abbado's beautiful, scrupulous performances are on the cool, emotionally detached side, although sometimes an individual singer will take charge and generate some heat. If you are looking for excitement in a Verdi Requiem, then Abbado's subdued reading will not be for you. By contrast, Kubelik's intensely dramatic Rigoletto is in a class by itself. Serafin's Trovatore and Gavazzeni's Ballo are colorful and energetic. Votto's Traviata and Santini's Don Carlo are less individual, but never less than idiomatic. Standard cuts are made in Traviata and Trovatore (although soprano Stella sings one stanza of Leonora's Act 4 cabaletta, "Tu vedrai"). Don Carlo (sung in Italian here)is the five-act (so-called "Modena") version, but with numerous small cuts, and--oddly--the original quiet Paris ending of Act 5 somewhat awkwardly pasted onto the revised score. Macbeth is the complete Paris version, but with Macbeth's death scene "Mal per me" from the original Florence score inserted before the Act 4 finale. The earlier recordings are typical examples of DG's engineering of the time: very clean and detailed, with solo voices often closely miked. The Abbado recordings almost go to the opposite extreme, with the soloists more distant, and a greater emphasis on the orchestra. Veteran record collectors will be familiar with the work of most of these singers, and will embrace (or reject) these performances accordingly. It should be pointed out, however, that this Ballo has a very uneven cast--which probably explains why this particular recording has not been reissued on CD (at least in the USA) until now. Stella and Bastianini are impressive. Poggi, sounding a bit thin-voiced and stressed at times, is adequate. The Ulrica and the Oscar are both vocally undistinguished (to put it charitably). One final oddity: although Abbado's Macbeth and Aida have been reissued previously as two-CD sets, this release reverts to a three-CD format for each of these two operas. This eliminates an awkward disc break in Aida (here, Act 2 has a CD all to itself); but there is a disc break in Act 3 of Macbeth which easily could have been avoided by fitting all of Act 3 onto the second CD.

Submitted on 07/08/09 by Roland Graeme