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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
A top level cast of singers (Baker, Sills, Lloyd, Gedda, Herincx), an expert and gifted conductor (Giuseppe Patanè), an high level orchestra (New Philarmonia), an excellent choir (John Alldis): everything makes this recording the reference one. Patanè (in turn son of a conductor) reads this opera in the pattern of the best Italian conducting tradition (Sabajno, Votto, De Sabata, Serafin, Galliera, etc.), that is "drying" the orchestral score to its essentiality (that does not mean simplification, but improving musical meaning without overwhelming vocal parts) and keeping it within its functional role, not trying to unnecessarily attract a spotlight on the "Maestro". All the singers master an excellent Italian pronunciation, so you do not miss a cast of Italian singers (maybe some "r" and some "i" could sound more Italian, but there is a lot of Italian singers that do not pronounce better!). Henricx (Lorenzo) sings excellently in the first half, then he loses something (just a little) in the second, while the contrary occurs to Lloyd (Capellio) who improves his performance towards the end. Sills (Giulietta) is maybe beyond the zenith of her vocal power, but gives us all the fruits of her interpretative maturity and belcanto artistry: she is moving and always (tone by tone, word by word) in the right mood. Dame Baker is a convincing and touching Romeo and tackles with mastery the difficulties of rendering both the manliness (here Romeo is the leader of the huge army that Ezzelino - "ghibellino" - is sending against the "guelfi" and during a battle has killed Giulietta's brother) and the tenderness of the character. Gedda is a perfect Tebaldo, who is as generous and noble as Romeo, but has to stay a step behind him in his capacity of being involved in a relationship based on reciprocal tenderness (Tebaldo actually and deeply loves Giulietta, but obtains by her father to marry her without first checking her feelings). The libretto of Felice Romani, as usual with this gifted poet, is of rare elegance and enchanting for the beauty of the expressive solutions. The story is not based (as very often wrongly reported) on the Shakespeare's drama, but on one of the Matteo Bandello's Novels, that consolidated a long preceding narrative tradition. Here we have no mothers and no nurses (and Lorenzo is not a friar). Therefore I can hardly understand why Abbado staged a version (now abandoned) with a tenor in the role of Romeo, so leaving Giulietta as the sole feminine voice and overlapping Romeo's and Tebaldo's characters. Bellini's original solution, with a mezzo-soprano Romeo, is a very successful one to match manliness with tenderness in a post-adolescent character. In my opinion a light tenor would not have functioned so well, risking the ridiculous on the manliness side.
Everything else is the marvelous, enchanting, (old fashioned but evergreen!) Bellini, with his unique capacity of finding out and rendering the essentiality and the depth of a sentimental or psychological situation through the purest, simplest and, at once, most difficult device: a melody.
The sound: from a 1975 Abbey Road Studio stereo recording, digitally remastered in 2004, one might reasonably expect something a bit better. Orchestral sound layers are a bit confused, voices here and there seem to come from a sort of background and sometimes are a bit echoed (is it a conscious attempt to render a real stage situation?); some track starts too much on the pitch. Anyway, anything of all that cannot remotely affect this Romani-Bellini's gem and the splendid artistry of the performance.
The libretto of this incredibly cheap edition is published for download on EMI Opera website.
Simply, hurry up! Every belcanto lover must have these two invaluable CDs!
Everything else is the marvelous, enchanting, (old fashioned but evergreen!) Bellini, with his unique capacity of finding out and rendering the essentiality and the depth of a sentimental or psychological situation through the purest, simplest and, at once, most difficult device: a melody.
The sound: from a 1975 Abbey Road Studio stereo recording, digitally remastered in 2004, one might reasonably expect something a bit better. Orchestral sound layers are a bit confused, voices here and there seem to come from a sort of background and sometimes are a bit echoed (is it a conscious attempt to render a real stage situation?); some track starts too much on the pitch. Anyway, anything of all that cannot remotely affect this Romani-Bellini's gem and the splendid artistry of the performance.
The libretto of this incredibly cheap edition is published for download on EMI Opera website.
Simply, hurry up! Every belcanto lover must have these two invaluable CDs!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Sills And Baker Soar !! The "Other" Romeo and Juliet
21 Mar 2005
Format:Audio CD
EMI has just released Bellini's opera "I Capuleti E i Montechi" (Capulets and Montagues) an opera that is overshadowed by the more famous Charles Gounod French opera Romeo et Juliette. This Italian bel canto work is rarely staged and even rarely recorded. It's a pity really because this is a terrific opera, even if highly edited and even if Bellini tinkered with the play. It's a geme of bel canto opera, full of beautiful melodies, dramatic passions and arias and ensembles that are linked together like a chain of gold. It is a glorious opera when it is performed by the right singers. Recorded in the late 60's, it stars soprano Beverly Sills and mezzo soprano Janet Baker, both at the height of their powers as singers. In the tenor role (not that of Romeo, but either County Paris or Tybalt I forget who) is Nicolai Gedda. So we have three great operatic talents- Sills, Baker and Gedda, reason enough to get this opera, for each singer provides dramatic integrity and passion and beautiful vocal color to their roles. Janet Baker as Romeo is a great performance. Baker had a dramatic and inner power, with a religious zeal and spirituality and passion. I don't care that its a woman playing the role of the male Romeo. Her voice is "masculine" in its mezzo richness, and even her energy. Baker is a goddess of the opera, able to sing both like a woman and like man! Who else can do that ? Her arias here are all taxing and amazing. No one will ever do what she has done for opera. I love Janet Baker in everything she did- Julius Caesar, Werther, Verdi Requiem, Lieder, Ariodante, and the list goes on. Opposite the more elegant Sills, they are a tour de force.
Beverly Sills championed rare operas and was a bel canto specialist. As Juliet (Giuletta) she is the archetypical tragic heroine- dying for love, a vulnerable, dreamy, passionate and suffering heroine. Her arias are full of opportunities to display long-winded, long-breathed pianissimi and lyric passages, as well as radiant coloratura whoops and roulades. Beverly Sills was the soprano that hooked me into opera. She may not be the fierce, lioness and diva assoluta that was Maria Callas or the soprano she is eternally compared to- Joan Sutherland- but she had a magic, seductive, powerful and passionate grandeur that so few sopranos have. To date, she has no successor. No other soprano has filled her shoes. He repoire and connection with the audience has been lost even in today's Vogue supermodel type sopranos (Anna Netrebko, Renee Fleming, etc)who are detached and distant goddess. Not so with Sills, who was a singer who never had issues with her weight and who seemed to boldly say "Take me as I am, even if I dont have the killer voice". She had the most angelic voice, which to this day, still haunts my dreams. Patane conducts the New Philharmonia orchestra, with much dramatic power underlying the sweet bel canto flavor. Those closing bars are the best final portions of opera I've ever heard for bel canto operas. Thank you, EMI for releasing this album I've longed for. But there is still something I long for even more. All I ask now is that EMI do us, the fans of Beverly Sills and fans of those stars who sang with her in her recordings, to release and remaster the LP of Bellini's Norma, which she sang opposite Shirley Verrett and under the baton of James Levine.
Beverly Sills championed rare operas and was a bel canto specialist. As Juliet (Giuletta) she is the archetypical tragic heroine- dying for love, a vulnerable, dreamy, passionate and suffering heroine. Her arias are full of opportunities to display long-winded, long-breathed pianissimi and lyric passages, as well as radiant coloratura whoops and roulades. Beverly Sills was the soprano that hooked me into opera. She may not be the fierce, lioness and diva assoluta that was Maria Callas or the soprano she is eternally compared to- Joan Sutherland- but she had a magic, seductive, powerful and passionate grandeur that so few sopranos have. To date, she has no successor. No other soprano has filled her shoes. He repoire and connection with the audience has been lost even in today's Vogue supermodel type sopranos (Anna Netrebko, Renee Fleming, etc)who are detached and distant goddess. Not so with Sills, who was a singer who never had issues with her weight and who seemed to boldly say "Take me as I am, even if I dont have the killer voice". She had the most angelic voice, which to this day, still haunts my dreams. Patane conducts the New Philharmonia orchestra, with much dramatic power underlying the sweet bel canto flavor. Those closing bars are the best final portions of opera I've ever heard for bel canto operas. Thank you, EMI for releasing this album I've longed for. But there is still something I long for even more. All I ask now is that EMI do us, the fans of Beverly Sills and fans of those stars who sang with her in her recordings, to release and remaster the LP of Bellini's Norma, which she sang opposite Shirley Verrett and under the baton of James Levine.
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
A passionate recreation
29 Mar 2005
Format:Audio CD
This opera is wonderfully alive in this recording --- vocally and in the vibrant conducting by Patane. For the first time I really understood why it is said that the essence of the drama in bel canto lies in the melody. It is, in the end, through the singing and its shaping and modulation that the opera succeeds or fails as theater. Though other musical elements (harmony, rhythm, contrast)are combined in very pleasing way, it is melody that expresses the individuality and specificity of the dramatic moment. In this respect, Janet Baker's supreme artistic gifts rise to meet a very difficult technical challenge as Romeo. Her sculpting of melody, the richness and evenness of vocal emission across a tremendous vocal range, and the dramatic thrust and sweep of her characterisation render her the outstanding Romeo on record (listen to 'Se Romeo t'uccise suo figlio' for an example of melody providing all the dramatic propulsion). Sills is interpretatively very fine, bright-voiced and agile --- one only misses firmness of tone (particularly on high) and more variety of color. But the two wonderful mezzo/soprano duets are exquisite: Baker sings a stanza, and then Sills mirrors with exactly the same phrasing and feeling --- a poignant effect. All in all, for me, this outclasses the newer competition (RCA, Teldec) which seem to all have a strange vividness, like an object under a very bright, but artificial, light.
Here, on the other hand, the lyric shadings of the tragedy are as much in evidence as the underlying passion, but the beauty is expressed completely in and of itself, not by an obvious attempt to foreshadow Verdi. The excellent sound of this superbly balanced reading enables it to radiate the warmth and fragility of the brief era of bel canto itself.
Here, on the other hand, the lyric shadings of the tragedy are as much in evidence as the underlying passion, but the beauty is expressed completely in and of itself, not by an obvious attempt to foreshadow Verdi. The excellent sound of this superbly balanced reading enables it to radiate the warmth and fragility of the brief era of bel canto itself.
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
beautiful and moving opera
12 Aug 2005
Format:Audio CD
One may regret that Beverly Sills and Nicolai Gedda did not
record this opera earlier in their careers (1975) yet still
be glad they did. Though there are some audible signs of vo-
cal wear their artistry and commitment are never in doubt and
they offer memorable performances. Janet Baker is on the other
hand in splendid voice and sings superbly - she portrays a
somber Romeo and is supremely moving in the tomb scene.
Robert Lloyd and Raimund Herincx offer excellent support.
Very well recorded and beautifully conducted by Maestro
Patane - a very welcome release !
record this opera earlier in their careers (1975) yet still
be glad they did. Though there are some audible signs of vo-
cal wear their artistry and commitment are never in doubt and
they offer memorable performances. Janet Baker is on the other
hand in splendid voice and sings superbly - she portrays a
somber Romeo and is supremely moving in the tomb scene.
Robert Lloyd and Raimund Herincx offer excellent support.
Very well recorded and beautifully conducted by Maestro
Patane - a very welcome release !
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