- Performer: Dame Josephine Barstow, Plácido Domingo, Leo Nucci, Sumi Jo
- Orchestra: Vienna State Opera Concert Choir, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
- Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
- Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
- Audio CD (10 Jun 1996)
- SPARS Code: DDD
- Number of Discs: 2
- Format: Import
- Label: DG
- ASIN: B0000012Y0
- Other Editions: MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 339,384 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
An excellent recording of one of Verdi's lesser known operas, brought to the fore by superb playing from Karajan and the VPO, not to mention the soloists. The tragic elements are powerfully and dramatically played, but the lighthearted parts (e.g. the finale of the first scene of Act 1) are great fun. It is a wonderful performance that I do not regret buying.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This Ballo is almost the only mainstream recording of the work to be set, as Verdi originally intended, in Sweden. Censors demanded the (historically true) assassination of Gustavus III be changed into the murder of an English governor in Boston. Not that the demands of the censors were as far-reaching in this case as they had been in the unhappy case of his earlier opera Stiffelio. But the opera still carries more weight when restored to the original setting.
Apart from sentimental value as Karajan's last opera, here Domingo is in best form as Gustavus, Sumi Jo excellent as the page Oscar, and few intrusive noises. Full libretto in 4 languages included.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
dreadful and brilliant
19 April 2001
Format:Audio CD
This was Karajan's last complete studio opera recording (he died the following summer during rehearsals for the Salzburg production for which this recording was preliminarily made). It is an opera in many ways ideally suited to the oddly exaggerated mix of elegance and brutality that K. brought to his later Verdi interpretations (for instance the Don Carlo and the second Aida). It is an interpretation that foregrounds the tenor and greatly diminishes the importance of the soprano. How, you ask, can such a thing be done without violating the nature of the opera? Well, it can't be, but the results are nonetheless compelling and once heard impossible to forget. Domingo is fabulous, offering a Riccardo of Otello like brilliance. The passage immediately prior to the last scene when he signs the papers sending his lover and his friend away is so intense as to risk bombast, but it works and arguably neither K nor Domingo has ever been so exalted. (It's difficult not to read some sort of narcissistic self-portrait in Karajan's presentation of the dying Riccardo lyrically pardoning his murder to the accompaniement of the inevitable harps--this recording with the Vienna Phil. was made in the midst of Karajan's final, sad, and shabby break with the Berlin Philharmonic. Miei figli! But as Amelia, Barstow is not satisfactory either vocally or dramatically and Karajan's support during her solos seems perfunctory. Nucci is, as usual, loud and dull. Sumi Jo, a Karajan protegee, is a delight and the recording is impressive. Like all of Karajan's opera recordings, this one teaches you about aspects of the opera that will always inform your future listening, but if this eccentric, uneven performance were to be your only recording of Un Ballo there is much you would miss out on. If only he had lived long enough to record The Sicilian Vespers--now there is an opera MADE for him!
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Excellent!
19 Feb 2006
Format:Audio CD
One of the best Ballo's I've heard.! All the principles are in TOP form and sing thier roles convicingly. I know not all opera lovers admire Karajans style of conducting, but for me, this one is the best. Also, check out the DVD with the same cast. Karjan would have been proud.
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