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13 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A wretched "Boheme" - Avoid this at all costs, 29 April 2001
La Boheme" has, for the most part, fared well on records. There are many classic recordings of this, the most frequently performed opera in the world: the Beecham with De los Angeles and Björling; the Votto with Callas and di Stefano; the Serafin with Tebaldi and Bergonzi; the Karajan with Freni and Pavarotti. Other recordings with various merits include the ones with Tucker and Moffo, Peerce and Albanese (under Toscaini), Domingo and Caballé, Gigli and Albanese, Scotto and Kraus, and more recently, Alagna and Gheorghiu. This new turkey of a "Boheme," utterly lacking in any artistic (as opposed to crassly commercial) justification, is not even worthy to be mentioned in the same review as the foregoing, much less to be compared to them. To anyone who knows and cares about Puccini's music, this recording is not only unnecessary and indifensible, it is offensive. There is so much blame to go around that it is difficult to know where to begin, but let's start with the conductor, Mehta, who apparently cannot make up his mind whether he wants Puccini's poor opera to be pummelled to death with a sledgehammer or drowned in a slough of sentimental goo. Barbara Frittoli has a pleasant if undistinguished voice but she is a total cipher as Mimi, devoid of personality or individuality of timbre. The Marcello and Musetta are good, and if they don't erase memories of their more illustrious predecessors on disc, they do not embarass themselves, either. But then, who buys "Boheme" for the Marcello and Musetta? So let's face it - the entire rationale for this recording is pop star and operatic tenor wannabe, Andrea Bocelli; the rest of the recording is just so much surplusage. And so how does the Great Bocelli fare as Rodolfo? To put it bluntly, the man may be a fine singer of pop music and folk songs, but in opera, he couldn't sing his way out of a paper bag. In spite of the blatant miking, which sounds like he was crooning directly into the microphone (no doubt he was), it is painfully obvious that Bocelli's modest resources are utterly inadequate to the demands of this role. High notes are lunged at and thin, ends of phrases are unsupported and often simply drop off, and he is incapable of any real dynamic variation, singing most of the role at an unvarying mezza forte. Most damaging of all, his voice is incapable of expanding and blooming to fill out Puccini's grand lyric phrases. All the digital wizardry in the world cannot turn Mr. Bocelli into what he is not, and what he manifestly and undeniably is not is an operatic tenor. The computer jockeys likewise cannot create in Bocelli any sense of Puccini style. As a previous reviewer observed, Bocelli sings this music like it was Andrew Lloyd Webber, with a soupy, crooning style totally unsuited to the music. None of this, of course, is going to deter Mr. Bocelli's determined fans, 99% of whom have no point of reference for comparison, from buying this recording. And if their love affair with "Andrea" causes them to buy this recording and thereby to strike up an acquaintance with "La Boheme" and, possibly, with opera as a whole, I would be the first to celebrate - so long as they don't think that in listening to this recording they have really heard "La Boheme" or Puccini, or that they have heard any representative example of what a truly great operatic tenor sounds like. This recording really stinks. Eees so bad, eees terrible. I'm giving it ones star anyway, for the secondary parts and for Puccini. He deserves better.
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~ Andrea Bocelli
~ Bocelli
~ Andrea Bocelli
~ Andrea Bocelli
~ Giulio Caccini
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