Thread: What opera are you currently listening to / watching? CD/DVD

Rossini: Guillaume Tell
Lamberto Gardelli, Gabriel Bacquier, Nicolai Gedda, Montserrat Caballe, etc

This is actually a very delightful opera. Conductor Pierre Stoll on this recording.

Delightful story.


Favorite part (not same performance as recording):

Originally Posted by Fritz Kobus

This is actually a very delightful opera. Conductor Pierre Stoll on this recording.

Y E S !!!
One of my favourite operas, full of great tunes and charm. The overture's a real pick-me-up.

Don Carlos has always been one of my favourite Verdi operas. It's a flawed masterpiece no doubt, but the characters are so beautifully drawn and the music displays Verdi at his most humane.

This Giulini recording can now be considered a classic, and remains, on balance, the best recording available. Not that it's that simple of course, for Don Carlos exists (and has been recorded) in a bewildering varierty of different editions. The Giulini represents Verdi's final revision, in Italian, of the five act version. I have three different recordings, all of different versions. IN addition to thise one, I have Karajan's four act Italian version and Abbado's five act French version, with appendices of music either cut or added for different performances.

Giulini's conducting is by turns magisterial and warmly sympathetic to his singers, though occasionally perhaps a tad too spacious. I'd have preferred a more propulsive tempo for Eboli's O don fatale, for instance.

His cast is excellent, Domingo at his golden toned best is more involved, less generic than was often the case in the many recordings he made in the 1970s, though he is even more inside the role by the time he recorded it in French with Abbado. Caballé is in gloriously rich voice for Elisabetta, Verrett excitingly vibrant as Eboli, that smoky lower register of hers used to great effect. Milnes is also at his best as the inherently noble Posa, but Raimondi is a little light of voice for the King, a role which really requires a darker, deeper bass sound. Still he contrasts nicely with the black-voiced Inquiistor of Giovanni Foiani. Simon Estes makes a strong impression as the Monk.

What a great opera this is, and how lucky we are to have this wonderful performance on disc.

I'm sure many of you know America's Got Talent. I don't watch the show, but I sometimes check some of their videos on YouTube. Well in principle I have nothing against the program and have to admit there have been some talented people there. What irritates me is when someone sings opera on the program and the judges are so amazed, the audience aplauds like crazy and the comments on the video are similar. Well a few singers on the current "The Champions" season got under my skin. Well Paul Potts was the first one. I know he sings other things too, but on the program he always seems to sing Nessun Dorma. It's a talent show and if you sing the same song every time...

I can understand if the audience and the commenters on the video don't know any better, but the judges should at least. Well Potts was apparently bullied in school and singing brings solace. Good for him and I have nothing against him. It's just that many opera singers in the past have competed in various singing competitions. One example would be Giuseppe Di Stefano. He won one of those contests in Italy back in the day. Imagine if we could somehow get him on the AGT to show how it's done. I could understand when Pavarotti was the benchmarck for the public with his version of Nessun Dorma. Now that he is gone it seems the public who aren't that interested in opera think that Paul Potts is the best that opera can offer. Pavarotti at least was a very good tenor and a favorite tenor of many people.

I was thinking about writing about Darci Lynne, but she has talent so I think I'll leave her alone. I'll just say that I think that even Callas at her worst got more out of O Mio Babbino Caro than Lynne. I enjoyed her other performances though.

Sorry it was bit of the topic, but I had to vent my feelings somewhere. I just wish we could somehow show the whole world how amazing opera and classical music can be.

Der Rosenkavalier - Stockholm 1966, Schwarzkopf, Soderstrom, Dobbs, Tyren conducted by Varviso.