Round 2: MANON: Ah! Fuyez douce image. Rogatchewsky and Malipiero

Recently, I have a soft spot for Massenet sung in Italian... Malipiero also has clearer vowels. The timbre is more on the sugary side, but my tollerance of this also increased lately.

By the gods, I believe these gentlemen sing this as well as I've ever heard it sung. Criticism of such free, finely shaded singing can only amount to nitpicking, which I'm glad to leave to any pickers hereabouts. In nearly any other company Rogatchewsky would have the advantage simply for his perfect French, but Malipieri has a focused purity of tone, soaring top notes, a delicate portamento, and a sharpness in declamation that comes as a wonderful surprise after such lyrical sensitivity. It all combines to convey a deep passion with no loss of elegance. Sung like this, the Italian translation feels wholly justified.

I liked both interpretations but I’m picking Rogatchewsky because of the dreamy way he sings the aria, not forgetting the technical side.

@vivalagentenuova
Seattleoperafan tags you i think.

tsquare07 said:

@vivalagentenuova
Seattleoperafan tags you i think.

Click to expand...

No, I was tagging him as he suggested these two as a contest. I wanted to thank him.