A Gripping Performance, But...
936897
I gave this new SACD version a five-star rating, but would really like to give it something like four-and-a-half.  The only reason is no text is included.  Louis Biancolli's notes, apparently from the original issue are here, but it would have been wonderful to have had the poems Mahler used as the basis for this extraordinary music.  If that would have ended up making the CD booklet too thick, why didn't RCA/BMG set up a Website to download the text, like they did with their SACD opera reiusses?  This is my only reservation about this recording, however.  I found it to be absolutely riveting and the DSD/SACD remastering is superb.  In fact, you can almost feel the presence of the performers, especially in the final section, "Der Abschied".

While Fritz Reiner isn't generally recognized as one who tirelessly promoted Mahler's music, he had a perfect feel for it and performed it throughout his career.  His Mahler 4th (also on SACD) with the Chicagoans and Lisa Della Casa as soloist is marvelous.  There are also stories circulating that Reiner almost recorded the Mahler 1st in Chicago, but the plans were scrapped for some reason.  Back in his days in Pittsburgh he recorded the "Songs of a Wayfarer" in the 78rpm era.  I don't think Reiner ever did a "bad" recording in his life.  Every one I've heard has never been less than excellent and some are definitive.  So, despite my disappointment that there's no text in this latest from RCA's great SACD series, I do highly recommend this CD.
620233
If a letter had not been confiscated in transit, this Opera would have enjoyed more than two performances and likely would have been remembered as a great comic masterpiece.  Unfortunately it was prematurely struck down, and although brilliantly revived here for the Salzburger Festspiel, it still has suffered neglect in the contemporary opera houses.

The libretto perhaps does leave some to be desired, although it is quite funny and works as a very entertaining story.  It is really the music, though, that makes this opera great.  The orchestration is brilliant and colorful, and Strauss did a masterful job at creating the characters through his witty music.  It is also one of the masterpieces of Strauss's conversational operas (along with Capriccio).  There are several brilliant scenes that rank among the greatest in any Strauss Opera (for example, the scene in the first act with Morosus complaining to the Barber about the bells).

If one is convinced of the quality of the opera itself, it follows naturally that one would want this recording.  The first reason, of course, is that it is essentially the only one availible.

More importantly, the performance is a live one from the Salzburger Festspiele in the year 1959.  The sound is mono, but the orchestra and singers are quite sonorous and the microphones never distort or clip the sound (in fact, it really sounds best at its loudest moments).  There is very little in the way of audience noise, some from the stage action (although that is supposed to be there, so it's really quite effective) and the only harmful sounds are some creaking of floors etc.  There are occasional moments when singers are obviously further away from the center of the stage, but again that is to be expected from a live recording, and the singing and speaking is always clear.

The singers are tremendous--one could scarcely ask for a better cast.  Hermann Prey gives a masterfully clever performance as the Barber (oddly enough, he also did that for Karl Bohm as the more famous Barber, Figaro).  Hans Hotter gives a great performance as the irritable but tender hearted Morosus, and the inimitable Wunderlich plays the part of Henry.  Hilde Guden is Aminta, the Schweigsame Frau, and it seems to me to be a strange performance... I'm not sure quite what to make of her (at times she almost sounds like the deliberate clodhopper incarnation of Octavian from Rosenkavalier).  The Wiener Phil is of course perfect (when aren't they) and Bohm gives the finest reading the opera will probably ever get.  Every line is clear, every sonority full and every color vivid.  Like the live Rosenkavalier (also from the Salzburger), every note and line is perfectly articulated.

Deustche Grammophon has done a great job preparing this recording.  It is a miracle of sound coming from a radio broadcast in the 50's, and I'm not sure if the Radio Austria has brilliant technicians or DG engineers are magicians, but what we have is a high quality document of an incredible moment in time.  It is very highly recommended.
1734384
When I first heard this performance of Carmen I enjoyed it but, nevertheless, was somewhat disconcerted by it. Both the singing and orchestral playing are beautiful, but the performance sounded different somehow from any other performance of Carmen I had heard. Now that I've lived with this performance for several months -- and compared it to other performances -- I've concluded that the difference is that this is the most lyrical performance of Carmen I've ever heard, and I attribute much of this to Sinopoli's conducting. Somehow he manages to present Carmen as an an incredibly melodic, lyric opera -- with all the requisite drama where appropriate -- but without the usual overlay of bombast that makes Carmen so often seem like an old warhorse. Frankly, I think that some listeners who like Carmen performed as a bombastic old warhorse will be disappoited with this performance. But if you are willing to listen to it with "fresh ears" you will discover that the old warhorse has been replaced by a fresh opera that is both lyrical and dramatic by turns and unfailingly beautiful throughout.
28016
This 1973 radio broadcast of a live performance of "Khovanshchina" is a bit of an oddity. The orchestra and chorus are RAI's own, conducted by an unknown Russian, in Italian with a mightily impressive, all-star cast the likes of which it would be hard to assemble today. It uses the complete edition of the 1959 score as completed by Shostakovich and as such fuller than any extant recording but culminates in a final scene musically less effective and dramatic than the Stravinsky version used by Abbado in his Vienna live recording made in 1979 (see my review).

The sound is a bit tinny but tolerable, especially if you are prepared to trade that off against the quality of the singing by both soloists and chorus and the commitment of the RAI orchestra. Harder to tolerate by the novice Mussorgskian is the lack of libretto and meaningful cues; this opera has one of the most complex, allusive and fragmentary plots of any and without a proper frame of reference must remain virtually incomprehensible, despite Bill Parker's valiant attempt to provide a synopsis in five meagre paragraphs, one per act.

Most collectors will therefore probably want this as a cheap supplement to a more user-friendly set such as that conducted by Abbado or Tchakarov. Either that, or you will be a curious voice-fancier with a bit of Italian and less concerned to follow the intricacies of the story than to sit back and enjoy some glorious singing.

Glorious singing indeed - so much so that it's hard to know where to start raving, but let's begin with the extraordinary voice of Fiorenza Cossotto, whose lustrous voice was as much at home in the roles of contralto depth as those requiring a soprano upper extension; truly a Verdi alto with a top C unexpectedly but ideally suited to the role of Marfa. She is absolutely thrilling. Then we have the great Ghiaurov in his prime, already habituated to the role of Prince Ivan Khovansky in Russian, cursing, blustering, declaiming and chuckling menacingly with his frequent asides of "Salvi Dio" (the Italian equivalent of "Spasi Bog" - "God save us"). Cesare Siepi is noble and sonorous as the Old Believer priest Dosifei, Luchetti's virile tenor perfect for the callow, lecherous Prince Andrei, Nimsgern very characterful as the oily, complex assassin Shaklovity, Ludovic Spiess vivid and believable as the degenerate Prince Golitsin, and the gifted but now largely forgotten soprano Mietta Sighele soars in the role of Emma. The supporting cast is excellent - and as a bonus we hear Elena Suliotis still imposing in 1973 and chilling as the fanatical Susanna.

Available so cheaply, this is irresistible to any lover of Russian opera curious to experience a still-neglected work in a surprisingly workable Italian translation sung by a panoply of first-class singers.
1516770
I thought the performance was considerably better than Kevin Filipski gives it credit for in the Amazon review.  I found it to be sincere, competent, and frequently moving.  The concertmistress seemed moved almost to tears in her long and beautiful solo.  But what spoils this is the egotistical camera work, which generally manages to be where the action is not (e.g. a brain-dead long shot on the tenor's opening Kyrie) and the obtrusive and distracting lighting changes that are nothing short of criminal.
2430790
This is indeed a sterling performance at the Royal Opera House. The cast is very good, if not outright the best.
I would like to point out that not all the lead singers are hundred percent Verdian singers, with perhaps the exception of Piero Cappuccilli.
Placido Domingo is good in the role of King Gustavo, but pales by comparison with Luciano Pavarotti in this role, or Carlo Bergonzi. Despite being perhaps the best vocal actor, Domingo, especially in his earlier days, did not possess the open and exuberant vocal and acting demeanour that he has come to acquire in his later years. Here he is a shade of a king, more a lovesick youngster than a head of courtiers. His vocalism did not quite possess the Verdian squillo of a del Monaco, Corelli, or even Pavarotti. In terms of style, he has not the musical thrust of a Carlo Bergonzi in the Verdian repertoire. Surprisingly, therefore, he is considered the 'weak link' in this cast.
As the heroine Amelia, Katia Rcciarelli also is not a total Verdian soprano in terms of vocal prowess. However, she does make the most out of the role, and her acting and stage presence more than compensate the minor vocal deficiencies.
Piero Cappucilli, though no longer in his absolute prime in this performance, nonetheless succeeded in persuading the audience what a Verdian baritone should be, and his acting is very fine indeed, perhaps even a cut above the 'King' in terms of his noble demeanour.
The package of the DVD is totally deficient. There is no full cast in the inlaid, and nearly nothing mentioned of the conductor Claudio Abbado.
Even so, the performance is a very even one, and Reri Grist's Oscar more than stole the show. If only her appearance could be a trifle less womanly (which would be difficult, any way), her portrayal would just be perfect.
2261066
I found more black and white in this performance than most of the reviewers here. Acts 3 and 4 were glorious. Kiri te Kanawa and Domingo knock sparks off eachother on stage. Domingo lives the part and brings out the very best in Kiri who, for once, acts instead of looking at herself in the mirror. It seems that when Manon is reduced to rags, Kiri sheds her affectations and sings from the heart. Sinopoli's conducting is outstanding. He manages to make you listen to this potentially-hackneyed work with new ears, finding an untrodden path without sounding perverse or self-conscious. Speeds are generally fast, articulation still clear.

But most of the first two acts I found dragged a little. Maybe Puccini takes some of the blame, but to me the supporting cast, after Allen and the two principals, was underpowered. When Domingo isn't on stage, the temperature drops ten degrees, even Te Kanawa going into suspended animation. Acting in the crowd scenes is rather wooden, direction earthbound.

Through it all the orchestra shines. For that, and the last two acts, this is well worth watching.
4348103
This is a controversial but one of the most breathtaking performances i've ever listened of this difficult work. Only
a real Great Maestro could sustain such an overwhelming atmosphere despite a so broad tempi. So, this is a magnificently
controversial performance. Haitink shows to be the very antithesis of counterparts easily taken as references (Bernstein,
Barshai, Barbirolli, Abbado). This hugely expansive view of the Fifth seeks into the darker side of the work's nature and
makes Haitink's journey into the light a very sacabrous way. The opening Trauermarsch is tremendously imposing: very seldom
has the trumpet sounded so brilliant, but also so ominous. The Brass and Percussion departments are also in top form and the
Philips sound quality is gorgeous. Haitink's tempi are very slow, grave, its great lengths are most impressively sustained
and key moments are duly arresting. When we arrive to the second movement (Strmisch bewegt), we feel devastated. Haitink
takes us deep into the realms of Barbirolli, adopting an exceptionally weighty and emphatic line on the music, keeping all
time the same dark, oppresive and desolated atmosphere. Not for Haitink the urgency and hysteria commonly transmitted from
other competitors. This is a real sample of skillfulness and concentration. After hearing so big and dense materials from the
first two movements, the following Scherzo, beautifully and peacefully played, with its rustic humour runs as a cathartic.
The adagietto is controversially famous, since it is one of the longest on record. While many reviewers consider this as an
absurd, i find it marvelously compelling. I wonder how Haitink could hold the music line with this broad tempo, but he is
finally succesful, in fact. The playing and sostenuto of the Berlin strings are really amazing. Finally, the Rondo, that in
Haitink's hands is something really special and unforgettable. Haitink avoids schizoid thriumphalism, and i think he chooses
for a similar way as Shostakovich's 5th Finale: he goes for a resignated way into the light. His masterly approach to the
climax is perhaps more mahlerian than other more pleasant and charming performances for our ears. The transition to the very
final coda is perfectly detailed and the playing is spectacular. The final chorale is in terms of balance, glitter and detail,
the best on record (for my taste). In summary, a controversial performance (so did Mahler), but an unquestionably solid and
shielded one.
984517
The performances were quite worthy, particularly Ali Suliman. But the story, although true, seems heroic only from an American perspective. Also, the title ruins the story. We know the outcome from the opening minutes.
759396
A divisive performance and recording among those who love the Bruckner Eighth -- expansive, cerebral, polished, and the last adjective is either "transcendent" for some or "indulgent" for others. I'll admit it took me awhile to bend to its whims, but I'm getting there slowly -- very slowly -- but surely.

The strings are the star here and the ethereal harp glissandi of the third movement adagio is spotlit as in no other recording. In fact, there's a lot of spotlighting going on in what is an obviously designed recording scheme. The lustrous violins seem to be heavily weighted to the right-channel with the harp isolated far to the left. The burnished brass blaze forth with fire. I tend to like the tympani a bit more prominent in the final movement, but that's merely a quibble here.

Pierre Boulez with the same orchestra, the same Haas edition, and on the same label "convinced" me on first listen (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Bruckner-Symphony-8/dp/B00004TL2N/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Bruckner: Symphony 8</a>); this is one I would recommend to a novice listener as opposed to Karajan. Plus, Boulez is on a single disc.
4843983
I must explain my four stars. This is a very specialised sort of performance: it was broadcast by RAI in Italy in the "Verdi Year" of 1951. It was released on record on the Cetra label. Cetra LPs were variable, but, in general, expensive and the sound often overloaded. It was, however, the ONLY Luisa Miller available until the stereo recording with Anna Moffo on RCA Victor was released in 1965 or 14 years after this one. Then, Luisa was hardly ever performed; now it has come to be considered one of the most important and remarkable of Verdi's pre-Rigoletto operas -- in fact it was the opera written just before Rigoletto,. Though uneven in inspiration and locked into the Italian opera conventions of the period to a degree, it has one of the great last acts by Verdi and much of interest before then. This is a highly idiomatic performance, with much impressive singing and a full-throated emotional abandon.  Mario Rossi was an important conductor and most of his documents are impressive; here his work is fluent and impassioned. However, one has to wonder at the incredibly heavy cutting. It gets to the point that the part of the Duchess (woe begotten Miti Truccato Pace, a famous name on the Cetra recordings) is reduced to just a few lines, and there are some disorienting leaps in continuity. It's possible that  RAI gave Rossi a time limit and he just trimmed away accordingly. Even so, the cutting is extreme here though it was not uncommon to a degree in the period. However, what is performed is full of color and theatrical conviction. The American Lucy Kelston, one of a number of US singers who tried to have careers in Italy after The Second World War has an interesting, "tense" sounding voice, some florid skills and more important in the long run in this opera, genuine emotional force.  Giacomo Lauri Volpi was a world star from the twenties into the early years of the Great Depression, after which he sang in Italy, Spain, and South America. He kept right on singing -- into his 80's! Unlike, Placido Domingo he did not prolong his career by becoming a baritone, he'd show off his high C at an age when even the effort would have killed most people. Here he is about 60 and sounds it. He still has a lot of sound and a ringing top, but his voice has lost its earlier juice and resonance, he sometimes goes flat and he isn't ashamed to belt, though it's mighty belting. He should have made complete recordings in the forties and even late thirties, as did his famous rival Gigli, but he wanted too much money. But while this is not as sweet and easy an account of the role as he would have managed earlier, he has wonderful temperament and color, every word counts. And if not every sound is lovely, his long career gave him the skill to get through some very difficult music very well. There is also the wonderful baritone, Scipio Colombo, as the sore beset Miller. In our world, entirely without Verdi baritones, how someone this thrilling made only a secondary career is a great mystery -- even granting that he had impressive rivals back then. The two basses are fine but have to deal with heavy cuts.  As usual with these RAI broadcasts some more rehearsals wouldn't have come amiss, although while a little rough and ready, the ensembles are lively. That last act is thrilling. Warner went back to original sources as much as possible and paid close attention to the result, which is excellent mono sound, There have been some other CD pressings of this performance but this is the best by a huge margin. The Moffo recording has a great cast, wonderful sound, is note complete although Rossi is a far better than the fast and glib Cleva. Many other recordings have been made since, featuring famous singers, most also note complete. But the vigor, intensity and sense of personal investment in this recording, is hard to find in studio polished efforts, and this is well worth looking into.
3586715
Often, the success or failure of Tosca depends on whether or not the production's Scarpia is sufficiently evil and cruel to build the tension for the audience to hate him. I could not imagine Thomas Hampson as mean enough to succeed in having an audience hate him. But Hampson is brilliant as Scarpia, his hair slicked back, and wearing his coat as if donning the cape of a Mafia "don." His singing and acting are also quite convincing. Watch for the disgust he shows, as he glowers at a forkful of food, annoyed that Cavaradossi's torture has disturbed his supper.

Jonas Kaufmann is one of the most believable Cavaradossis in years. He's younger, convincingly in love with Tosca, and also a credible patriot, willing to risk or lose his life for the rebel, Angelotti. His singing is gorgeous, and he puts across a courageous Cavaradossi while at times still showing vulnerability in his exchanges with Tosca.

Emily Magee's Tosca is not one of my favorites, but it's not her fault so much as that of Robert Carsen who apparently made the decision to emphasize Tosca the prima donna, instead of allowing her to also be Tosca the woman. She appears to be overly dramatic--forced to play a spoiled actress, without the balance of being also a woman in love. Carsen seems also to have decided to deemphasize Tosca's religious conflicts regarding sex and murder. He's even staged the expected church scenes in a sparse layout more reminiscent of a movie theater. Yes, weight wise, Magee is one of the heavier Toscas in the past few decades, but a greater liability than her weight is the determination to portray her as a prima donna with all the exaggerations that ride with it. It makes it harder for the audience to identify with Tosca as a woman tortured between love, her career, and her religious upbringing. They deprive her of her humanity, turning her into an over-acting actress (again, NOT Emily Magee's fault!)

It is still an exciting and dramatic Tosca that I will enjoy seeing again. But it's the dynamic energy of Kaufmann and Hampson, both in singing and acting that carries the day. They are what make this Tosca work!
3425321
I was completely captivated by Kristin Scott Thomas's performance and the slow revealing of the backstory and the reason she was sent to prison for 15 long years.  However, in spite of feeling this is a great movie, I was a bit leary of the reason she was sent away to prison in the end.... and especially that she had shared none of her findings with her husband at that time.  That part made no sense since she was supposedly in a good marriage until the crime.  And that no autopsy or anything was done which would obviously have also shown what she alone knew.  That all seemed too pat for me.  Her acting and the story unfolding demanded a more intricate ending.
4245339
The libretto-writer and the composer have mainly kept the text of the play, thus going back to its social meaning, after the film that move away from it, though, maybe, with a less heavy hand due to the cutting of the last sentence of the play. The game is thus less social, more individual, and yet the main cause of the tragedy is the social bigotry of southern culture, of southern society, maybe of human society as a whole. But it is an opera and the play gets a completely new dimension. Andr Previn's music is very modern and it refuses all the singing variations that are so common in classical operas, particularly in the Italian tradition. That gives to the text a clarity and a force that it deserves. Yet the sensual music and the very expressive singing amplify the power of the text. This appears very claerly in Blanche's confession of her  crime  concerning her first husband. She enters a long aria that is poignant and dramatic. This is emphasized by her getting down from the apartment through the invisible wall facing the audience, down two steps to the front of the stage, as if she was moving from one place and one time to another place and another time. The equivalent of a flashback in this medium. This scene becomes central in the opera and unerasable from our memory and consciousness. Especially since Mitch remains in the apartment, behind Rene Fleming. Another outstanding scene is the finale. There, the apartment turns away to the left and opens a vast perspective, lighted in blue and misty, into which a blue-dressed Blanche walks as if she were going onto/into the vast blue sea she has just dreamed of. A metaphor of her escape, of her sacrifice, of her ordeal in this society that cannot accept misfits to the point of educating people into absurd bigotry that causes the worst dramas imaginable. A great moment of pleasure with great music, great singing, great acting. I will only criticize, moderately, the choice of the voices. The three women have voices that are too close and their contrast is thus too little powerful. The men can also be seen as being too close with the same result. In a way we were expecting Mitch to have a very low voice, that of a bass, and Stanley to be a more powerful tenor able to dominate the stage, to crush any rebellion with his sole voice. But a marvellous moment of music nevertheless.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan
2024634
Young Japanese pianist Ayako Uehara originally got my attention with a performance of this same Tchaikovsky First Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit.  I personally think that performance was the best I've come across outside of the legendary Van Cliburn/Kondrashin  performance, if not an equal to it.  (The Dutoit performance can be accessed on YouTube.)  Uehara's brilliance can still be heard on this one, but is badly hindered by what I think was a lethargic and seemingly-clueless reading by the conductor.  The dynamics of the recording are compressed to boot.

In my opinion, Ayako Uehara is one of the most-exciting young stars in the classical music world that I've experienced in quite some time.  Although it may not seem overly obvious with this CD.  I've also witnessed some great Rachmaninoff and Mozart from Ayako as well.
3989918
Great, great performance - singing, acting, conducting - marred and denigrated by an absolutely unforgivable production and set design.  Reminds one of a high school low budget production - at the Met!  "Minimalist" it might be - but since was this something for Pushkin's Russia?  It's painful to watch, and the performance breaks your heart in more ways than one.
1300976
Incredible, fantastic performance. Stunning.