I have to confess that I don't really know how to review audio recordings of operas. It is possible (and in the minority view of Edward Albee preferable) to approach plays as literature. There are operas with great librettos (Boito's for "Falstaff" leaps to mind along with Gertrude Stein's "Four Saints in Three Acts"), but the verbal characterization and plot seems to me (and to hardcore operaphiles) subsidiary to the music.
In opera the words are sung and acted. Those who can meet the vocal demands of opera singers frequently don't look the part or have acting ability to match their singing ability. Here at epinions, recordings that one can see and hear (with subtitles supplied) are in the domain of "movies" rather than "music," which provides another reason to focus on the music in reviewing an audio recording.
I like to let the music of Rossini or Bellini wash over me. Except for "The Barber of Seville," which I have seen produced multiple times, on my own I could not provide a plot summary of any other bel canto, even Rossini's "William Tell" or Bellini's "I Puritani." Most of my bel canto opera recordings include librettos and plot synopses, but I don't much care what the singers are singing as long as the sound is beautiful. (Dramatic is a plus, but vocal-line melody is the essence.)
I don't know if I prefer the immediacy (/suspense) of live recordings to the perfection of studio recordings, but I definitely do not like my flight-of-song reveries being interrupted by applause. (Come to think of it, I don't like applause after arias when I am in the opera house.)
I have never seen Rossini's "Armida" performed live, and listened to SONY's 1994 live Teatro Communale di Bologna recording multiple times before looking at the booklet with the words (those of librettist Giovanni Schmidt and the liner notes).
It is impossible to fail to notice that there are a lot of tenors (six), and that the one female lead, the title role, has about half the music in the opera. The third of nine opere serie wrote for his future wife, Spaniard Isabella Colbran, to perform at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples (he also wrote "Semiramide" for her to perform in Venice) makes great demands on a soprano. Colbran had begun as a contralto and had a huge range and great vocal agility.
When this recording was made Renée Fleming had a big voice, considerable range, including very warm lower range, and could make the vocal runs and leaps better than the legendary bel canto soprano Maria Callas even in her brief and long-ago prime. The title role has considerable emotional range, too, and Fleming rises to those challenges, too.
The great soprano aria of the opera is "Di Dolce Amor" (of sweet love). Fleming is glorious in it, and in the dramatic duet with Rinaldo (Gregory Kunde) "Amore—osssente nome!" (Love—what a powerful name). These are the most stupendous of the highlights. I could do with less recitatives, but Fleming shines throughout the opera—one with many, many invitations to stumble.
Kunde (in a role with no arias of his own) blends well with her. Some of the other tenors are not especially impressive, nor are the Bologna chorus and orchestra (conducted at a rather leisurely pace by Daniele Gatti). The famed tenor trio's sound engineering is disappointing (and the sound generally is on the dry side).
Following Callas into ill-advised extreme weight loss, Fleming seems to have ruined her voice, but what an instrument it was when this recording was made.
I think that's all one needs to know, but will add that the opera is one of about twenty (including ones by Dvorak, Glück, Haydn, Lully, and Monteverdi) based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem "Gerusalemme Liberata" (Jerusalem Liberated). It begins in a Crusader camp preparing for a major funeral. The sorceress Armida arrives, stirs up jealousies, and gets support for a patently fraudulent claim to rule Damascus. The second act includes a chorus of demons in the forest, and ends in an abyss... Can you see why I don't pay much attention to the plot? And I cannot critique the Italian diction of the international cast. But I know singing: and Fleming's was the real thing, and Armida is an opera that provides a bravura star part for a soprano with a wide range and fearsome vocal agility.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2010 Shopping.com, Inc.