Customer Reviews

Andrea Chenier Hlts / La Boheme Hlts

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This is an altogether wonderful disc with excerpts from La Scala performances (in 1949) of Andrea Chenier and La Boheme. The common elements are baritone Paolo Silveri and conductor Victor de Sabata. The Chenier excerpts have been a favorite of mine for years, as I had them on a Fonit Cetra LP. The transfers to CD are most faithful. The sound of this performance is indelibly stamped on my mind in every detail--including the surface noise, which is pretty robust but somehow doesn't interfere with the equally forward and ample sound. If Tebaldi and del Monaco have ever sung more freshly, more beautifully or ardently, I don't know when. Here they are stupendous from moment to moment, and their performances are fully matched by de Sabata's conducting--altogether the best Chenier I have ever heard, even if the selections run to just a third of the opera (and nothing at all from the final act). Silveri is a terrific and unjustly underrated singer; he gives a powerful portrayal of Gerard. I wish his opening scene had been included. Indeed, it's an awful shame that the recording does not include the whole performance; but in live opera, as in life itself, you take what you get. The excerpts from la Boheme, which center unusually on the last act, are especially good for depicting the emotions of the characters and of the situation; twenty minutes from de Sabata in this opera are more illuminating than the whole show from almost any other. The sound is much better than in the Chenier, even though the performances occurred just a few months apart; the Chenier was taken down on acetates while the La Boheme was recorded on tape, and the more modern method really tells. In any case, the CD is all hugely wonderful and memorable; once heard from de Sabata's podium, these operas will never sound quite the same again.