Customer Reviews

Bellini - I Capuleti e I Montecchi / Scotto, Aragall, Pavarotti

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are four good reasons to buy this set:

1) Giacomo Aragall singing Romeo. The Spanish tenor is at the height of his powers here, and uses his beautiful, light voice to turn in a remarkably subtle and strong performance, making Romeo a manly, romantic hero and not some wimp. Marvellous!

2) Renata Scotto as a fascinating and impressive Juliet. She also was captured at the top of her development and this is music ideal for her voice. Her Juliet is a woman of delicacy and substance. Again a magnificent performance, even if the two principals sound like adult lovers and not the dopey teenagers required for the weird story to make much sense. The set includes some bonus tracks at the end providing about 20 minutes of Scotto singing excerpts from Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Bizet and Mascagni. These are less of an addition than might be thought, since the recording quality is such as to emphasize weaknesses in the voice and produce rather screeching sounds in some jumps and crescendos. Still, even these are interesting, and in the main work Scotto is radiant.

3) Luciano Pavarotti, singing the comparatively minor role of Tibaldo. Here is the young Pavarotti, terribly exciting with his well controlled use of his incredible instrument. Worth the price of admission alone.

4) The committed and involved playing of the La Scala forces under the baton of Claudio (not Roberto) Abbado, who apparently also did the adaptation to allow a tenor Romeo. He produces an exciting overall performance, so that this performance is far more than some spectacular star turns.

There are also unfortunately some good reasons not to buy this set:

1) Giacomo Aragall singing Romeo. Romeo was originally a contralto or mezzo part. Using a tenor alters the musical balance and so is not what Bellini originally intended. However, I think that having a masculine-sounding Romeo is a sufficient improvement to make this an unimportant shortcoming of the set. Maybe it is even an advantage. Most mezzos (with the possible exception of Frederica von Stade who showed as Cherubino that she could convincingly sound like a randy male teenager) do not sound suitable to the part and do not produce a satisfying dramatic contrast with Juliet. The lack of extended success of the opera may be due to this poor dramatic balance in part.

2) Poor sound quality, which at best is boxy and unresonant and at worst has the principals seriously off mike. But the sound-quality is not nearly as bad as that in many live Italian recordings of the 60's, and most of the recording is of high enough quality to convey the excitement of the performance. The audience is comparatively well behaved in this recording.

3) The truly wretched booklet which Gala includes. It lacks a libretto and a synopsis (needed here particularly since the source of the story is not Shakespeare). To add insult to injury, the track index gives only the first three or four words on each track and who sings them, useful only if one has a libretto.

These weaknesses in the recording do not outweigh the advantages. At the budget price, this set is well worth having

By its virtue of a tenor Romeo, the team here led by Abbado has turned a relic of the Opera Seria days into a true-blue Romantic opera. If you enjoy travesty roles by all means go and get the Larmore/Hong version or the Kasarova/Mei version, which are really good. However, like Berlioz, I have always found a mezzo Romeo hard to swallow. Had Bellini lived longer, he might have re-written the opera to meet the rapidly changing tastes of the time. After the original was to satisfy the whim of Giuditta Grisi (elder sister of the famous Giulia), for whom Vaccai had written the same role earlier. (Mozart had unfulfilled aims to re-write the travesty roles in Idomeneo for tenor before his early death - I'll assume Bellini has similar aims). If you've no qualms about listening to a matronly mezzo Adalgisa, why not a tenor Romeo here? Heck with the imagined imbalance! Aragall, Scotto and Pavarotti are in their prime and gave fantastic performances here. Somebody should do a recording nowadays with Florez, Alvarez and Vargicova perhaps?

This recording is, in my opinion, fantastic. Although I am very much interested in studio recordings, my Beecham Boheme and De Sabata Tosca sets are positively falling apart, live performances often have the edge in terms of drama and 'life'.
This recording is my favourite of this opera. Some reviewers have a problem with the Romeo of Jaume Aragall, personally I find him ideal. It is true that having a tenor in the role is at odds with Donizetti's initial intention of casting a mezzo/contralto in the role, but I disagree with some people saying it ruins the set. I believe that, if Donizetti had been aware that in the future tenors were going to become the undisputed kings of the opera houses, as they had by the end of the nineteenth century, he would have recast the role to a tenor voice.
The first instance I heard Renata Scotto was, unfortunately quite a poor choice; her Tosca recording with Plácido Domingo in 1981. By then she was past her prime and the voice was far from ideal. Here that is not the case. The voice fits into this music naturally; the deftness of expression, the warmness of interpretation and the ability to make the music sound like it is singing itself that is so gorgeous as to make her stand out ahead of the crowd. Judging by this performance she should have kept to this repertoire.
Finally, there is the tenor Luciano Pavarotti in the smaller, though beautiful role of Tebaldo. Never has such a round, brilliant voice been available for the role. The idea of such casting is so luxurious sounding now that it seems almost silly; Luciano Pavarotti AND Jaume Aragall, two voices so Italianate, so suited to the roles and each so considerably better than any tenor on the international opera circuit today...such talent may never come this way again.
The sound is not perfect, often sounding hazy on the unforgiving CD transfer.
Highly recommended nonetheless
D. Bennett.

A classic I highly recommend to any classical music fan especially of Romeo & Juliet.

If you love Bellini's soaring melodies and exciting singing then this recording of I Capuleti e i Montecchi is for you. Renata Scotto has never been one of my favorite singers. But I do respect her and in this recording she performs Giulietta well enough. Giulietta is just a role that I find forgetable. Her aria "Oh Quante Volte" is a bore to me. The stars of this recording (made live from La Scala in 1968) are Luciano Pavarotti and Jaime Aragall. Yes Romeo was written for contralto, but I'll take a tenor (expecially Aragall on this night) any day. Their passionate singing is incredible. The Romeo/Tebaldo duet is unforgetable as it is ended by Pavarotti and Aragall on an amazing high note. I have also heard the RCA recording with Kasarova/Mei/Vargas. But I believe this Gala recording makes a better argument for the opera.

I have to say, I didn't like this recording at all. Here my background gets in the way. I have sang this opera a few times, and I just cannot agree with changing the role of Romeo from the original contralto to a tenor. It upsets the balance of the work.

None of the singing is really bad, in fact it is actually very good, but the opera seems not Bellini, but rather Verdi. This is a recording of a live performance, and one is not that impressed with the overall sound, and at times important musical parts of the score don't come through clearly.

Scotto makes a fine Juliet, but is too matronly; Pavarotti is a wonderful Tebaldo and sings with the ease needed to give the role some romantic aura -- after all, it is Tebaldo in this version who is to marry Juliet not Paris. The orchestra is handled very well by Abbado. It just seems "wrong." I cannot explain it.

If one wishes to buy this opera, don't buy this version. There is a new one with Jennifer Lamour, I believe, and the older one with Sills and Janet Baker. There is even a forgettable one with Balsa: all of which are infinitely better than this recording, and closer to what Bellini wrote.

The harp-accompanied section of Giulietta's aria, "O quante volte, quante", sounds suspiciously like Desdemona's harp-accompanied Willow Song from "Otello". Even the introductory harp notes of the Bellini aria resemble the introductory harp notes of Rossini's aria! Shame on Bellini for copying Rossini!