Customer Reviews

La Boheme

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I can't believe nobody has reviewed this one for Amazon. I think this is the one Boheme to buy if you only want one. Here's why:

1. The singers were the greatest of their generation, and are uniformly better than today's performers. Tebaldi, Bergonzi and Bastianini not only have great voices -- fuller, richer, more flexible and more versatile than today's one-dimensional singers -- but they also "act" the text audibly and with individual charisma. They do not simply sing the notes with generalized "feeling." Listen to Bergonzi's incomparably suave yet verbally inflected "Che gelida manina" and "O soave fanciulla." He knows what he is singing and why. Tebaldi and Bastianini were on the top of their form, and Gianna D'Angelo is a wonderfully snippy Musetta.

2. Although it was recorded nearly 40 years ago, the sound quality is every bit as lush and clean as today's digital recordings.

3. The conductor, Tullio Serafin, knew how to make the orchestra part of the drama, not merely an accompaniment. The great
romantic swells of this score really burst forth.

Certainly there are other fine Boheme recordings but i don't think they match up. The old Beecham set with de los Angeles and Bjorling is also superb. Bjorling is of course magnificent, but the sound is not so lush as on the Serafin, and I find de los Angeles tone turns hard on top -- it does not have the creamy smoothness from top to bottom of Tebaldi.

Karajan turns every opera into an orchestral tone poem, which sometimes works brilliantly, but tends to obscure the story.

And, although millions of opera fans will disagree, I find Pavarotti's interpretations generally mannered and therefore ultimately dull. The voice is certainly bright and ringy, but he sings everything the same way, with no sense of the individual character. I find his tone too hard and metallic for the many tender moments of Boheme. When he tries to sing tenderly, I get the feeling that he can't take the weight and volume out of the voice without losing the focus of the tone. He never surprises.

And don't get me started on Bocelli ... a totally manufactured phenomenon...a thin and pinched voice that only really opens up on top... no sense of drama in the words (again, listen to any Bergonzi recording). There must be 10 young tenors in every Italian conservatory that can sing rings around him.

So save your money on teh high-priced versions and buy the Decca Boheme.