Customer Reviews

Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur

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

 

 

Adriana Lecouvreur (1902) is Puccinisque in style, or sounds like early Puccini, and it has more going for it then the gorgeous arias I have heard excerpted. This recording is from a great live performance (Paris, 1975) with Caballe and Domingo in stunning form. Caballe sings with her customary meltingly beautiful lyricism but in this role she also gets to show off her range of character. There is a scene where she enacts a theatrical monologue, entirely in exclamatory bursts--it is black and venomous and makes for incredible contrast with her other arias. Domingo sings with passion, beautiful tone, and he escalates his phrasing to ecstatic heights.

The sound is good. Enclosed is a brief synopsis, but, unfortunately, no libretto.

Source: Live recording from 1975.

Documentation: Typically inadequate Od'O. No libretto. Short summary of the plot.

This is a perfectly satisfactory live performance that features two top singers, Montserrat Caballe and Placido Domingo, both in good form. On that basis alone, this set fully deserves five stars.

Having said that, I feel obliged to point out that Opera d'Oro has another performance of this same opera that features not just two great singers, but four: Olivero, Corelli, Bastianini and Simionato. Moreover, Magda Olivero, a true and fiery verismo soprano, is simply a better Adriana than Caballe, who is a great technician but not by any stretch of the imagination a verismo singer. In just the same way, the other set's passionately intense Franco Corelli is better than the lush-voiced but too-generalized Domingo.