Customer Reviews

Donizetti: Maria di Rohan

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

 

 

Maria di Rohan is a wonderful bel canto opera written toward the end of Donizetti's life. The cast on this live 1974 production does the composer justice right from the start with tenor Grilli pouring out heroic sounds in the first major aria. For you Renata Scotto fans, you will be pleased to hear this great artist working her typical charm in her usual grandiose manner, milking every line with an extra helping of portamento.
Her two big arias and the gorgeous love duet with Grilli make this a worthy purchase if nothing else were sung. But, let's not fail to mention the great singing of baritone Renato Bruson.
His creamy tone and commitment to his charactor are other reasons to hear this recording. I am familiar with one other recording of Maria di Rohan with Edita Gruberova in the title role. Her vocal approach is quite different from Ms. Scotto, but I like recommend them both for the hearing. Opera d'Oro has done us a great service by obtaining these live recordings and offering them at such a bargain price. There is no libretto, but who cares when you are riding in your car and just listening anyway! This opera is Donizetti at his best!

Maria di Rohan is an immensely enjoyable opera. As Donizetti's last romantic melodrama, it represents his final develoment of this species of opera. The performance of this opera is excellent and Renato Scotto steals the show as an energetic Maria along with fine performances by Umberto Grilli as Riccardo and Renato Bruson as Enrico. The other members of the cast also do a very fine job.

This recording is of a live performance at the Teatro Felice in Venice on March 26, 1974. The recording does a good job of catching the soloists and faithfully recording the tone and timbre of their voices. The chorus is also generally well recorded. The recording does a very poor job with the orchestra however. When only a few instruments are playing, the recording is acceptable. However, when the full orchestra plays, the sound becomes indistinct and muddled and it can be difficult to even fathom what the melody is until the singing starts. Perhaps this is why the overture has been omitted from this recording. There is also a lot of mike noise, stage noise, and crowd noise including one rambunctious fan who keeps shouting "Bravo, bravo!" although I actually get a kick out of him and his shouts are well timed.

The booklet is fairly typical the Opera d'Oro series. Although there is no libretto, there is a brief synopsis of the opera and a summary of the circumstances surrounding its composition. There is a listing of the title of each track on both CD's and the characters that sing on each track, which is helpful.

So I'd give this 5 stars for the performance, but overall downgraded to 3 stars for the poor sound quality of the orchestra and the omission of the overture. Nevertheless, I found this enjoyable to listen to once I got over the limitations of the sound. At the low price this is a bargain for this neglected masterpiece. I doubt I would have purchased Maria di Rohan at a much higher price, so I'm happy that Opera d'Oro issued this recording and am quite satisfied with my purchase.

I think it is important to let potential purchasers know that Gavazzeni, ever the know-it-all, has seen fit to improve Donizetti's opera by chucking the magnificent overture. After all, he knows so much better than did Donizetti what Donizetti wanted. Again.