Customer Reviews

Donizetti: Roberto Devereux

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

 

 

Although this performance has appeared in a number of previous editions, the Opera D'Oro version has sound to match the best - and the price is right! Cappucilli is in his youthful prime and Anna Maria Rota, though without an intrinsically 'beautiful' sound, is stylistically correct and dramatically committed. The fly in the ointment is Bondino, whose evident commitment cannot overcome his bleating tone and vague sense of pitch. But of course it is for Gencer that enthusiasts will want this recording. The year of the performance, 1964, was Gencer's 'annus mirabilis' with not only this supreme interpretation (in the first revival in modern times) of Elisabetta, but magisterial interpretations of Beatrice di Tenda and Norma, among others. Very different from the equally valid interpretations of Sills and Caballe, Gencer's unique sense of line and of the use of words to color the music make her unique

Donizetti's operatic production is amazingly abundant, but only a few titles were regularly performed in the XXth century until the 'Bel canto revival' of the fifties and sixties. This is partly explained by melodies and themes lacking of interest or originality, and partly by the extraordinary vocal abilities demanded (especially to sopranos). A small group of outstanding sopranos have been responsible for Donizetti's revival: Callas, Gencer, Sutherland and Caballé, and, more recently, Gruberova. Roberto Devereux was exhumated in 1964 by Leyla Gencer after being forgotten for almost a hundred years. This recording was taken during one of those historical performances. Here we have a splendid Elisabetta sung by Gencer. An excellent Nottingham is sung by a young Piero Cappuccilli, and Ana Maria Rota is very good as Sara. Ruggero Bondino sings a forgettable Roberto Devereux, but fortunately the title role of this opera is of secondary importance. The Naples orchestra sounds well, conducted by Mario Rossi. The quality of sound is good. Despite some generalized opinion, this opera has good merits and deserves more attention. The music has moments of quality and grandeur. This recording provides an excellent opportunity: an outstanding historical performance by an exceptional soprano (Gencer) and an excellent baritone (Cappucilli) at a very low price. As usual, it would be highly desirable that Opera d'oro series included libretto and comments, especially in the case of rare operas like this one.

Some years ago the great Beverly Sills recorded this classic role. That recording was legendary. Now we have a live recording of the great Leyla Gencer singing the role. This performance is superb; dramatic, gripping, and also legendary.

I truly believed I'd find perhaps the greatest Elisabetta in Leyla Gencer, especially considering the year of this performance. Almost every other Donizetti opera I have with her ranges from interesting to excellent with Belisario being a personal favourite. Her impressive Lady Macbeth sort of promised me a great Elisabetta (both roles are fierce vocally and dramatically) but vocally I was dissapointed by this performance. She sounds surprisingly unsteady and often tired though she demonstrates Elisabetta's anger well. I also expected a top note at the end of her cabaletta; I could have lived without it if the rest of her performance was better. She must have had an off night because even later performances find her in better vocal state.

Cappuccilli was in his vocal prime and would soon graduate to the group of leading baritones of the time. It's a pleasure to have such a handsome voice with its caressing legato in a role that isn't often sung by top class singers. Rota sings a fine Sara.

I don't think the title role is of secondary importance as a previous reviewer mentioned. If you hear an excellent Roberto Devereux like Jose Carreras (in one of his finest performances ever), you'll immediately realise the difference and how more interesting the opera becomes. Ruggero Bondino is virtually useless here and with this performance gets my vote for one of the most miscast tenors. Sound is standard 60s sound and maestro Rossi merely adequate.

Overall, an OK performance which could have been super with Gencer in better form and Corelli, Bergonzi, Aragall in the title role and Gavazzeni leading the orchestra.

what has already been written about this historic recording is accurate and at this price is worth purchasing but sadly the supporting cast are not up to Gencer's standard and it shows - especially Bondino. This often happens with Gencer recordings, sound is ok, no libretto at all which is a shame as it is a rare opera whose enjoyment is greatly increased by knowing what is actually happening!

This excellent opera was composed in the same decade (i.e. Donizetti's maturity on opera composing) in which he produced one of his masterpieces: Lucia di Lamermoor (Naples, 1835).

Roberto Devereux ( Naples, 1837), a lyric tragedy in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti, libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, was a great success when initially performed in Italy, in spite of the original censorship of the decapitation scene of Roberto on Act III which delayed the première.

Leyla Gencer (soprano) was brilliant and a powerful in the role of Queen Elizabeth I (one great achievement). It reminds me of the recording of the legendary Beverly Sills singing the `Tudor Queens' (which is not available on cd), and her worthy successor: Edita Gruberova (in the CD entitled: `Donizetti's Tudor Queens').

All of them possess beautiful coloratura soprano voices which perfectly suits Donizetti vocal requirements. However, I prefer Monserrat Caballé (she is particularly moving singing the Act III aria: "Vivi, ingrato, a lei d'accanto..." in the live recording at Teatro La Fenice, Venezia, 1972, brought to us by Mondo Musica with the 20-bit recording process of sound).

The symphony from Roberto Devereux, a beautiful piece with an end of great theatrical intensity, is one of the most successful among Donizetti's compositions for orchestra. It was added to the score on 1838 (on the opera's première at Paris). It has embedded a brief interpretation of the British anthem and the melodic richness of the cabaletta of Roberto's aria: "Bagnato il sen di lacrime..."

Even though Rossi's conducting is good, the execution of Silvano Frontalini directing the "Orchestra della RTBF di Bruxelles" for Bongiovanni (a CD of Donizetti's "Sinfonie da Opere") is superior, and by far more satisfying unleashing all the orchestral forces on the different tempi of Roberto Devereux's symphony.

Source:
1964 live performance recorded at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

Sound:
Fair overall and sometimes a bit better than that. This is a fairly representative example of a live opera recording made in the sixties at the sub-professional level. For an Italian audience, the Neapolitan crowd at the San Carlo on that night were fairly restrained and disciplined, although enthusiasts were on hand, naturally, to hurl out plenty of bravas and bravos, whether needed or not. A couple of false starts in the applause demonstrate that the audience was not familiar with the opera.

Cast:
Elisabetta, Queen of England - Leyla Gencer
Roberto Devereaux, Earl of Essex - Ruggero Bondino
Duke of Nottingham - Piero Capucilli
Sara, betrothed to Nottingham but in love with Essex - Anna Maria Rota
Lord Cecil, Privy Councilor to the Queen - Gabriele De Julis
Sir Gualtier Raleigh, Captain of the Queen's Guard - Silvano Pagliuca
A page - Bruno Grella.

Conductor:
Mario Rossi with the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro San Carlo di Napoli.

Documentation:
Typical Od'O package. No libretto. Bill Parker struggles manfully to pack in a history of the opera and to summarize its plot in the hopelessly narrow space allotted to him. The track list provides only the first few Italian words on each track. Singers are not identified, nor are timings provided. Nothing on the cast or the circumstances of the recording.

Format:
Disk 1 - Sinfonia, track 1; Act I, tracks 2-14; 61:03.
Disk 2 - Act II, tracks 1-7; Act III, tracks 8-16; 67:38.

Commentary:
After reading the preceding piece by "Armindo," a reviewer of fine judgement and broad knowledge, I was forced to listen to this set of "Roberto Devereaux" because my recollection of it did not quite jibe with his comments. Having revisited "Roberto Devereaux," I cannot dispute any of the things "Armindo" heard. My overall conclusions, though, are a bit more favorable than his.

Leyla Gencer may not have been at her absolute best on that particular Neapolitan night, but she was still a singer of major stature. I am less impressed by high notes than many opera fans, especially interpolated ones just tossed in to provide bling and flash. It seems to me that if Gencer were offering this very same performance at any major opera house today, she would earn herself well-deserved cheers.

I agree with "Armindo" that the young Capucilli is in fine voice, especially when compared with the other men in the cast. And as "Armindo" notes, the usually excellent and always underrated mezzo Anna Maria Rota is fine, just fine as Sara.

Ruggero Bondino--oh, he's not all that bad, not really. He was just the sort of house tenor who might be expected during the 1960s at a second-tier opera house such as the San Carlo. Yes, the performance would have been vastly improved by the presence of Corelli or Bergonzi, but they weren't there then--and they sure as shootin' aren't here now. The depressing truth is that a tenor of Bondino's accomplishments would be a fixture on today's international operatic circuit and not a few would consider him to be the great hope for Verdi and Puccini vocalism.

"Roberto Devereaux" has never been a particularly popular work. I remember that it achieved a big burst of fame when performed by Beverly Sills in New York. But that soon blew out. Musically, it is not bad. "Second string Donizetti" is the phrase that just about sums it up.

The opera has major libretto problems. Even with the state of education what it is today, audiences know perfectly well that the Earl of Essex did not get the big chop because of a romantic triangle--or even a quadrangle. Essex had a few friends, mostly like-minded, wet-behind-the-ears, aristocratic louts and a writer of mob-pleasing entertainments named Will Shakespeare--but he was the kind of man who resolutely created enemies wherever he went. His own personal follies were quite sufficient to bring him to his date with the headsman. At the premier of "Roberto Devereaux" in London, the English audience found the spectacle of a Queen Elizabeth so broken-hearted over his death that she abdicates in favor of James I to be so funny that they laughed it right off the stage.

This is a fairly good performance of a fairly good opera. It deserves a fairly good four stars.

HISTORICAL WHO'S WHO--
Elizabeth Tudor was the daughter of a king who made her an emotional and political ping-pong ball, sister of a king who came close to executing her for suspected romantic dalliances and sister of a queen whose jealousy led to her imprisonment. She became Queen at the age of 25. She was the imperial votress, the fair vestal throned in the west--Gloriana herself: soul and namesake of her age.

Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, was the step-son of the Queen's greatest favorite, the Earl of Leicester. Essex was a golden youth and the embodiment of the Elizabethan ideal of male beauty. He was 33 years younger than the Queen, a courtier at 21, a Privy Councilor at 27 and a bloody fool all the days of his life.

There was no Duke of Nottingham. However, late in the Queen's reign, her cousin William Howard, Lord High Admiral of England and commander of the fleet that had defeated the Invincible Armada, became the Earl of Nottingham. The Lord High Admiral was second only to the Queen in precedence, going before every nobleman in the realm. That, alone, was more than enough to make Essex a lifelong enemy.

And there was no love triangle. Nottingham was married to Kate Carey, one of the Queen's favorites. When the Countess of Nottingham died, not long after Essex, the Queen was prostrated with weeping. Essex was married to the widowed Lady Sydney, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen and the daughter of Elizabeth's old spymaster, Walsingham.

Robert Cecil was the son of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. For all intents and purposes, he was the chief minister of state in the latter years of the Queen. Essex's final, fatal folly was to lead an abortive uprising for the ostensible purpose of freeing the Queen from the influence of evil ministers. Had Essex succeeded, Cecil would have been the very first to lose his head. He was delighted to return the compliment.

Sir Walter Raleigh was a hero in the battle with the Armada. He was also a courtier, explorer, colonizer, entrepreneur, pirate, scholar, historian, philosopher and jailbird--in short, an Elizabethan's Elizabethan. He was on Essex's little list just behind Robert Cecil. He survived both Essex and Elizabeth. His appointment with the headsman came some years later, during the reign of the great Queen's successor, James I.

and I'm so glad she did. Devereux is one of Donizettis lesser known operas - but it is well worth getting to know - especially if Leyla Gencer is singing.She does everything - the only problem is that that there is no libretto so as commanding as Gencer maybe I don't really know what she is singing about-still the recording is well worth purchasing.

I have bought this recording after falling in love with Roberto Devereux and looking for some recordings of it. They are not many. And none of them is close to an ideal. So after the reviews written here, I decided to buy another recording /after having Caballe@Carreras live recording from Aix de Provence and Gurberova DVD from Barcelona 1990 which probably is not available in audio format only and Sills`s one/.
My expectations which follow five stars reviews were not fulfilled at all. To enjoy this opera you need to have excellent cast and this performance have only two of them - Sara and her husband Duke of Nottingham. Leyla Gencer sounds so tired and sings with listenable effort, and Ruggero Bondino is average tenor only. And I did not enjoy the Mario Rossi conductin too. With Donizzeti it can easily happen the music can slip into flash song, and this hapenned here from time to time. The sound is not bad but is not excellent and there are moments you can not hear Gencer at all however she should sing /her duet with Roberto e.g./at the moment. I have listened to this recording twice after I received it and will hardly listen to it again. Caballe recording from Aix de Provance is better, but I would give five stars to Gruberova performance from Barcelona in 1990, where she reached her peak not only vocally but as a dramatic actor too. I know, she is somewhat controversial artist and can perform even tasteless singing, but here, probably with appropriate director and stage-manager, she shines. What a pity that such an extraordinary and rare opera evening was not cought for commercionally available and fully equipped DVD. If you are looking for perfect Roberto Deverux performance, try premiereopera.com for this DVD !

Gaetano Donizetti's "Roberto Devereaux" was a little known opera that did not make it into the mainstream until the mid 20th century, with efforts by such sopranos as Beverly Sills and Monstserrat Caballe. Leyla Gencer first sang the role and made it popular. The role, is of course, the feisty red-haired Queen Elizabeth I of England. Leyla Gencer's interpretation of Queen Elizabeth started it all, and that's why this recording, flawed though it may be, is a must have for collectors of rare opera recordings.

At the time Leyla Gencer sang the Queen, Bette Davis had performed the role on film in the 30's movie, "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex", opposite Erroly Flynn who played the role of Robert Devereaux. The story is the same in the opera. The aged Queen Elizabeth foresakes true love with Deveraux (who is in love with Elizabeth's friend Duchess or lady-in-waiting Sarah. Elizabeth loves Devereaux hopelessly. Upon his return from Ireland which was rebelling against England at the time, Robert Devereaux was accused of starting his own rebellion in London against the Queen. Charged with treason, he was brought into trial and found guilty of conspiring to rob Queen Elizabeth of her crown. In the opera, Queen Elizabeth is more concerned about his lack of love for her and wishes to know the name of his true love. Robert Devereaux refuses to say whom he really loves and this sparks the Queen's anger. Devereaux is sentenced to death by execution. Although towards the end of the opera, the Queen attempts to rescue him from his dire fate, it is too late and the Queen mourns his death, proclaiming that the next ruler of England shall be James I. The supposed romance between Devereux and Elizabeth is an apocryphal story and was never historically accurate. The opera of Donizetti is sacrificing truth for the sake of sensationalism, romance and drama. And this opera is drama with a capital D. The role of Queen Elizabeth requires a vocally strong soprano, and it has been likened to singing the challenging role of Bellini's Norma. A soprano in top form, with coloratura and dramatic power. I am sad to say that Leyla Gencer does not do justice to the role. Her voice is deep and dark, but she does not act accordingly to the role. There is no real conviction in neither her love arias or jealousy arias- for example, the arias "La amor su me fe beata" which she sings early in Act 1 lacks the soft, romantic grace it was written with. Neither is her duet with Roberto Deveraux "Un lampo Orribile" any good, and her coloratura is unpleasant and flawed, this is evident in the aria with chorus "A ritorno qual ti spera" and other sections in which florid coloratura trills are necessary. As for the lines that require for the Queen to sound jealous and enraged at Roberto's betrayal, Leyla Gencer once again fails to put in any dramatic effort. She is not convincing as she reads Roberto Devereaux's death sentence in the quitet "Va la morte sul capo ti pende" nor does she convince us of her grief after his death in the aria "Qual Sangue Versato".

As mentioned before, Beverly Sills and Montserrat Caballe sang the role of Queen Elizabeth as well in the early 70's. Montserrat Caballe is not a good interpretor as well in my personal opinion. Caballe may look the part, and may at times even appear to be the proper choice for she is heavy voiced dramatic soprano, but Caballe also fails to convince as an actress. She seems to be imitating Leyla Gencer. There is no real impressive quality in Montserrat Caballe's stale performance. The best choice for the mighty Queen Elizabeth is Beverly Sills. Beverly's performance was greatly acclaimed when she sang it in 1970-71 inclusive. She landed a cover in Time magazine, she truly became the Queen. She assumed the role with great dramatic power likened to the dramatics of Maria Callas. She cried, she raged, she was in love, she was jealous, she truly gave her best as Queen Elizabeth in this opera. Her voice, too, is far more lyrical, expressive, dark, intense and dramatic than either Leyla Gencer or Montserrat Caballe. Beverly Sill's light voice was suitable for the tender love arias but Sills truly forced her voice to sound dark and raging in the particularily challenging sections. Sills' transition from light to heavy voice is most clear in the role of Queen Elizabeth.

So with that said, get this recording only for the rarity of the recording. Leyla Gencer was the first 20th century soprano to take on the almost forgotten role, and get the recording if only to hear Piero Cappucilli's fine baritone vocals as the villain Nottingham, who, at first sides with Devereaux but becomes jealous and bloodthirsty when he discovers it is Deveraux whom his wife the Duchess Sara loves and was originally engaged to. If you want the best recording of "Roberto Devereaux" get the Beverly Sills recording on the digitally remastered box set "The Three Queens" by Deusche Gramaphone or as an individual cd.