Customer Reviews

La Fanciulla del West

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

 

 

This opera is a masterpiece, though it doesn't really have arias it has glorious music. It is really like a huge romantic symphony. Unfortunately we don't have many choices for recordings, and of them there aren't great ones like you would find with Puccini's other operas.

I agree with an earlier reviewer, once past the mediocre sound, that this Fanciulla grows on one. The melodies haunt me for days after I hear it. Though Tebaldi, here, sounds mature and almost like a mezzo, she has a magnificent way with this opera--she handles it with nuance, passion, and with big high notes. Barioni is not Domingo but he does an excellent job as Johnson and he sounds like a rough and tumble guy. The chorus is wonderful, I almost cry when they pass the hat to raise money for the broke, homesick miner so they can send him home. Arturo Basile conducts with a magnificent flowing line.

Last year I was in a record store that had Tebaldi's studio recording and I opted not buy then but later, now, like many of you, I can't find it!

I do not recommend the Mehta-Domingo-Neblett because it is a frustrating experience. Mehta's conducting is sublime. Domingo's performance is nothing short of great. The problem is that Neblett sings has if she were studying the role for the first time and testing to make sure she as all the notes, which she does. I am sorry I don't like to make negative comments about any of the singers but her musicality and lukewarm disposition destroys the line, the movement, the intensity, all the brilliant work that Domingo and Mehta created...argh.

So if you don't mind the sound this is the one!

I truly believe that the Fanciulla recording made with Tebaldi, del Monaco, and MacNeil is one of the ten or twelve "perfect" recordings. This recording is not nearly in that league. It has its pleasures: Tebaldi never makes less than a lovely tone, Barioni has a nice sound without ever hinting at the excitement of the music. I love every note of this score, and will listen to this performance now and again, but the real standard set for the opera by Tebaldi's studio recording is barely hinted at here.

After the listening to this performance that I swore I wouldn't do (!), I have to say that I was incorrect in my former review.It is a must have, since the studio Faniculla is out of print. The only other recording with Tebaldi is the Met Broadcast from 1970.This performance grows on you, as it did me. What I forgot to mention before, is the tremendous performance by Guelfi! He is completely in character, and truly spectacular voice! Tebaldi is fresh-voiced as well. I'm extremely happy about Opera D'Orio releasing these titles, this the fourth with Renata Tebaldi. While the studio recording is the ultimate, this has to be second. It was unfair of me not to think of that in my other review. I've also listened to this performance quite a bit, liking it MORE with every playing. Recommended!

Here we have RAI at its best: a beautifully-recorded live taping of one of its radio performances.

There's a zip missing from Tebaldi's excellent studio version, but we do get quite a bit of little debris around that you expect in live performances. There is no question that all of the principles are getting tired toward the end of the second act and Tebaldi resorts to some sotto voce here and there to make it through.

Orchestral execution is top-notch and the conductor's reading is at once dramatic and controlled...and never once do the proceedings lapse into silliness which is easy to do in this problematic and forward-looking work.

Buy this and treasure it with Tebaldi's studio offering (preferably on vinyl where the sound has far greater impact than on the CD).

As for the previous reviewer: dry up and contact customer service with your silly little problems and don't misuse your stars on a very worthy release here!

Having been a lover of opera for over 70 years it was always surprising to me that I had never heard La fanciulla del West. This recording made in the early 60s with one of my favorite singers, Renata Tebaldi is wonderful. She does have a few lapses on reaching some of her high notes but overall I found the recording outstanding. This Puccini opera is just beautiful music throughout. There are no arias as such. I enjoyed it very much. I imagine if this were to be recorded today all the blemishes would have been removed. One thing I noticed. There is a theme running through the opera that seemed very familiar. I finally realized it was used in Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber.

This new release from Opera D'Orio, gives us a RARE chance to hear Renata Tebaldi, supposedly at her peak. It's a live RAI broadcast from 1961, with Barioni as Dick Johnson, Guelfi as Rance, and Tebaldi as Minnie, a role she didn't perform onstage until 1970 at the MET. While this recording has it's moments, it is not Tebaldi's or Barioni's finest hour. I strongly urge you to buy the DECCA/LONDON complete opera with Tebaldi. It is an unforgettable, exciting, sweeping performance. However, you may have to hunt at Amazon/UK or elsewhere for it. This CD set had to be in my collection, as it is the first time it has ever been put on LP or CD, but I will not listen to it much. Basile's conducting is choppy, never giving ANY life at all to this recording. There are better Faniculla's out there, with Tebaldi. Unfortunately, you have to hunt for them.

I love opera, especially Puccini. Renata Tebaldi, along with Joan Sutherland, and Birgit Nilsson of course is the most beautiful soprano. My problem is that I can't find the studio recording of La Fanciulla for Decca. I'm dying to find it. Does "out of print," mean that it can't be found in the US, and if it is in the UK how can I get it? To the reviewer that told a previous reviewer to "dry up," you really gave me my laugh for the day. That was hillarious, but maybe you should be more understanding. If anyone can help me please write to me at cade_cannon@hotmail.com. Thanks

i am writing this comment here because i cannot find any appropriate place for it, for which i fault your design. This offering of Fanciulla doesn't say who else besides Tebaldi is singing. That makes it useless to me, helping me not at all to decide whether i want to buy it. This is true of many, many other operatic offerings especially. Nor do you say, ever, so far as i can tell, whether the CD comes with a libretto. Finally, as i have tried to note elsewhere, your proposed new page design should make Music a category on the home page similar to Books. Above all, and back to my original complaint, if you're designing a new page, kindly make it easier, more user friendly, to write this kind of inquiry or complaint. john.p.mackenzie@usa.net