Customer Reviews

Haydn: Orfeo ed Euridice

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Devotees of Dame Joan will probably want to give this CD set 5 stars because her performance is awesome. But I must be a responsible reporter and tell you that the quality of the sound (my guess is it's an analog tape made on a modest recorder of the time [1967], possibly surreptitiously, during a live performance) is way below the expectations of most listeners today, muffled and verging on distortion. It will simply be too difficult for most people to appreciate the opera given the bad sound. Also, the set doesn't include the customary libretto, and you can't really follow along with the small outline of the story provided.

Nicolai Gedda is a surprisingly game Orfeo, really getting into the role and singing his heart out. The other singers are more than sufficient and professional. Bonynge conducts a rather ragged Scottish Opera Orchestra and Chorus. One other note on Sutherland: Her lower notes are very large and "produced" (for lack of a better term), so she is easily heard throughout her entire vocal range. She never pushed like that in studio recordings of the era.

And if you don't know any Haydn operas yet, it's way past time for you to do so! He wrote many, and they're all delightfully tuneful and meltingly harmonious. Try a modern recording of this opera (Bartoli just released her own version of "Orfeo") or any one of the other operas he wrote. You won't be disappointed. But leave this recording for off-the-deep-end opera buffs and Sutherland afficionados.

I agree with the other reviewer that this isn't an ideal live recording; however, I have heard much worse. She dubs this to be only for the "off-the-deep-end" Sutherland fans; where Sutherland is concerned, is there any other choice? I mean, we are only talking about LA STUPENDA!

Anyhow, this isn't the most memorable baroque opera, paling in comparison to Handel's more popular works. However, there is a fair amount of enjoyable music in this opera by Haydn. The funny thing is that it is by far his most recorded opera (live or otherwise), but considered by opera critics to not be his best.

As for the performance, Nicolai Gedda, though in all-around good voice, does ham it up a little too much. As for Sutherland, she is in her droopy/mushy period. It doesn't help that the music for Euridice is written for middle register of the voice, which was never Joan's forte. The result is that, quite frankly, she sounds like a barnyard animal half the time. However, when coloratura is concerned, she rises to the challenge, as she did right up until the very end of her stage career. There is some coloratura in the role of Euridice, but the best (and for which you should get this recording) is in the aria Joan snags from the role of the Genio, "Al Tuo Seno Fortunato". According to the diva's memoirs, she had great difficulty learning the aria, and never really felt that she mastered it. WELL, it would be hard to know that, if you listened to her sing it!!! Sutherland nails it, as only she can, with a number of twists and turns in the fioriture, her voice ringing. Unlike a lot of coloraturas, past and present, Sutherland had a big voice, one that never was pinched or stretched, no matter now high up the scale she went. She could also sing at "warp speed" without getting winded, as if she were superhuman. It's too bad that (to my knowledge) she never recorded this in the studio. For that reason, it's worth it to spend the ten or twelve dollars to buy this live recording.