Customer Reviews

Legendary Performances of Caballé [Box Set]

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This is truly a bargain for anyone wanting to explore the great art of Montserrat Caballé. Made in China by the American company Allegro, the package looks as cheap as the price. But what is inside is what really counts and that is absolutely magnificent. Seven complete operas captured live in variable but mainly very good sound, from the Lucrezia Borgia of 1965 at Carnegie Hall, that made her an overnight superstar (a truly amazing performance, pure bel canto) to the Naples Gemma di Vergy of 1975. A very good survey of her best decade, when the Caballé sound had no rival in the world, it saves for posterity some of her best roles, including her legendary Norma of Orange (1974), apart from her Arabella (Rome, 1973), Salome (Rome, 1971), Adriana Lecouvreur (Paris, 1975) and Butterfly (Madrid, 1968). Many collectors may have some of these performances (they have been released previously by several labels at fullprice) and I had all of them. But for the price this is a neat way of having a great sample of Caballé's art in a very small space (14 CDs on clear sleeves and a thin but cute booklet). Tho you still have to look elsewhere for the Parisina of Canegie Hall (1974), an amazing performance, pure magic, that have to be heard to be beleived. Unfortunately in the Norma of Orange her breathtaking "Dormono entrambi" scene is missing, as it is in all previous pirate issues, a mistake of the original release that all the following ones have copied! Fortunately, there is a recording on film of this Orange performance (regarded by Caballé herself as the best of her entire career and available on DVD) which is absolutely complete. In any case, a must for anyone interested in great singing. And at this price you have to be mad to let it pass.

This is an update of an earlier review. I continue to love all the performances in this 7-opera box set, and find myself returning to it frequently--sometimes to cherry pick, but sometimes to listen to an entire work. Caballe fans will love this for the early performances, ranging from 1965 - 1975. The Lucrezia Borgia is the 1965 Carnegie Hall performance. The audience went berserk and for good cause. If you are a real sentimental romanticist, you will appreciate the Butterfly with Bernabe Marti. The Norma is the historic 1974 Orange performance. Adriana Lecouvreur: Adriana's Maurizio is Placido Domingo. The booklet, however, is a POC! The "...rare historic photos...": there are precisely none. There are few photos, and nothing special. The more I look at that booklet, the less I like it.

Regarding Lucrezia: Played it this morning. Bless her heart, Madame's stage scream at the end is so real that my husband ran in to see which finger I had cut off. Yeah. He thought it was me.

I still like this set for driving music. You can cover a lot of road with this one set.

Monserrat Caballe in her performance of Donizetti's 'Lucrezia Borgia' intimates very quickly what all the fuss was about.She is instantly cast as queen of bel canto in Donizetti's fiendishly difficult role and is well flanked by Alain Vanzo as her fly-blow Gennaro. One is left at the end lamenting that she has too much german repertoire to sing. Leave german to the germans is what I say and let Caballe concentrate on what she does best. Viva L'Ítalia!

Bellini:
Norma
Orange, 20th July 1974
Montserrat Caballé (Norma), Jon Vickers (Pollione), Josephine Veasey (Adalgisa), Agostino Ferrin (Oroveso)
Orchestra & Chorus of Teatro Regio, Turin, Giuseppe Patane

Cilea:
Adriana Lecouvreur
Paris, 7th April 1975
Montserrat Caballé (Adriana Lecouvreur), Placido Domingo (Maurizio), Janet Coster (Princess de Bouillon), Orazio Mori (Prince de Bouillon)
Lyric Orchestra of Radio France, Gianfranco Masini

Donizetti:
Lucrezia Borgia
New York, 20th April 1965
Montserrat Caballé (Lucrezia), Alain Venzo (Gennaro), Kostas Paskalis (Don Alfonso), Jane Berbié (Orsini)
Jonel Perlea

Donizatti:
Gemma Di Vergy
Naples, 12th December 1975
Montserrat Caballé (Gemma), Renato Bruson (Count di Vergy), Bianca Maria Casoni (Ida di Greville), Giorgio Caellato Lamberti (Tamas)
Orchestra & Chorus of Teatro San Carlo, Naples, Armando Gatto

Puccini:
Madama Butterfly
Madrid, 12th June 1968
Montserrat Caballé (Butterfly), Bernabé Marti (Pinkerton), Manuel Ausensi (Sharpless), Carmen Rigai (Suzuki)
Orchestra & Chorus of Spanish Radio & Television, Gianfranco Rivoli

Strauss, R:
Salome
Rome, 15th June 1971
Montserrat Caballé (Salome), Siegmund Nimsgern (Jokanaan), Beverly Wolff (Herodias), Karlheinz Thiemann (Herod)
RAI Orchestra & Chorus, Rome, Zubin Mehta

Strauss, R:
Arabella
Rome, 1st December 1973
Montserrat Caballé (Arabella), Siegmund Nimsgern (Mandryka), René Kollo (Matteo), Kurt Moll (Waldner)
RAI Orchestra & Chorus, Rome, Wolfgang Rennert

Seven really great Caballe performances, all but one of them in at least passable sound.
The prize of the lot is the 1965 American Opera Society performance of Donizetti's LUCREZIA BORGIA. This evening, which launched the international phase of the diva's career is absolutely breathtaking. To hear her sing the aria "Com'e bello" in the Prologue, that perfect voice floating in Carnegie Hall's perfect acoustics is one of the great delights of live performance listening. The audience goes crazy, and who could blame them ? It is absolutely thrilling that this great 'moment of arrival' is available to us.
The only performance in really poor sound is the NORMA. Stemming from a performance at the Orange Festival, the amplified sound really distorts when compressed for recording purposes. It is a pity. The performance itself is quite wonderful. The diva is in top form, Jon Vickers a very masculine,exciting Pollione and Josephine Veasey a smooth voiced Adalgisa who manages to contrast but blend very nicely with Caballe.
We tend to forget that the diva sang quite a lot of German (Strauss, Wagner)and Slavic (Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Dvorak, Smetana) works before she came to the Bel Canto repertoire, and the SALOME and ARABELLA are both first rate, although the SALOME doesn't find her quite as free of voice as in the studio recording she made several years earlier.
The MADAMA BUTTERFLY (She met her husband, tenor Bernabe Marti during this run of performances.) is a real treasure. She captures the gentle heroine's resolve perfectly.
The GEMMA DI VERGY of Donizetti is admirably well sung, and she makes a strong case for the often maligned ADRIANA LECOUVREUR. The role clearly appeals to her and she is at her most committed. This last is also the best sound recording, deriving from a Radio-France broadcast.
The little booklet has cast lists, track listings and absurdly brief plot summaries.
This is an astounding and irresistible bargain !