Customer Reviews

Mozart - Idomeneo / Domingo, Bartoli, Grant Murphy, Vaness, Hampson, Terfel, Lopardo, MET, Levine

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is simply a wonderful recording of a really terrific opera. I recently had a chance to see it live at the San Francisco Opera where it was performed quite admirably. Carol Vaness just happened to be both the live performer as well as one of the stars on this recording. While not my all time favorite Elettra she is quite good and does a solid job. There are just not enough good things to say about Domingo (or Cecilia Bartoli). Do yourself a favor and buy this opera. If you listen to it and love it as much as I do, do yourself another favor and buy the Met's version on VHS with Pavarotti and Hildegard Behrens. Ileana Cotrubas gives quite a wonderful performance on the video as well. As far as the original instruments go, that's a real don't care for most listeners. I have a few Mozart recordings performed on original instruments and though they are quite good, I don't feel cheated or consider the work diminished in any way when listening to a modern instrument rendition.

Levine has really surpassed himself in this recording. The performance is breathtaking and stunning. The cast looks like a who's who list of shortlist for the Oscars - Domingo, Bartoli, Grant Lurphy, Hampson, terfel, Lopardo. And it isn't just clever 'brand name' marketing. It is not uncommon to have an all-star cast of a recording of an opera and yet have a lackluster performance. Not so down here. These opera singers really live up to their names and they sing with intensity and commitment, as if it were a live performance and not some monotonous studio recording. All the singers are dramatically involved in the roles that they sing. The Grammophone rightly recommends this as a top choice for a modern instrument recording of Idomeneo. If you want period instrument performance, Gardiner's would be the one. Added to the singers, the Met orchestra and chorus are in superb form here. The chorus sings vigorously and the Met orchestra plays wonderfully - up there with the best.

A firm first recommendation. Be sure not to miss this performance.

I think this recording is nothing short of fabulous!! It's one of those recordings that you have no trouble sitting through from first to last at the first hearing.

Levine's conducting is magnificent. The Met Orchestra responds acutely to his direction and the Met chorus' lusty singing is incredible. At points of dramatic urgency, the Met Chorus' singing is appropriate.

Domingo is fantastic as Idomeneo. His voice is strong and virile, befitting that of a king.

The rest of the cast is incredible.

For modern period performance, this is the definitive version. For period performance, the gardiner is the definitive version.

Different times, different styles. There is no comparison. It's just a question of whether you like modern period "sound" or period instrument "sound". In my view, they complement each other. Afterall, music is a living art. And music as beautiful as those of mozart's deserve to have multiple interpretations on record.

You should buy both if you are an opera lover.

This is the best studio recording of the modern digital remastering era for the opera Idomeneo, which Mozart composed as his first really successful and famous opera seria when he was still very young. Opera seria was in vogue at the time of Mozart's first venture into opera. Dating as far back as the Baroque period of Handel's operas, opera seria was a style of opera that drew from classical themes about gods and heroes. Noble-sounding music was employed and historic subjects. In Idomeneo, we get all of this, in something very much like Greek tragedy. The sound is great, James Levine and the Met forces are in superb condition and the tenor Levine championed- Placido Domingo steals the show. His voice is perfect for the lyric richness and bravura of the strong hero Idomeneo.

Placido Domingo sang this role, and in fact other Mozart roles such as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, before. His Idomeneo is his best Mozartian portrayal. He sang it, and in good form, as recently as September of 2004. On this recording, he has absolutely no flaw in technique whatsoever. He sings Mozart and Wagner these days, though in his glory days of his youth his greatest repertoire was Verdi and Puccini. Idomeneo is a challenging role, it has high tessitura and acrobatics that Mozart wrote for the original castrati in the part. But Domingo delivers a magnificent and strong performance with dynamic power. Luciano Pavoratti, I might add, had also sung the role, but for me, with less passion and is nowhere near the magnitude of Domingo's portrayal. I have a feeling Pavoratti sang Idomeneo only to stray from his routine Verdi and Puccini Italian repertoire and not to be outdone by Domingo. Plus, Pavoratti is less of a committed singer. He would never sing Wagner like Domingo has done as well. My apologies to rabid Pavoratti fans.

Carol Vaness is hands down the strongest soprano even when she saw the rise of the 90's divas Angela Gheorghiu and Renee Fleming. Carol Vaness has a rich, dark, dramatic voice that is capable of all the bravura of a Leonora in Trovatore or a Tosca. As Ilia, she is noble, dignified and regal. Her Mozart technique is again sensational (she has sung Dona Ana with great success). She has the most controlled voice in the recording, though everyone else are seasoned and in control, as well, which is what makes this recording sublime. Cecilia Bartoli needs know introduction and her performance here is radiant and technically brilliant. I couldnt imagine her singing anything greater than this role, except perhaps Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte. Her mezzo voice is also capable of dazzling coloratura and this is showcased here with splendor. Frank Lopardo is a fine singer and holds his own in his part. Bryn Terfel is on this recording and his is a voice of deep, therapeutic magnificence. He does a sublime job here. Heidi Grant Murphy, also great. Thomas Hampson is another tenor with a following and successful career. This star-studded cast will not be singing together any time soon, so please go out and buy this recording and prepare yourself for the best Mozart opera on record today.

The first time I listened to this disc I was amazed at the blend of the more traditional operatic style and the "budding" Mozart signature that was more fully developed in his later operas. The cast in this recording could not be better, and for someone (like me) who is deep into Wagner at this point in my listening "career", this recording is a welcome (and brilliant) departure.

I have many recordings of this opera and love them all for various reasons. This one and one other are my two all-time favorites. My other favorite is with a much more lyric tenor, but this one is pure excitement. Not only is Domingo a very heroic Idomeneo, his voice is also very beautiful. He does a decent job with coloratura - perhaps they re-recorded a few times - who knows, because he did not sound near so smooth to me when I listened to him live from the Met a few years back. Anyway, here he is great.

Also, Thomas Hampson, in the role of Arsace comes across the exact same way - more heroic than normal, perhaps because often you hear a tenor singing the role rather than a baritone. And he too, sings smoothly and with stunning beauty.

Bartoli is Bartoli. If you like her, you will enjoy her just fine in the role of Idamante.

Grant-Murphy and Vaness are both well-cast in their respective roles and they sing beautifully.

The orchestra seems more alive than any other Idomeneo I have ever heard. You feel you can hear each and every nuance in the score. Every voice, both instrumental and vocal can be heard nicely - so rich, so beautiful, so exciting. Bravo James Levine!

I found this to be the more exciting version of this opera out there. There are others that are "More Authentic" but I find them stiff, stilted, and rather dull. This is the MOST dramatic opera Mozart ever wrote, and even if he was young, he was trying for new styles all the time. He often came at odds with his singers (especially the lead tenor, Raaf, who created the title role) because of their very old fashioned approach to singing. However, even that old man tied to his old fashioned ways became converted to what Mozart was doing. (His female singers, Dorothea Wendling and Elisabeth Wendling, on the other hand were very modern in their approach and loved what Mozart was trying to achieve dramatically, and he loved them). His Castrato, Dal Prato, was not that accomplished a singer and had to have Mozart instruct him on everything (he was, to be truthful, only 16 at the time of the premier).

Personally, I have found most of Mozart's operas deadly dull, if not completely boring, no matter how wonderful the melodies and arias are. I have discovered why; the deadly dull way of performing them in the "authentic fashion." In trying to be so authentic the voices are robbed of their ability to really sing, to really shine, to really excite. Vocal purity can be exciting, but even as critics of that day often wrote, it becomes completely dull very quickly.

The biggest mistake by those who didn't like this recording is, firstly, MOZART IS NOT BAROQUE OPERA. He is well entrenched in the classical era. In fact, like with Rossini, we have a very bad habit of even doing his recitatives with harpsicord (as in the Marriage of Figaro) which was an instrument he never wrote for. The piano was all the rage then. All dry recitatives are to be accompanied by the piano, and so he wrote it in all of his scores. Yes, this is an opera seria, as is La Clemenzio di Tito, but neither of them are real opera seria. By the time Mozart wrote this opera, that style of opera was already a very dead horse. Mozart had been to Paris by this time, and had aborbed all the new styles and approaches that were then all the rage.

This is the only opera in all of Mozart where the chorus not only sings the standard "citizens" role, but is actually a very important part of the whole, it is a "lead role" in and of itself (the influence he took from Gluck and his "reform operas").

Mozart often demanded changes to the libretto (which was the traditional long winded affair common to opera seria), and demanded ensembles where traditionally arias would occur. He also ended many segments by actually not ending them at all, but running them straight into the following scene, or even dramatic accompanied recitative.

Nothing in this opera smacks of Baroque Opera Seria and it should NOT be judge or even played with that approach. That approach actually kills the very things Mozart was trying to achieve (and he was very verbal about that in the lengthy writings in his letters to his father about the opera dealing with every stage of its composition).

Mozart also authorized many, many cuts, and entire scenes were removed before the work was even performed the first time. Later, he would revise it rewriting the castrato role of Idamante for a tenor (no great improvements here, for like the original singer, that tenor was not that great of an artist).

The problem today is which version (as there was NEVER a final version of this opera) of the work should we perform? In this recording, yes, the super demanding colorature work for the lead role is missing (Domingo could never have negotiated all that even at his best in his youth), but what he did sing was NOT a creation of modern editing, that is the simpler version of that aria written by Mozart himself and it was the version that was actually used at its premier.

Some of the other arias for lesser characters, are also edited out of this performance, and why not, they were edited out by Mozart himself again at the premier (he even removed the exciting aria for Electra at the end of the opera, which fortunately for us, is included and extremely well sung). We are in the habit now of including virtually every note of music he wrote and every page of recitative as if we are standing before the holy shrine of the master. The result has been some super boring recordings of this opera where we endure pages upon pages of boring recitatives waiting for something interesting to happen (that never bothered people in Mozart's day as they never listened to that anyway, they gambled, or they talked, or they make love; they only listened during arias, and often only for the famous singers they came to see).

This recording has to its credit wonderful editing, wonderful conception of the whole, making it a very dramatic work it was intended to be. Domingo is an excellent Idomeneo because he has the voice that sounds like a king, or a man of authority. To me, Bartoli is the weak link for her voice, beautiful as it is, is simply not large enough to make a difference in the role she sings. Like another reviewer, I was not impressed with the high-pitches sound of the Ilia either, but it does make it so you can tell one "character" from another when a male character and two main female characters are all sung by women.

Caroll Vaness, though not may most favorite singer (even though I truly do enjoy her at times) is wonderful as Electra. Perhaps, to my ear, Electra does need more of a bite, more of that "dark sinister something" to her sound, but then, this Electra is NOT an evil woman, so maybe she doesn't really need it as much as I think she does. Carol Vaness sings this role with much beauty of tone, and with great feeling. We see Electra's progress as a character, and yes, Mozart does have her progress.

Ilia is sort of lifeless to me, but then, I don't really blame the singer so much, for the character is one of those who "loves her boy friend and mourns her lost land." She doesn't develop as anything. Her music seems to concentrate on being lovely, sweet, sad, and well, just delicate and pure. I would say the singer does a fine job of creating that in her performance.

Thomas Hampson does a wonderful job, and his baritone is a treasure in nearly everything he sings.

I must mention the chorus, as they are just as important in this opera as any lead role, and they were wonderful. They felt the terror of the sinking ship, the horror of the sea monster, and well, were perfect in their responses to the action, of which they are very central to.

I must also talk about the conductor, James Levine, and his approach to this work. Unlike many, whose goal is to give us a museum rendition of a great work all perfect in it authenticity, Levine sees this opera as a vital and important dramatic work. He is there to give us theatre and excitement as well as Mozart. He does a fine job, and well, I can see nothing in his approach that can be faulted.

This recording certainly doesn't contain all the music one finds in the version by Gardener, nor are the singers as "authentically Mozart" (whatever that means), but the work gels together more than in those recordings. It is sort of like comparing the versions of Hamlet out there; the one with Kenneth Branaugh is every word Shakespeare wrote (something never filmed before, not ever) without a single thing missing; an excellent work paying homage to the master. Then there is the one with Mel Gibson directed by Franco Zefferelli, it has cuts, some things are done in a way far different than the play, yet everything is the truest reflection of the intent behind the work, we see Hamlet as a man and as a Prince, and all his failings are before our eyes, not as weaknesses so much as motivations behind his actions. So it is with this recording. It may not be the homage to the master some would have it be, but it is the reflection of the truth, the spirit behind what the composer was trying to do. And we are presented with a very vital, compelling, and exciting work. Well worth the money, and well worth the time to listen to.

What a fantastic recording! For a change, we have the right to listen to one of Mozart's greatest operas with a real competent orchestra, a solid conductor, and some of today's best voices ever. Vaness was involved in the rediscovery of this opera in the 80's. Even if the voice has now slighlty faded, she's amazingly real in Elettra. Bartoli, Grant Murphy et al are just perfect. Now one big question: should Domingo sing Mozart? No if you think that Mozartian tenors are weak and feable characters, without interest, just good to sing shallow coloratura arias. Yes if you think that tenor roles in Mozart operas need strong and masculine singers. What a pleasure to hear Mr Domingo's virile voice singing this proud antique hero. What a change compared to the so-called real Mozartian tenors with cheesy voices such as Dermota, Wunderlich or Simoneau.
And for the orchestra? Well, Mozart is not Bach. Let's put an end to the tyranny of all these baroquees and their tiny chamber orchestras. Mozart wrote Idomeneo for the Munich Opera orchestra, one of the grandest of its time. It's justice to play it today with a modern equivalent of the then Munich's.

I cannot deny that this performance is quality, yet I find the traditional operatic approach to baroque overbearing. Heavy bel canto voices simply cannot deal with baroque coloratura and agrements, so stylistic cuts must be made. As a result of such compromises, there isn't much coloratura left. The singing is polished and competent, but too straightforward. The orchestral playing is too bombastic (which is your typical Levine). Luckily, there's Gardiner. Some day, somebody will rerecord all Mozart and Bach in an authentic style. I'm happy that there is progress, Gardiner's done a lot, Christie has just recorded Die Entfuhrung. I firmly believe that there is both a philosophical and an artistic merit in the period performance approach.

Since I have watched "Idomeneo" in video which is the live performance with Pavarotti and von Stade, I wanted to buy this opera. Fortunately, I bought it. Because I think the cast is excellent. After heard it, I found I was disappointed at this recording. Of course, the conducting is great. Levine's conducting is worth buying.

Though I am a fan of Cecilia, but her voice is too small in this recording and is not suited well this role.

But the most dissapointment one is not Cecilia, but someone who sung Ilia. Her singing sounds like that of Kathleen Battle, and I'm not fond of this kind of soprano. However, the rest of casts are excellent: Domingo and Vaness, Hampson, Terfel provides the best performance.

That's why I rated this for 4 stars. And now, what's YOUR opinion?