Operatic Recital (Dig) [Original recording remastered, Import]

Carlo Bergonzi (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 13, 2004)
• SPARS Code: ADD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered, Import
• Label: Decca Import
• ASIN: B000174LX4
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #524,894 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The finest musician!, November 20, 2004

By 

Armindo (Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Operatic Recital (Dig) (Audio CD)

In short, Bergonzi's first Decca recital is a lesson of excellent breathing, singing, phrasing, feeling and communicating feelings, understanding a role but above all, a lesson of music! It's no surprise that singers who nowadays stand out (Vilazon, Licitra, Giordani and others) have at some point in their career been his students.

I recently watched one of his late recitals on DVD, namely his Lugano performance and it was one of the most rewarding and emotional operatic experiences in my life. At the age of 57 he could still deliver the feelings, the musicianship and rely on a stupendous technique that never abandoned him. Callas' remark during their Lucia performances when she would wait backstage to hear him sing the finale because "there is no tenor today who sings it this way" is still very, very true. He always had a unique way of delivering any aria of any composer, from his favourite Verdi, the popular Puccini to the delightful Bellini and Donizzeti.

On this, his first Decca recital we hear some of his trademark Verdi roles and quite a few verisimo arias. Ah, si ben mio is one of the finest examples of Verdian tenor singing with the trills wonderfully executed. Donna non vidi mai makes one wish he'd recorded the role in studio (I'm still hunting the Kirsten/Bergonzi live MET Manon Lescaut).

Any Bergonzi recording is special and this early recital shows him at the start of his legendary career.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive Bergonzi, March 8, 2009

By 

Ralph Moore "Ralph operaphile" (Bishop's Stortford, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Operatic Recital (Dig) (Audio CD)

In 1950, the 25 year old baritone Bergonzi retrained as a tenor; for the next thirty years he excelled in performing bel canto, Puccini, verismo and, above all, Verdi operatic rôles. Having sung so well for so long, he was obliged by persistent problems with flatness gradually to abandon the stage for the concert platform, eventually retiring to run his hotel I Due Foscari in Busseto, home town of his beloved Verdi, where he still lives today.

This recital is a re-release of his famous 1958 debut album. It is in superb sound, leaving plenty of air around a voice in prime condition. The programme is essentially a round-up of favourite tenor arias but you'd be hard pushed to find them better sung by anyone else. Bergonzi's voice is instantly recognisable, with his endearing little lisp, quick vibrato and penetrating timbre. He has all the Verdian virtues: weight of tone, perfect legato, trumpeted high notes, crystalline diction - and he even manages a passable trill in "Ah si, ben mio". Gavazzeni's accompaniment is vital and pacy. It is possible to make little carping criticisms: he never attempts, in any of his recordings of "Celeste Aida", the almost impossible diminuendo Verdi wrote for the culminating B-flat; in the same aria he wobbles on the second "Ah"; he misses the last degree of tenderness in the prelude to "O dolci baci" - but these are tiny flaws in the face of so much superlative singing.

Comparisons with later recordings reveal that Bergonzi remained remarkably consistent in his interpretations; there was little need to change that which was already demonstrably so good. His delivery of the great "Forza" showpiece aria is marginally weightier in the complete 1969 recording under Gardelli, and he holds a top B more impressively in the "Ballo" aria in his 1962 recording for Solti - but these are negligible differences; the wonder is that a so fundamentally lyric a voice endured for so long singing some of the most demanding spinto roles in the repertory, when his great contemporary Giuseppe Di Stefano fell by the wayside. No doubt this was due to Bergonzi's superior technique, wiser pacing and more restrained lifestyle - and it is probably true that the recording slightly flatters the real amplitude of his voice, but the sheer youthful vehemence of Bergonzi's attack continues to amaze, as does the beauty of his softer singing.

The best representative sample of Bergonzi's art remains the Decca double CD "Carlo Bergonzi: the sublime voice", which features three of the items on this 1958 recital with the rest culled from complete recordings, but this single disc shows Bergonzi at his youthful best; all lovers of this aristocrat among tenors and great tenor singing in general should snap it up.