Customer Reviews

Puccini - The Great Opera Collection [Box Set]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Most of us who are of a certain age know these recordings and have lived with them, off and on, for decades.

A few things need to be cleared up, since Amazon hasn't exactly gone out of its' way to be of help: These are the stereo versions of each of the operas, not the earlier mono recordings.

The earliest are the Manon Lescaut from 1954 and the Turandot from a year or so later. They both feature the glorious Renata Tebaldi and Mario Del Monaco, respectively, in their absolute best voices. The too seldom recorded Inge Borkh is heard to thrilling effect as Turandot. The sound on the Manon Lescaut is somewhat superior than that on the Turandot, although both are certainly good enough. Fanciulla and Butterfly are from 1958 and Boheme came along a year later, along with Tosca, featuring the astounding Scarpia of George London, who, just a few years later, would find his voice silenced forever by illness. All were recorded at the Academia di Santa Cecilia, Roma, a favorite venue for Decca and other recording companies at the time.
The final three operas in the set, The Trittico, date from around 1962 and were recorded at the Maggio Musicale, Fiorenze, not, in my opinion, quite as successful a recording location. Also, of all the operas on this set, many of which are what I consider desert island musts, these three show the beginnings of the inevitable wear voices singing this repertoire can experience. Tebaldi is just off that blush of greatness that distinguishes the earlier works. Del Monaco is very powerful in the Tabarro, which is not foreign to the role. But it sounds like, by this time, he was losing the ability to scale down his voice above the staff. On the other hand, the legendary Boheme and Butterfly catch the young Carlo Bergonzi in magnificent form. If there has ever been a better recorded Butterfly Act 1 duet (and I am even including the De Los Angeles/Bjoerling effort many of us love so much), I have not heard it.

But these are, when taken as a whole, a remarkable set of operatic recordings from what must surely be thought of now as a golden age. There isn't a clinker in the lot, and several of them, Boheme and Butterfly, for example, have seldom been equaled, and never, I would suggest, surpassed.

There are other great singers sprinkled amongst the various casts: Cornell MacNeil, Robert Merrill, Giorgio Tozzi, Giulietta Simionato,Fernando Corena, Fiorenza Cossotto, and others. Of course, these recordings point out the glaring weaknesses of the contract system of the day. Many greats were excluded. No Bjoerling, of course. He was under contract to other labels. None of the other wonderful singers who were around at the time. Decca had its' coterie of exclusive artists, right down to the compremario singers (Piero di Palma must have made a fortune from Decca)and it used them over and over. A recording stock company, if you will.

And so it was, back in the day when recording companies felt their was some worth in recording great singers in their greatest roles with as much love and care as possible.

If it hadn't already been used, I would be tempted to say this set should actually be called "Gone With The Wind".

I cannot imagine doing without this set. The Tosca and the La fanciulla have always been favorites of mine from their original releases on cd, but when I saw the rest of the line-up provided here, I snapped this set up immediately. And was not disappointed: like the two operas I knew, the others have the same gorgeous, voluptuous stereo sound, quite a miracle for such early stereo recordings. And then there are the casts. Renata is the main hook throughout all the recordings, with Bergonzi and del Monaco as her male counterparts.

The recordings are presented in order of composition, with the odd exception of Il trittico coming in after Turandot. Missing are Le Villi, Edgar and La Rondine; unfortunate omissions though there may not have been satisfactory recordings from Tebaldi on these. And a slight drawback is the sleeves, each of the 15 discs is in a simple white paper cd sleeve, the same sort you can buy at Staples, and in order to keep them organized I numbered them myself with a Sharpie. But at this tremendous price one cannot pass up this collection. As for librettos, each and every one of them can be found on the internet for downloading.

Gorgeous collection. Great stereo sound. Not a bad recording in the lot. And utterly Italian in origin. Tebaldi rocks!

The operas in this set are:

Manon Lescaut
La Bohème
Tosca
Madama Butterfly
La fanciulla del West
Turandot

Il trittico (The Triptych, or the three one act operas that were intended to go together):

Il tabarro
Suor Angelica
Gianni Schicchi


This set is in some ways easy to review, as it is a collection of solid performances at an unbelievably great price (typically, Amazon sells this for about half of the low retail price of $49.98, or, in other words, about the full price of one opera). The sound quality is quite good considering when it was recorded, and is good enough to be rewarding on a good stereo (I played this set through some Apogee Stage speakers; just do an online search for reviews of these speakers). Really, if one is on a tight budget, this is well worth getting as one's only set of Puccini operas, and if one is rich, one ought to buy it for comparison with other performances.

But it is not an ideal set, for several reasons. First, as others have noted, there are no libretti. So if you are the sort of person who wants to read along as they sing, so that you will know what they are singing, this is a significant drawback. Even if you obtain a copy of the libretti elsewhere, there will be no markings in it to tell you what track the passage is on, so if you get lost or just want to know what they are singing at a particular point in the opera, you may have difficulties finding what they are singing.

Second, although the sound quality is very good, it is certainly not the best, and certainly not state of the art. So if one is very picky about sound quality, then one might want to look elsewhere (and, if one is that picky, one ought to generally avoid recordings this old, as this sounds better than one ought to expect for that time period [1950's to early 1960's]).

Third, although the performances are great, and deserve 5 stars generally, they are not all the best that money can buy. The three operas recorded by Pavarotti in the early 1970's Puccini - La Bohème / Freni, Pavarotti, Harwood, Ghiaurov, Karajan, Puccini - Madama Butterfly / Freni, Pavarotti, Ludwig, Wiener Phil., Karajan, & Puccini - Turandot / Sutherland · Pavarotti · Caballé · Ghiaurov · Krause · Pears · LPO · Mehta are probably definitive, and have better sound quality as well (though still fall short of current state of the art, for the obvious reason that recording technology has progressed since the early 1970's). However, they typically cost as much each as this entire set.

(If one wants all three of them, buying the boxed set that contains them will cost about the same as buying those three separately, and one will get two more operas, in which one can hear that Pavarotti was singing past his prime Puccini: The Definitive Collection, though it seems not to have bothered many of his fans. The operas that that set lacks that this Tebaldi set has are, in my opinion, less famous and well-known for good reason, but it obviously hurts nothing to have more, and others may disagree with my opinion on this matter. Interestingly, that set is the same label, Decca, as this Tebaldi set.)

So, should you buy this set? Well, they are great performances and the sound is very good. But they are not the very best performances of the operas that can be had (at least of the three mentioned above with Pavarotti in the early 1970's), and the sound quality isn't the best either, though as already stated repeatedly, they are great performances with good quality sound. The lack of libretti may also disappoint. But at this price, I think it can confidently be asserted, you will never do better. If the sets were the same price, I would recommend the other Decca set above, but it typically costs about three times as much and lacks four of the operas in this set. If you have the money and love Puccini (everyone should!), buy both sets. If you don't have the money for both sets, think carefully about what, exactly, matters most to you, and buy accordingly.

One more thing. If you order this set, like with all boxed sets, immediately when you receive it, check to make sure that all the CDs are there and seem to be in good condition. The first set I got from Amazon was missing a disc. But buying from Amazon is great, as they paid the return shipping for that set and sent me a replacement. 5 stars for Amazon.com!

The set is an amazing bargain and anyone who loves Puccini and knows these artists will buy it while it's still available.

However, I feel compelled to write a brief response to the reviewer who criticized Decca for not having consistent CD data for the various CDs in this set. The record companies do not generate the tags (album name, artist, etc.) that are used by online music databases. Instead, the information is entered by a variety of independent users who employ a variety of standards or conventions when entering information about a CD. Thus, one user may enter the data for the first CD in a set, while another user enters the data for the second CD, and the two users may enter the data using different conventions. The record companies do not and cannot control the way this data is entered, and it's not a fair complaint to criticize them for a lack of standardization. In any case, it's very easy for the user to change these tags within iTunes by simply selecting multiple tracks and then renaming the disc, artist, or any other data field with the user's personal preference.

The major record labels may be guilty of any number of offenses, but this is not one that can be laid at their doorstep. Given the extremely low price of this set, it's even more unfair to complain about something that's so easily modified by the consumer.

+ Manon Lescaut:
Renata Tebaldi, Mario Del Monaco, Mario Boriello, Fernando Corena & Piero de Palma
Francesco Molinari-Pradelli; July/August 1954

+ La Bohème:
Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Gianna d'Angelo, e Bastianini, to Cesari, Cesare Siepi, Fernando Corena & Piero de Palma
Tullio Serafin; August 1959

+ Tosca:
Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, George London, Silvio Maionica & Fernando Corena
Francesco Molinari-Pradelli; July 1959

+ Madama Butterfly:
Renata Tebaldi, Carlo Bergonzi, Goro Angelo Mercuriali, Fiorenza Cossotto & Enzo Sordello
Tullio Serafin; July 1958

+ La fanciulla del West:
Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, Cornell Macneil, Piero di Palma & Silvio Maionica
Franco Capuana; August 1958

+ Turandot:
Inge Borkh, Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, Bicola Zaccaria, Fernando Corena, Mario Carlin, Renato Ercolani, Gaetano Fanelli & Ezio Giordano,
Alberto Erede; August 1955

+ Il Trittico:
Robert Merrill, Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco, Renata Tebaldi, Giulietta Simionato & Fernando Corena
Orchestra e coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Lamberto Gardelli; July 1962


Orchestra e coro dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Roma

Even though I already had three of these recordings on LP I couldn't pass up this set. Recorded between 54 and 62, Tebaldi, Del Monaco, Bergonzi, and Merrill are all in wonderful voice. Every one of these recordings is a classic and if you had only one recording of any one of these operas you couldn't do much better than these.
For me the peerless performances are the Fanciulla and the Tabarro. They alone are worth the cost of the set. The sound quality is excellent and I would take this 1954 Manon Lescaut over the 1993 Pavarotti/Freni recording.

This a great bargain price collection including the wonderful recording of Il Tabarro which deserves to be better known. I have listed to two other recordings but neither comes close to this classic with Tebaldi, Del Monaco and and Merrill.
The duet is arguably the greatest Puccini has written and indeed one of the most dramatic in all opera. Tebaldi reigns throughout the collection and there is probably no soprano who could excell in every role as she does. The tenor roles are shared between Del Monaco for the heroic and Bergonzi for the romantic. Apart from Bjorling, these two are the greatest of the twentieth centuary. There is an equally superb cast of baritones with Bastianini, Corena and McNeill as well as Merrill. Special mention must be made of George London's Scarpia which makes this Tosca the greatest on disc. Callas, Di Steffano and Gobbi pale by comparison.
The other stand out is the La Fanciula whre again the cast sets the banchmark for the opera. This is both a wonderful introduction to the most melodic and approachable of operas and also an essential record of the greatest singers of all time. It simply puts the modern recordings with any of " the three tenors" to shame.

Let me say that these Puccini operas are beautifully performed by Renata Tebaldi who I always believed had a beautiful voice with the sole of a true musician. I should always acknowledge that I don;t at all feel that way about Maria Callas who sings flat and sharp and wobbles. Terrible singer and judging from clips I've seen of her stage work, also a melodramatic over-the-top actress. My main criticism of this set (and I have the same criticism for made opera boxed sets, these days) is that it was not designed for easy transfer to I-Tunes and Ipod. Is it really brain surgery to consistently name the disc in any one opera. For instance how able calling them Tosca Disc 1 and Tosca Disc 2, instead of Tosca Disc 1 and Puccini Tosca Disc 2 or some other variation on the title. It makes for grouping them in Playlists on your Ipod difficult especially if you've got other versions of Tosca loaded on you Ipod. All in all though, the recordings hold up well considering they were all recorded about 40 years ago. And you can't beat the price.