Customer Reviews

Puccini - Turandot / Marton · Carreras · Ricciarelli · Maazel [Highlights]

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EM is the definitive contemporary Turandot & Carreras' steals the show w his sensitive & nuanced voice as the perfect complement to the role of Calaf as humble/triumphant, beggar/hero. Sumptuous scoring.

If I'd want any highlights edition from a Puccini Turandot album, this one would be it. There is no better recording of any of these tracks, not even Zubin Mehta, and these are not "woefully sluggish" excerpts, as one of the reviewers of the complete recording said. This is how the opera should be conducted, and Puccini was a master of slow paces when writing this opera. There are no better Puccini Turandot sopranos than Eva Marton, and no better Wiener Philharmoniker performance than this one. This performance has what I call "ultimate everything:ultimate singing and ultimate orchestra, which does not miss a beat which is even louder here than on any other recording of it". I think anyt of the Eva Marton recordings of In Questa Reggia is the best one there is. Eva Marton is the ONLY Turandot out there and her singing of "In Questa Reggia" is even better than any of Giovanna Cassola's recordings, and her voice cracks just as much as Eva Marton's. Marton is the better one and the recording of "In Questa Reggia" on this highlights edition is the absolute best one out there. Marton's voice is so loud and so passionate that she is totally flawless. If I saw her today I'd give her a big hug. She's even better and louder than Birgit Nillsson or Katia Ricciarelli or Joan Sutherland and cuter than the three of them. Yes! I love Eva Marton so much that if I saw her, I'd give her that, oh, I would! Period!

This is the only recording of Puccini's Turandot that has the new "Harold Prince Ending". That probably substitutes the "O Sole, O Vita, O Eternita" ending and is even better than the original Alfano ending. I bet it sounds very similar to that one brief theme with a five-beat thunderdrum rhythm, which happens toward the beginning of the second act(on the complete recording). It reprises itself with the chorus singing, I think, in English. The song is probably "We are Rejoicing to the Beat of the Thunderdrum". I think that song which ends this recording was written by Harold Prince and recycles that one brief theme from Act 2, Scene 2. That kind of ending is only founjd on this recording and is much better than Alfano's ending.