Customer Reviews

Puccini - Turandot / Dimitrova · Martinucci · Gasdia · Scandiuzzi · Opera di Genova · D. Oren

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This is a rough, unsubtle performance. I'd recommend it for fans of Dimitrova (among whom I count myself). Otherwise, Martinucci strains a lot to match his leading lady in the shouting match this most Olympian of Italian operas generally reverts to. Cecilia Gasdia is an imaginative, touching Liu, although her voice is rather starved of tone and body. Oren's conducting is red-blooded, hurried, and generally pedestrian. As for the great lady herself, she's gloriously unsubtle (although next to Marton, she's a picture of refinement); one would not have thought such stentorian tones humanly possible. There's something monstrous about Dimitrova's voice, in the sheer heft and roundness of her timbre, in the prominent vibrato of her head voice, that is perfect for Turandot and the other malevolent ladies she's sung, such as Lady Macbeth and Abigaille, but is all wrong for conventionally feminine heroines, such as her valiant but miscast Giselda. All in all, a valuable document of the reigning Turandot of her day--a day which, alas, has passed.

Unsubtle performance with to much irritating background noises from the live performance. And its not remarked on the cover that its here a live recording.
There are some nice vocal performances, but also one of the protagonists is the choir. And this choir is unacceptable in this recording. I know that also a provincial theatre can bring splendid performances. But if they want to release them on a CD, they have to take there come to make a good recording with a good balance. This CD is good for some fans from the singers but not for everybody. In that way is the 1959 recording of RCA with Nilsson an outstanding example.