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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Alagna's best album, August 18, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Roberto Alagna - Verdi Arias (Audio CD)
If you are a fan of tenor voice like me, then you most likely are following the news and trying to keep up with emergence of myriad of tenors for whom the success of the Big Three paved the path to stardom. While most of them are one-day sensations, Roberto Alagna and Jose Cura are definite successors to the seasoned veterans. While Cura has made his impressive claim with Puccini, Alagna brings his considerable talents to very difficult Verdian repertoire. Blessed with sweet lyric relatively high tenor voice (a polar opposite to Cura's and quite similar to young Pavarotti's) and astonishing breath control, he is very comfortable on early Verdi selections (I Lombardi, Luisa Miller), and can handle arias from Otello and La Forza del Destino, even though he hits his limits in low range there. The critics don't really have a convergence of opinions when it comes to Alagna. However, this album was generally welcomed. It's a thoroughly thought out voyage into the world of Verdi, encompassing various periods of the composer's life, and it features the amazing Berliner Philharmoniker with its greatest opera conductor since Karajan - maestro Claudio Abbado. An orchestral interlude from la Forza and a brief appearance of Angela Gheorghiu in Di quella pira are two pleasant additions. Some reservations: not including "Parmi veder le lagrime" which seems tailored for Alagna's voice, and instead supplying first "La mia letizia infondere" (track 3) and later "Je veux encor entendre" (track 20), two essentially the same arias. Also Alagna does not sing the high C at the end of "O, tu che l'alma adora" from Ernani , even though he's perfectly capable of doing so, and virtually every other tenor does it even on stage. Still, the album is interesting, enjoyable, and probably the best one out of all Alagna's discography as of now.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SUPERBLY PHRASED VERDI, November 10, 2003
This review is from: Roberto Alagna - Verdi Arias (Audio CD)
I am surprised to find myself giving this record a complete thumbs up. Alagna's voice sounds comfortable in all of the selections, and they range from the lyrical to the outpourings of Otello. But what impressed me most was his musicality, his phrasing in thses demanding pieces. There are hundreds of "Celeste Aida" out there, bringing something new to such a warhorse would seem impossible, but it is done here. The key to much of Verdi's music is the 'arch', Verdi is famous for his arching melodies. Alagna uniquely understands this and phrases the very difficult 'ergerti un trono vicino al sol' in a beautiful arch, with a nice corona on the B flat, he then shows off his breath control by aliding right into the succeeding upward sweep of 'celeste Aida'. Fabulous! And I have never heard it this way before. Every other tenor in my experience goes up to the B flat and holds it for dear life and then swiftly descends on the phrase, never making it one continuous phrase and thus altering the inherent shape of the piece. The "Ballo" aria is full of detailed expressive touches as Alagna follows Verdi's markings. He is the only tenor I have heard to actually sing with the 'voce cupa' Verdi demands at 'ed or, qual reo pressagio'. Examples like this arethroughout the recital. This is a musician of the first rank with an attractive voice and personality. Bravo Signor Alagna.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Really interesting., June 3, 2003
This review is from: Roberto Alagna - Verdi Arias (Audio CD)
Roberto Alagna is one of the best (and few really good) tenors of our time. Since his first performances, he showed the world a beautiful timbre and natural voice control, a correct vibrato, a solid and well emited voice (strange for a french tenor) the ability to sing the dynamics as written, diminuendos on high notes, etc.. He has been in many senses the best tenor to come out in recent years, or at least one of the best two or three in an extremely long time. The fear that I have felt after hearing his recent performances and recordings, is that he has been trying to make his voice sound darker. I thought the reason could be that he was looking for the chance to take darker and more spinto roles. The problem is that the beauty and purity of timbre get somewhat lost in the process. The other, and bigger, problem is that to succeed doing that, a singer needs a technical background that singers today don't have anymore, which is very dangerous for vocal health. Here we can hear an Alagna in an amazing gamma of roles, in some of them he fits more than in others. He sings excelent in most part of the album, although a little bit tension can be heard in some moments. If you look at the track list, you see that there are things that could have been expected, as Ballo in Maschera, or even Luisa Miller, where he sounds as good as expected. But also there are surprises, being the biggest one a couple of OTELLO arias! Then you see, as suspected, Alagna has been darkening his voice colour in order to attack a BIG role. As suspected (and perhaps feared) the big role is Otello. It is very likely that Alagna's goal is to be THE Otello of his generation.
What is the result? For the moment, it works fine. The Otello excerpts here (dio mi potevi.. and niun mi tema) are two of the best moments in this recording.
Well, one thing is to sing a couple of arias and the other thing is to sing the whole opera. Above all on stage. I don't know if the success that Alagna gets here is possible for him to get singing Otello in the theater. He will try (we can be sure of that), so it is only a matter of time to find out.
The problem is that Alagna could see his voice ruined in a small amount of time. Let's hope that won't happen, so we can still enjoy of this great singer. If everything works fine and we are lucky enough, we are seeing the rise of the most popular Otello in the years to come.
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