Customer Reviews

Rossini: Il Viaggio a Reims (The Journey to Reims)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, Robert Levine is incorrect in his review. Rossini did not borrow from Le Comte Ory for Viaggio a Riems--it was the other way around! Rossini wrote Viaggio as an occasional piece for the coronation of Charles V and withdrew it after three performances (there was a fourth benefit performance later) because he knew he wanted to re-use some of the music. He used five of the numbers three years LATER for Le Comte Ory! That said, I am really glad I bought this one. I was familiar with Rossini's other comic operas, and I had been getting to know and love his opera seria. Discovering Viaggio is like being at the premiere of a brand new Rossini comedy! It shows off his delicious way with melody and comic effects, but with more sophistication and complexity than in his youthful works. The singers sound like they're having a ball doing this, and it was so tuneful and exciting that I listened to it twice the first time I played it. The dinner scene at the end, where everyone sings a national song, is especially triumphant (I love the Swiss yodeling tune!). You'll want to channel Rossini's spirit to thank him for this one last comic gem.

When the Pesaro Rossini Foundation announced that Il Viaggio a Reims had been reconstructed, we all knew that it was one of the most important cultural events of the century, and boy, we were not disappointed. This marvelous coronation opera is a gem! This first recording has all the excitement of those unforgettable Pesaro nights, with a 24 carat roaster of singers headed by the exquisite Texas soprano Lella Cuberli, whose hat aria covers her with glory. Everyone else is sensational, and Claudio Abbado shows why he is the finest living conductor.

I can't possibly argue that this is one of the most important opera recordings of the past few decades. This delicious comedy is both sofisticated and very funny indeed. The music is glorious, a masterpiece. The original Pesaro cast is ideal, and much better than the Berlin remake for SONY. If you don't know this opera you are missing so much, that words just can't tell.

"Il Viaggio a Reims" perhaps contains Rossini's most aesthetically beautiful vocal and orchestral writing. By turns breathtakingly gorgeous and sparkling with unalloyed fizz, this is a superb recording of a tremendous work. As another reviewer said below, forget the plot, but just wallow in the fabulous music. Everyone involved in the performance gives 100%. Simply one of the great Rossinian recordings of all time. Truly magnifico!

Don't trust in second version, this "premiere mondiale" doesn't have any contest (EX. the Sony rec.); the reasons are (warning, i'm a amateur not a music): - The cast is more Rossinian: Ricciarelli, Gasdia and Cuberli, as example. - Cuberli is better than Serra, because she is more tragicomic. - Gasdia is more poetic, more misterious than Mc Nair. And their "Callasoid" voice is charming. - Between Ricciarelli and Studer there is not winner. - The first recording has more vivacity, one feel more the live session than in the 1993 recording. The orchestration sounds lighter. There are details you have to note: a scene from the first act, comparing a heart's sincope to a musical sincope, the pieces are brief in this recording and the Sony's one, are longer. The Aria of Profondo shows a bridge part that the Sony record doesn't do. This recording lacked a Female Chorus(which is lost) in the Finale, the Sony recording at this place, introduce a Chorus from Maometto II. The rest are close similar.

You cannot get better than this. One of the best recordings of an opera since the invention of vinyl discs. An exuberant, infectious, live performance (Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, in 1984) of a Rossini opera, written for the coronation of Charles X of France in 1825 (the opera and the king were short-lived). However, large chunks of the opera were resurrected later for 'le Comte Ory' in 1828.

This is one instance where everything came together to perfection. The orchestra (the Chamber Orchestra of Europe), the conductor (Claudio Abbado), and the legion of internationally reknowned singers (a cast of some 18 voices), all worked to create two and one half hours of pure magic. The cast is too long to list, but all the great Rossinians of the day are here, from Lucia Valentini Terrani, Katia Ricciarelli, to Ruggero Raimondi, Enzo Dara and Leo Nucci. Samuel Ramey and Francisco Araiza are other well known names. Lesser known singers, as the remarkable Cecilia Gasdia, are among the added delights. The solos, and especially the ensembles, the famous 'Gran pezzo concertato' for fourteen voices, for example, are a caress to the ears and a joy to the heart.

The recording has superb sound, immediate and clear. It has won numerous awards, and rightly so. This is my 'desert island' choice of any opera recording.

Recorded in the 80's, this live recording of Rossini's obscure and little known opera "The Voyage To Reims" is outstanding and exemplifies a lost operatic style as well serving as a document of grand Rossini opera. Rossini's nearly Mozartian-style melodies are all here, rich with bel canto virtuosity. THE PLOT: A group of aristocrats are staying at a hotel on their way to Reims, to witness the grand coronation of a new European monarch. The opera was written to correspond with an actual coronation which Rossini attended. This opera is so beautiful and excessively virtuosic that it must surely rank as Rossini's best work next to the ever popular Barber of Seville. The interactions between the characters are hilarious. At one point, they talk about Bach and Beethoven while playing snippets of their music. The "royalty" in this opera come from fictitious European countries and nationalistic music that sound French, Spanish, Russian and German are written for arias. Each singer (soprano, mezzo soprano, tenor, baritone and bass) gets a showpiece of an aria to themselves. And the cast is top-notch: Soprano Cecilia Gazdia as Corinna, mezzo soprano Lucia Valentini Terrani as the Marchesa Melibea, soprano Lella Cuberli as the Countess Di Folleville, soprano Katia Ricciarelli as Madame Cortese, tenor Francisco Araiza as the Count of Libenskof, bass Samuel Ramey as Lord Sidney, baritone Ruggero Raimondi as Don Profondo, basso-bufo Enzo Dara as the Baron Di Trombonok and baritone Leo Nucci as Don Alvar. The conductor is Claudio Abbado leading the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

If you're a fan of Samuel Ramey, this recording features two great arias he sings with aplomb. His Rossini and bel canto style was truly his strongest suit, though he would later leave this operatic repertoire to focus on the famed "Devil" personaee. He sings with enormous lung power and basso profundo but has enough coloratura to fly with the bouncy music. Ruggero Raimondi is also here, singing with flair and grand style, singing in almost the same way he sings Mozart's Don Giovanni. If you're a fan of soprano Katia Ricciarelli, she is given beautiful arias and scenes. Possessing a noble-sounding voice, she showcases her superlative middle range and her fioritura. Soprano Cecilia Gazdia has an even better high range and she sings with supreme sweetness and agility. Her single aria "Arpa Gentil" as she plays the harp is worth this recording. The ensuing ensemble "Simboli Di Pace" is all fireworks as the voices go from low to high. The music is sublime, and only got better and better. This type of singing has died. No great Rossini singer exists today, as Rossini's music is considered antiquated. But he outshone even Mozart in writing opera. The music is lilting, grand and lively. One can imagine how much fun it must have been to attend a Rossini opera!

THE FINALE: The opera ends with all the characters (and that's many) coming together to sing a patriotic "coronation" anthem "Viva Il Diletto Augusto Regnator" (Long Live The August King" which is lifted from an actual French anthem. Tchaikovsky would later use this same aria's music for the finale of his Sleeping Beauty ballet, which was modeled after the court of Louix the 14th. The ensemble sounds beautiful and again becomes another reason for buying this recording. Any true fan of Rossini opera will want to get this recording or if you happen to enjoy rare opera.

Rossini - Il viaggio a Reims / Ricciarelli, Valentini-Terrani, Cuberli, Gasdia, Araiza, E. Gimenez, Nucci, Raimondi, Ramey, Dara; Abbado is a record that I picked up at my local library by chance. I thought why not give it a try and to my surprise this is a very pleasent opera. The book-let created by Deutsche Grammophon is more like a small book and contains 232 pages. In here we get the entire text in 4 languages, i.e., English, German, Italian and French; we also get many fine pictures, and a very interesting short essay about the Opera called a Lost Masterpiece Recovered by Janet Johnson. The book also contains a synopsis written by Janet Johnson and two short essays about the Opera by Phillip Gossett and Klaus Geitel. The sound quality is nothing short of stupendous and this easily gets the highest mark.

IL VIAGGIO A REIMS would not be one of Rossini's best known works, but it has a way of endearing listeners from the first hearing. It has lively music and quintessential Rossinian touches that have delighted audiences for two centuries, requires a good size cast of strong yet agile singers in order to work, and it moves along rather quickly. It deals with a group of aristocrats traveling to the coronation of King Charles X in France and the shenanigans that occur while visiting a spa prior to the event. The setting was contemporary for Rossini and includes a number of tongue in cheek references to popular music of the day and social conventions. Most listeners will be familiar with the national anthems that are part of the work's finale, and may be surprised to discover that Rossini uses a borrowed work "Vive Henri Quarte" for the finale, a tune Tchaikovsky borrowed in the finale to his ballet THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

This recording is one of the few available and it is the standard bearer. The booklet that accompanies it not only contains the libretto but a detailed background of the opera itself and the rediscovery of the work in the 1970's. The cast is spectacular. When it was released in the mid 1980's it boasted of two great contemporary stars in Katia Ricciarelli and Leo Nucci as well as then rising stars Samuel Ramey, Ruggero Raimoindi, Edoardo Gimenez and Mexican tenor Francisco Araiza who was sometimes miscast in other operas but is right t home with Rossini. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe handles the Rossinian flourishes rather well and the work moves along under the direction of Claudio Abbado who tends to have a somewhat slow hand when it comes to opera but not only comes to life but also seems to enjoy this work. The recording was taped during live performances but it is nearly free of background noises including applause. This gives the set the energy of an actual performance but it lacks the perfection of a studio set.

VIAGGIO was hiding away in vaults for nearly a century but when it was rediscovered, it was considered a great treasure. In some ways this set has the same history in my recording collection. When I first purchased it nearly fifteen years ago, I fell in love with it, but it got lost on the shelf due to too many other recordings and poor organization. I would rediscover it again, and then it would get "lost again." This tends to happened every year and when I found it again, I always enjoy it. I almost look forward for it to get lost on the shelves so I can rediscover it again.

Abbado liked this opera so much he staged and recorded the live performance twice within eight years. Once thought lost and the music only partly salvaged by Rossini having adapted about half of it for his later opera "Le Comte Ory" it was successfully reconstructed 150 years after its last performance for the coronation of Charles X and discovered to be a joyful comic masterpiece to rival "Die Fledermaus" or "Orpheus in the Underworld". The plot is wholly inconsequential; it's just an operatic spoof employing the same device as the "Canterbury Tales" whereby a disparate bunch of travellers bicker, intrigue, flirt and entertain each other with a "party scene" as the finale.

There can surely never have been such a concatenation of effervescent musical invention as Rossini provides here; one sparkling number succeeds another. All you need to do it justice, to paraphrase Caruso, is not four but the ten greatest singers in the world. Neither version quite provides that but I don't think the choice is as straightforward as some other reviewers claim. First of all, if you had either it would not be worth jettisoning it to acquire the other as both are superb. Secondly, although the difference in sound might favour the later Berlin performance, the live Pesaro version is just fine with the singers virtually always in focus and very few distracting stage noises. Thirdly, and more controversially, some claim that the Berlin Philharmonic is markedly superior to the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. It is true that individual Berlin instrumentalists such as the flautist might be better but I think them too refined compared with the gusto of the COE. However, in the end, this being a showcase for superlative Rossini singing it is for me the cast which tips the balance in favour of the earlier recording.

Naked nymphomaniacs waving bundles of negotiable currency could not induce me to prefer William Matteuzzi over Francisco Araiza as the Conte di Libenskof. I have never understood how anyone tolerated his wretchedly weedy tenorino in any music let alone bravura Rossini and thankfully in the Pesaro version he is relegated to a single utterance in the minor role of Gelsomino. While I am no great fan of Araiza's rather constricted tone and aspirated divisions, I see him as a god compared with Matteuzzi. Other great advantages are the casting of Katia Ricciarelli still in creamiest voice as Madama Cortese and Cecilia Gasdia rather than Sylvia McNair as Corinna (although both are excellent). Lella Cuberli is definitely preferable to Luciana Serra as the Contessa. However, I concede that Argentinean tenor Raul Gimenez is a more refined and pleasing of voice than his Spanish counterpart and namesake Edoardo and as Leo Nucci as Don Alvaro was already beginning to sound rocky in 1984 Lucio Gallo might be preferable in 1992.

Otherwise the cast for both performances has five big names in common and although Raimondi might by 1992 have introduced yet more subtlety into his tour de force patter-song it is already hilarious in 1984. Samuel Ramey's beautiful, flexible basso cantante is a joy in both, as are Valentini Terrani's agile oboe tones; Enzo Dara is the seasoned comic in both sets. The highlight must be the "Gran pezzo concertato a 14 voci" but Raimondi and Ricciarelli in the Tirolese yodelling song (!) are sheer, unadulterated joy.

My preference thus remains for the earlier version but you cannot go wrong with either - if you can endure Mr Matteuzzi...