Customer Reviews

Sings Mozart

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There was a time when Leontyne Price performed Mozart operas at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and at the premier stage for Mozart opera- the Salzburg Festival in Austria. Those who heard her sing the Countess in Le Nozze Di Figaro, Dona Ana and Dona Elvira in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Cosi Fan Tutte and Pamina in the Magic Flute attest to her brilliant Mozartian vocal gifts. This recording captures her resplendent Mozartian voice from the years 1965-1969, although tracks 11-12 "O Smania! D'Oreste D'Ajace" from Idomeneo was recorded in 1977. I prefer not to call attention to the highly critical and negative detractors' comments regarding their views on Leontyne's lack of true Mozartian vocal talent. They say those things only because Leontyne was unfortunately singing Mozart at a time when the more famous Mozart singers were Euroopean- Anneliese Rothenberger, Elisabeth Schwartzkopff, Lucia Popp, Edith Mathis, Gundula Janowitz, Sena Jurinac and other mostly German sopranos. Plus, they still believe that lighter voices are appropriate to Mozart opera. Leontyne's lyrico-spinto, heavy dramatic voice has always been attached to Verdi and Puccini but without a doubt, after hearing this recording, one can easily envision what a supreme Mozartian soprano she would have made. This album contains some arias that were later issued in the Prima Donna Collection, an extensive collection of diverse operatic repertoire Leontyne sang over the course of her career.

From the opening concert aria "Chio Mi Scordi", I was instantly enthralled by the lush and luxuriant beauty of her voice. She sings with delicate attention to detail, with consummate musicianship, and beautiful purity of tone. This same clean, smooth and bright, radiant, girlish sound is also evident in the lyrically lingering arias in Idomeneo "Se Il Padre Perdei" (track 4) and especially in "L'Amero Saro Cosntante" (track 8)from Il Re Pastore. The concert arias "Bella Mia Fiamma" and "Resta O Cara" (tracks 9-10) are exquisite and virtuosic works for the soprano voice. Throughout all these lyric, beautiful arias, Leontyne displays agility, coloratura flexibility, and total breath control. The pianissimi are to die for. There is truly no other soprano who can compare, not even Elisabeth Schwartzkopff (sorry fans of Schwartzkopff). Leontyne exudes pain and deep melancholia in the arias "Ach Ich Fuhls" Pamina's woeful aria from The Magic Flute and in "Porgi Amor" and "Dove Sono" arias for the Contessa in Le Nozze Di Figaro. Pamina's requiem-like aria is a statement of grief as she believes she has lost her beloved Tamino forever. The Countess's recollections of happy days with her husband who now rejects her is also very moving. Leontyne tones her voice so that she sings in an appropriately hushed and melancholy manner. Thankfully, she is singing with all the pretty techniques that she employed in her younger and heady days of her career, with absolutely no annoying lisps, grating high register, growling chest register or sloppy diction she would later develop in the 1970's as evidenced in her later 70's RCA recordings. What I love most are the fiery arias of Dona Ana- "Don Ottavio Son Morta!" and "Or Sai Chi L'onore". Here, Dona Ana recognizes her assailant, Don Giovanni, and she is overcome with horror and righteous indignation. However, she is no wilting flower. She is has a will of steel and demands vengeance for the death of her father and for the attempted rape. Leontyne sings with technical bravura and vigor, but maintains an incredibly feminine and pretty voice. The slow haunting aria "Non Mi Dir" is gorgeous, and even the coloratura caballeta "Forse Un Giorno Il Cielo" does not wear her down. Leontyne Price has never sounded better, I must admit. If only this collection also included Fiordiligi arias from Cosi Fan Tutte. Certainly "Come Scoglio" was a masterpiece of voice in Leontyne's chords. The difficult music for Fiordiligi was not a problem for the ever ready Leontyne Price and I sincerely believe that no other Fiordiligi can beat her to this day. The same applies to her unsurpassed performances as Dona Ana and Dona Elvira. All fans of Leontyne will not want to be without this sumptuous album.

Leontyne Price may not be the best Mozart singer of her generation but she showed us in this CD that she had all potentials to be one if she wanted to. Listen to how she changed the color of her voice for different arias. She could sound very fragile when she sang Pamina or very furious when she sang Donna Anna. The highlights are Le Contessa arias from "Le Nozze di Figaro" which she never sang on the stage. Her "Porgi Amor" is so gorgeous and can be ranked one of the best on the records.

Leontyne Price sings Mozart with exhaustive vocal beauty and perfect characterization which makes her the ideal Morzartean which she reveals abundantly in this extraordinarily superb recording of some of the most exquisite singing by anyone at any time.

It is legendary that she sang Pamina in "The Magic Flute" early in her career in Europe under the direction of Karajan. At around this same time, she was the first singer to introduce opera to American television audiences with her performance as Tosca in Puccini's opera which she followed with a televised "Magic Flute." So she was a Mozart star from the beginning of her nearly 50-year international career and was the first singer to bring Mozart to a huge American audience.

She went on to sing both Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in "Don Giovanni," in both of which roles she distinguished herself as the Mozartean of the age, making a praticularly indelible impression as the dramatic, impassioned Donna Anna, the best I have ever heard. She sang this role with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf as the Donna Elvira, who said of Price's singing that she was the best Donna Anna she had ever heard. It is remarkable that there are three recordings of her live performances of this most demanding role over the period 1960 to 1974, and she is just as vocally splendid, fresh and compelling in 1974 as she was in 1960 which is utterly amazing.

Historically, she sang a ravishing and refined Fiordiligi in "Cosi fan tutte" at the Met and made a superb studio recording of the opera for RCA. Her recital and concert performances of the recitative and aria E Susanna non vien!; Dove sono are testatment to her absolute command of this vocally demanding material. When she sang the aria at the Bing gala in 1972, a critic remarked that truly great singing was not apparent for the entire evening until Leontyne Price stepped out onto the stage and sang.

I first heard her fearless, blistering O smania! D'Oreste, d'Ajace from "Idomeneo" in recital in San Jose sometime in the 1970's, which settled for me, yet again, that I was witnessing the greatest singer in history.

Someone once asked me, caught up in one of Price's performances and unable to fathom the sheer wonder of what he had just heard and seen, "What makes her so great?" I responded that, first of all, she is the only one in the world has that voice, the most beautiful anyone has ever heard, and added to that is her vocal technique which is refined to perfection, then her characterizations which are exactly as the composer, conductor and the texts demand, then there is what has been called "her great humanity," meaning by that her uncanny ability to move one to tears or to raise one up to the heights of glory. Price herself has been known to weep at the sound of her own voice. This is not ego. This is the sensitivity to and the understanding and artistic conveyance of the human condition through the voice in song, to which Price herself is subject along with all the rest of us. Famously, Karajan fell under her spell the very first time he heard her sing, and pushed aside her accompanist and sat down at the piano saying, "I will accompany her!" After which he said, "Her voice gave me goose bumps."

Marcia Davenport provides an insightful essay for this recording on Price as the ideal Mozart soprano. In another essay, not included with this recording, Davenport remarks that Price stands at the end of a long line of distinguished and great sopranos of history and that when the history of singing is finally settled she will be standing in the midst of all of them because "Leontyne Price had something that all of them had and something that none of them had." And that just about says it all.

There are treasures on this recording of inexpressible, almost unbearable, vocal beauty and deeply human characterization which mark Leontyne Price as the most sublime Mozart interpreter conceivable. This is a recording every opera lover and Price fan should have, a splendor of incomparably beautiful singing.

Following the example of the supreme vocal artistry of Leontyne Price, here are some of the literary songs of my soul.

Letters From The Mystic (Trinity); APOCALYPSE (TRINITY); I AM (TRINITY); THE LORD'S PRAYER (TRINITY); The Book of Wisdom; The Wedding Feast

One of the most gorgeous voices of the 20th century singing some of the most gorgeous music for voice ever written. Why in the world is this recording out of print??