Turandot

Puccini (Artist), Ghione (Artist), Cigna (Artist), Merli (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 14, 1997)
• Label: Fonit Cetra Records
• ASIN: B0000045CV
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,804,349 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AUTHENTIC!, June 3, 2007

By 

Milan Simich - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Turandot (Audio CD)

Merli was chosen by Toscanini to create the role at the premier in Rome in 1926. He is terrific as is Cigna.

This a dramatic, authentic performance. Probably more what Puccini envisioned than the shouting matches, exciting as they may be, that came to be derigeur for this opera.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent historic performance with first-rate cast, August 27, 2005

By 

L. E. Cantrell (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Turandot (Audio CD)

Source: Studio recording made at Turin by Cetra, September 4-15, 1938. Originally issued on 31 sides at 78 rpm.

Sound: Acceptable mono, much like listening to an AM broadcast on a good vacuum tube radio. Voices are emphasized and well-caught. The chorus and orchestra are relatively dim and compressed by contemporary DDD standards.

Cast: Emperor Altoum - Armando Giannotti; Princess Turandot - Gina Cigna; Prince Calaf - Francesco Merli; Timur - Luciano Neroni; Liu - Magda Olivero; Ping - Afro Poli; Pang - Gino del Signore; Pong - Adelio Zagonara; Mandarin - Giuseppe Bravura. Conductor: Franco Ghione. Chorus and orchestra of E.I.A.R. (which would later become RAI) Turin.

Documentation: Libretto in Italian. Brief essay on the opera

This is the first complete recording of "Turandot," made less than twelve years after the premiere of the opera. (The Ping, Pang and Pong on this recording had appeared in that first performance, although not necessarily in the same roles.) Its cast, if not quite to be described as the La Scala all-stars, is certainly stronger than that of a typical performance at that house. It might be considered as a festival-level ensemble.

Princess Turandot in this recording is Gina Cigna, French born, but of Italian heritage and Italian trained. She was closely identified with the role of Turandot, playing the part about five hundred times before her career as a stage performer was tragically cut short in 1947 by a heart attack. She continued to work in the field of music as a highly respected teacher, dying in 2001 at over the age of 100. In the pre-World War II era, her great rival as Turandot was Eva Turner. Accepted wisdom, for what it is worth, held that Cigna's Princess was fire and passion while Turner's was ice and perfection. What is not mere lore but plain fact is that on this recording Cigna is an impressive dramatic soprano who is loaded with excellent technique, good sound and ringing high notes. Unlike some of her famous successors in the role, she approaches the Princess as a dramatic figure, not a singing exercise. Her Turandot is a seriously disturbed young lady who happens to sing beautifully.

Franceso Merli is Calaf, who risks his life to win the love of Turandot. It seems almost self-contradictory to say it, but his is a big, dramatic tenor voice that is particularly characterized by elegance and control. For a little taste of what operatic excitement is all about, listen to the passage following just after "In questa reggia" in which the Princess says Calaf will fail and he insists that he will succeed. I have never heard or seen a performance in which anybody came close to Cigna and Merli in that exchange. Then there is "Nessun dorma." Unlike virtually every other tenor, Merli stays in character throughout the aria--just listen to it a couple of times to catch the subtle manipulations of tone--making it much more than just a familiar tune bellowed by a guy with a loud voice.

Liu is played by the great Magda Olivero at age 28, just five years after her debut on the operatic stage. Her Liu is carefully crafted to provide absolute contrast with Princess Turandot at every point, a portrayal admirably conceived and even more admirably executed.

The rest of the cast, all Italians and all with Italian sensibilities, is fine.

Accepted wisdom, once again, holds Franco Ghione to have been a conductor who was competent and safe but not brilliant. Be that as it may, he performs very well here.

"Turandot" is not a particularly lengthy opera, so Warner Fonit has filled out Disk 2 with miscellany of recordings by Cigna and Olivero, admirable in their own way, but having no particular ties to a recording of "Turandot." [Here in Canada (until recently, anyway) there was a Naxos re-issue of this performance, remastered by Ward Marston. Disk 2 in the Naxos set was filled out with roughly contemporary excerpts from "Turandot" sung by such luminaries as Eva Turner, Aureliano Pertile and Maria Zamboni, the original Liu. They made for fascinating comparisons with the main recording.]

This is an excellent historical performance with a tremendous cast. If you find it at something like a reasonable price, snap it up!

Five stars.