Verdi: Don Carlos

Peter Mattei (Performer), Giuseppe Verdi (Composer), Alberto Hold-Garrido (Conductor), Ingrid Tobiasson (Performer), Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra (Orchestra), Hilde Leidland (Performer), Hillevi Martinpelto (Performer), Iwa Sorenson (Performer), Klas Hedlund (Performer), Lars Cleveman (Performer), Goran Swartz (Performer), Jan Sörberg (Performer), Johan Wållberg (Performer), Mattias Nilsson (Performer), Mikael Magnell (Performer), Torbjörn Pettersson (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Peter Mattei, Ingrid Tobiasson, Hilde Leidland, Hillevi Martinpelto, Iwa Sorenson, et al.
• Orchestra: Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra
• Conductor: Alberto Hold-Garrido
• Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
• Audio CD (October 21, 2003)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 3
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B0000BX5KP
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #490,294 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Deceiving, March 12, 2004

By 

Osvaldo Colarusso "Osvaldo Colarusso" (Curitiba, Paraná Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Verdi: Don Carlos (Audio CD)

Deceiving

Naxos has some excellents opera records: Albert Herring, The Turn of Screw, Fidelio, The Flying Dutchman, The King Roger, and more recently one outstanding Wozzeck. I bought this Don Carlos for some reasons. First of all the soprano Hillevi Martinpelto. Her recordings of Idomeneo ( the role of Elektra)and Leonore( in Beethoven's opera) with John Eliot Gardiner are very good. She doesn't sing Elizabeth at the same level of these precedent recordings, but this wasn't the greatest deception. The mezzo Ingrid Tobiasson was in a really very bad day. Her "O Don Fatale " is a disaster.Her high C b sounds like a scream. Deceiving too is the tenor Lars Cleveman. He has no voice for this role. Good surprises: The baritone Peter Mattei is excellent, and the bass Jaako Ryhänen as The King has good moments too. The great bass Bengt Rundgren , once a great wagnerian Bass ,despite some bad moments,is Dramatically convincing as the Inquisitor. The Orchestra and the chorus are excellent, and the conductor is very firm . But in general I feel a lack of profundity in the musical direction. One positive thing about this record: the choice of a very complete Five Act version. But if you want to hear this wonderful music without sufferings, go to Giulini or Solti, the best versions of the Five Act Version of the best "French Opera" by Verdi. Naxos is a label with a growing prestige. One issue like this is far to contribute for the label's reputation.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice Don for Verdi lovers, October 25, 2003

By 

DILLON L HAYNES (MILFORD, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Verdi: Don Carlos (Audio CD)

This LIVE recording from the 99-00 season at Royal Swedish Opera, is mainly cast with unknown swedish singers. Don't let their unknown names fool you, this cast produce some lovely singing. Be warned that if you already have some of the top notch Don's such as Sotli (Decca) or Karajan (EMI) this recording will never live up to those standards. Please don't compair Bergonzi to Cleveman! or Telbaldi to Martinpelto! They just come up very short. That said I listened to Tu che la vanita about 4 times back to back.. it is lovely! There are moments that fall short as in any live recording... mostly I found the Eboli of Tobiasson the least at home in Verdis dark score. The recored sound is very good, but again did I mention it is live? So you do hear stage noice and such, but it is never TOO distracting! Hope that you enjoy this recording, I have already listened to it 2x and I am headed back for a 3rd.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than it looks on paper, and a real bargain., January 12, 2011

By 

William Kasimer (Eastern Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Verdi: Don Carlos (Audio CD)

I won't claim that this is the greatest recording that this opera (which is, I think, Verdi's greatest), but it certainly holds its own against the competition.

Every recording of this opera is flawed in some way. Either they're the four-act version (an abomination that should be outlawed), heavily cut, in mediocre sound, or have a cast member or two who are so awful as to be debilitating.

While this recording is a little lacking in glamour, "star power", and really distinctive interpretation, the singing is consistently good, the sound excellent, the conducting sensible, and the version admirably complete. The one exception is Peter Mattei's Posa, which is superb, perhaps the best on records.

Be warned that it's a live recording, if that bothers you.

Bottom line: If you're a Don Carlo junkie, you'll probably want this, if only for Mattei. If you want something fairly complete and in good sound, this will certainly fit the bill, particularly if you want to do it on the cheap (I bought a "like new" used copy for under $5).

Other favorite recordings are the complete French version conducted by Matheson on Opera Rara (pity that there are some issues of casting, and this set is wicked expensive), the live Abbado from La Scala from 1977 with Freni, Carreras et al (great performance, complete five act version, but sonically imperfect, and may be hard to find), and the live Karajan with Jurinac, Bastianini, and Siepi (heavily cut, four-act version, bad tenor, but the other principals are fabulous).

I've never really warmed to either the Giulini or the Solti recordings, which are justly famous, mostly because I strongly dislike the baritones singing Posa on both sets. The Haitink recording looks good on paper, but it's really dull, and most of the cast are not at their best. The Pappano is poorly recorded, and has a lot of miscasting; except for van Dam, I really don't care for any of his cast. The studio Abbado in French never really gets off the ground; it sounds like what it is, a bunch of singers coached to sing French when they'd rather be singing in Italian. The de Billy (also in French) is very well conducted and very complete, but the cast varies from pretty good (Vargas) to mediocre (almost everyone else) to horrendous (Bo Skovhus' Posa is, by far, the worst on records).