Customer Reviews

Verdi - Jérusalem / Mescheriakova, Giordani, Scandiuzzi, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Luisi (First Complete Recording)

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

 

 

Jerusalem is a "rewrite" by Verdi of his third opera, I Lombardi. It is an instructional exercise to listen to both operas sequentially, because the composer's growth as a musical dramatist is obvious. The performance is generally excellent: well conducted and well sung. It is frequently said that the recent emphasis on bel canto opera has resulted in a lack of great Verdian voices, and, especially as relates to sopranos and baritones, I tend to agree. But that is nit-picking as far as this album is concerned. It is a totally enjoyable listening experience from start to finish. If you like Verdi, you'll love this recording, and if you are "testing the water" as far as opera goes, this will be an excellent start. Buy and enjoy!

Many people say that there are no longer great Verdi singers left. I think it is only a littebit true, but when I first heard Marcello Giordani, I forget all my scepsis. Here we can hear a great singer which reminds me of no one less than Giacomo Aragall or perhaps a young Jose Carreras. I wanted to give him a five star rating, but the rest of this recording is good to very good, but not outstanding. Mescheriakova has a beautiful voice, but she is not (yet) a Verdi singer. Scandiuzzi is very good and I specially like the chorus. Fabio Luisi, I rate as 'adequate': he doesn't give that warm Verdi feeling. The orchestra plays very well. The last point I want to make is that of the great value of this recording. I posses many legal or barelylegal recordings of Verdi operas, but this is the first of this masterpiece. Buy it!!!!

Before Verdi wrote his two original Paris operas, Les Vepres Sicillienes and Don Carlos, he first tried his hand with this reworking of an earlier Italian opera - I Lombardi. Although BBC Radio 3 have an unreleased recording of Jérusalem from the 80's lurking somewhere in their vaults, this is the first time Verdi's Paris revision of his crusader opera has made it onto disc. The original Italian version was recorded in 1975 by Gavazzeni with Carreras in the lead role and is still available (also on Philips).

Comparing the two versions, the later French one has a considerably tighter plot, with a well structured quartet of major roles - crusader count, his daughter, young hero, wicked uncle, and less activity for the chorus than the Italian original. Verdi was so pleased with his revision that he had it translated back into Italian as Gerusalemme and withdrew I Lombardi. The French version's extra length (and extra CD) is partly due to the Parisian grande opéra requirement for a ballet which Verdi inserted, appropriately, in the heroine's harem scene. Anyone wanting to get an idea of the musical difference between I Lombardi and Jérusalem can hear an aria from each on Roberto Alagna's 1998 Verdi Arias disc on EMI.

This 2001 recording recieved a mixed welcome in France. Classica rewarded the set a 'recommandé par Classica' and Télérama awarded it 'ffff' (top marks), but Diapason magazine was less impressed. One problem was that the French pronunciation of the mainly foreign cast didn't go down well with the reviewers: "One regrets that the French diction of the cast of Jérusalem, apart from Philippe Rouillon, is deficient and diminishes the success of this rewriting for the Opéra de Paris, in 1847, of I Lombardi."(Renaud Machart in Le Monde). On the other hand, you'd have thought that most people (the critics of Le Monde excepted) would not be too bothered about the way Italians sing French, and the Russian soprano Marina Mescheriakova compensates very prettily for un-French consonants.

Overall if neither the opera nor the recording is the absolute masterpiece that is Pappano and Alagna's EMI recording of the French original of Don Carlos, then it is still pretty good. If you already have the French version of Don Carlos and enjoyed it, you'll almost certainly like this as well.

I am not familiar with the parent opera, I Lombardi, and this is the first recording of this work. In my humble opinion it is breathtaking. I love the singing, the conducting and the orchestra. The sound quality is superb. Verdi added a powerful scene where the hero Gaston is humilited by having his weapons destoyed for the crime he is innocent of ( my guese is that at the premier this must have moved the audience to tears ). I read up on the story of I lombardi and as far as the drama is concerned Jerusalem is differnt opera. If you love Verdi as I do ( I even have Oberto ) you'll fall in love with this recording and with this opera. By all means by it.

While the Italians cling to the cruder, more rumbustious earlier version of this opera, "I Lombardi", presumably mainly because its patriotic theme is explicit, I am with Verdi scholar Julian Budden in preferring this re-write for Paris in 1847; it is a more coherent, homogeneous work despite the persistent incongruities and inconsistencies of the plot. It maintains a more compact and comprehensible narrative line, the number of scenes being reduced from eleven to seven, and retains most of the best music from "I Lombardi". Verdi wisely jettisoned the naiveties such as the heavenly vision scene and wrote some new, refined and beautiful music such as the delicate passage depicting the sunrise in the first scene and also a completely new finale to Act 3. There are still some rather jolly throwbacks: the soldiers' chorus "Fier soldat" sounds heavily indebted to Mercadante in his more bombastic mode, but by and large this is a more mature Verdi - as you would expect, four years on and writing for the discriminating and rather rigid Parisians. The obligatory ballet is charming, inoffensive music - and of course a bit of a bore for the listener without the benefit of the accompanying visual stimulus of dance; just skip it if you want, but at least we have the complete score here.

I also think this is the best of Luisi's three early Verdi operas, recorded to fill the gaps left by Gardelli. He is both more energised and subtle here than in "Alzira" and "Aroldo" and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande are again very fine: sharp and responsive.

Revisiting this recording, I in fact found it to be much better than I had remembered from a first listening several years back. I have read some very indignant objections to the French accents of the principal singers and it is true that the two French singers inevitably remind us of what sung French should sound like; Philippe Rouillon as the Conte de Toulouse has a particularly lovely bass and enunciates his mother tongue beautifully. Mescheriakova has a real Verdi spinto soprano, powerful and penetrating, but in addition to too wide a vibrato her pronunciation of French is almost wholly occluded by an absence of consonants. Conversely, Marcello Giordano, who also has a proper Verdi tenor with a ringing top C if a rather grainy tone, has typically Italian problems with his French vowels. Mushy consonants didn't stop Joan Sutherland having a glittering career and many an Italian singer has enjoyed success happily mangling the French language; when the French themselves start once more to produce more singers capable of doing justice to their lovely language in opera they will have a right to complain, but meanwhile...

Scandiuzzi as the repentant hermit is caught before the time when his vibrato started to loosen prematurely and degenerate into a full-blown wobble; he sings gravely and expressively in a manner not unlike Ruggero Raimondi. He in fact of the three non-French principals sings the best French, even if it remains a bit "international".

I am not quite resigned to hearing favourite arias such as "La mia letizia infondere" rendered in French, which does not really sit well with the music but this recording makes an excellent case for a neglected opera. There is a bargain live recording (on Opera d'Oro and Bella Voce) from Turin in 1975 with Ricciarelli and Carreras, who are superb, but I believe it is cut and there is a less than distinguished supporting cast; I have never had much time for Siegmund Nimsgern's bleaty baritone and some of the other singers are poor. Mind you, I could wish that Luisi had recruited two comprimario basses other than the same two dreadful singers who also disfigure "Alzira" - but bass Daniel Borowski as the Papal Legate provides some compensation.

So this is the one to get unless you especially want the young Ricciarelli and Carreras - and I admit that his is the voice I would most want to hear in the roles of Gaston and Oronte - but this set recorded in 2000 is a fine achievement, despite the niggles.

"Jérusalem" nada mais é do que a revisão da partitura de "I Lombardi", montada para os palcos franceses. Além da tradução do libretto, com algumas modificações, foi incluído o necessário balé, como era comum acontecer com as óperas representadas em Paris. Esta gravação, de estúdio, é a primeira realizada da obra completa, com a Orquestra de la Suisse Romande habilmente conduzida pelo jovem maestro Fabio Luisi. Os baixos Roberto Scandiuzzi e Philippe Rouillon desempenham bem seus papéis e estão com as vozes no auge. O destaque vai para o par de protagonistas, Marcello Giordani e Marina Mescheriakova, impecáveis na pronúncia em francês. Mescheriakova possui uma voz com tons dramáticos, fazendo com que a personagem Helène soe bem convincente. Produzido no início da década de 2000, este disco, juntamente com Verdi: Aroldo e Verdi: Alzira, marca a conclusão, pela gravadora Philips, do ciclo de Verdi iniciado há cerca de 40 anos. Indispensável para um bom verdiano.