Verdi: Rigoletto [Import]

Giuseppe Verdi (Composer), Giuseppe Sinopoli (Conductor), Neil Shicoff (Performer), Renato Bruson (Performer), Edita Gruberova (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Neil Shicoff, Renato Bruson, Edita Gruberova
• Conductor: Giuseppe Sinopoli
• Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
• Audio CD (August 20, 2002)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Decca
• ASIN: B00006469N
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #411,423 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Imaginative conducting, but let down by the leads, September 30, 2005

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Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Verdi: Rigoletto (Audio CD)

In this and his La Forza, I found Sinopoli one of the most imaginative and sensitive Verdi conductors in the past thrity years--he is so much more supple and inward than Levine. I have listened to this Rigoletto for that reason many times, but I cannot warm up to any of the principal singers.

Neil Shicoff sounds strained, on the verge of shouting half hte time, and lacks any ease or lyricism. Edita Guberova, as always, has a shrill edge to her voice--it's the kind of colorature Beverly Sills possessed, "as much needle as thread," to quote a comment about her. As Rigoletto, Renato Bruson is certainly skilled, and being Italian he is much closer to the Verdi idiom than the others. Even so, I find his voice dry and shallow, a first-cousin to Jose van Dam and Fischer-Dieskau. If you admire them more than I do, Bruson will proaably appeal to you as well.

This set joins the equally uneven Giulini performance from Los Angeles as an example of how hard it is today to cast the bread-and-butter operas that are the backbone of the Verdi canon.