Customer Reviews

Verdi: Simon Boccanegra / Abbado

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

 

 

Boccanegra ranks for me with Don Carlos and Othello as a composition. I have heard it performed at La Scala with the same principals as in the DG and the Allegro recordings that I can compare here. Unlike a professional reviewer, I can't remember how it sounded on the stage in 1978!

The Allegro CD recording was made during a live performance at La Scala in 1972. The DG tape version is a studio recording made in Milan in 1977. The casts are the same except that Correras replaces Raimondi in the DG version and von Dam does the same for Schiavi. Abbado conducts both and Gandolfi directs the chorus in the DG and probably in the Allegro. It is a thrilling performance in either recording.

The DG version is the clearer with less background noise. Every word is intelligible (if you follow the libretto!). The Allegro version has the usual sound of shuffling feet on the stage and there are a few barely audible passages when the singers appear not to be facing the microphones. But, for the rest, all the words are intelligible. It includes bursts of live applause. The orchestra and chorus are very well recorded as are all the highlight scenes.

At its modest price, the Allegro CD seems to me a good buy.

Even the mediocre sound quality can't stop me from giving this recording 5 stars!! This is an amazing performance of one of Verdi's most neglected masterpieces. The cast is almost identical to that of the legendary DG studio recording with the exception of Gianni Raimondi in this one instead of Jose Carreras (Raimondi is much better). The entire cast seems to feed off one another and the audience quite well. As good as the cast is, though, the real star is Claudio Abbado who all but steals the show...
This recording is a must at this price!

I think this opera must be Verdi's most musical and emotional music...I just love it! I have seen a stage production and instantly loved the music and then I bought this CD. The wonderful arias are full of melody, emotion and drama....I love the short overture, a wistful musical entry into the world of great singing. This CD is a live performance and the audience applause is a great release from some emotional arias.

The opera 'Simon Boccanegra' has the reputation of a comlex story and being hard to follow...not so. The story is one of the most interesting and real stories you will find on the opera stage.

Buy a CD of 'Simon Boccanegra', listen to it often and let the music swirl around you...you will love it!

This recording was appallingly poorly done. Other reviewers are singing the opera's praises, with which I agree, but this recording specifically was impossible to listen to. There was so much noise on top of the actual music that I couldn't hear the opera. I fully regret my purchase, but would not foist it upon anyone else either. I was looking for something affordable to prepare to see the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD Broadcast with Placido Domingo in the title role, and I was sorely disappointed. Affordable does not always mean adequate!

Absolutely awful recording of a great opera.
This CD is in mono and sounds like a member of the audience left their cassette recorder on. Several other "good" reviews refer to how all the words are "intelligible" and there are the usual "shuffling of feet on stage". What kind of recordings do these people usually buy?
Buy this if you don't mind tossing your money in the garbage.

Verdi must have had some affection for this work since, after letting it sit as what most thought of as a failure for 25 years, he felt a need to come back to the work and edit it. Claudio Abbado seems to understand Verdi's love for this work best. Without Abbado's revival of this powerful music it may have never been appreciated by modern audiences. A truly breathtaking recording with a young Domingo swooning the perfect Verdi soprano. The drama of 14th century Italy is captured by a wonderful cast and the only conductor to truley understand the piece.