Customer Reviews

Verdi: La Traviata / Muti, Teatro alla Scala

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a live performance recording held together with incredible skill by Riccardo Muti, and wonderfully sung by everyone in the cast. Tiziana Fabbricini is a very emotional Violetta. One really feels she's dying more of a broken heart than of consumption. Though her "sound" isn't the most beautiful ever, she makes up for it with her dramatic talents, giving us a delicate and moving interpretation. Roberto Alagna is excellent as Alfredo, as is Paolo Coni's Papa Germont.

Probably the most richly melodic of all Verdi's operas, with a great heroine who is a "bad woman" by the standards of society, it's an irresistible 2 hours and 15 minutes of music.

This recording was taken from 4 performances at the Teatro alla Scala in March and April of '92. You get to hear the applause, and an occasional cough, but there is the energy, excitement, and the "now" feeling that puts you "there". It's a great cast, and as for Maestro Muti, the man is an absolute marvel.

The misleading customer image is that of the 2003 reissue (slime line and without booklet), not the original 1993 jewel-box release, which contains the libretto, and whose cover features captions from the Scala production. This error is evident from: the issue date (1993), pre-2003 customer reviews (from 1999 onwards), the price (the re-release version costs around 16, not 33, bucks), as well as the Marketplace sellers' references to 'box', 'jewel case', and 'booklet'.

Don't buy this one. It has been rereleased in Europe by Sony at half the price.

I'll keep this short: if Tiziana Fabbricini doesn't bring you to a new emotional understanding of Violetta at the end of Act 1, you are probably dead. She is simply magnificent.

As someone who finds Muti's tyrannical insistence on singers NEVER deviating from the written note (even in the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini) abhorrent and incomprehensible, I am completely at a loss as to how Fabbricini was allowed to cap 'Sempre libera' with the traditional high E flat - a pretty good one, too. If she was permitted that note, why wasn't Alagna allowed a high C at the conclusion of 'O mio rimorso'? Can anybody explain??? Apart from this puzzlement, the performance is quite involving, though my favourites are Sutherland & Pavarotti, Cotrubas & Domingo, and Sills & Gedda (all, coincidentally, of whom sing the unwritten E flat and top C respectively). And if you're into high note interpolations, get the peformance on Naxos with Mercedes Capsir, or an early live one with Callas, where both sopranos end the second act with another high E flat!

On hearing Muti's Traviata one feels a direct emotional link with the ill-fated Violetta. Fabbricini, though not possessing a unified tone along her register, conveys a beautiful sense of drama and passion. She has a flawless coloratura but can be flat especially in her middle-low passages. Casted together with Fabbricini, one finds a crystal clear Roberto Alagna and rather younger sound of Germont pere from Paolo Coni. This excellent cast is supported by top La Scala forces headed by their Mastermind Muti, always keeping the musical and dramatical precision written by Giuseppe Verdi.

I'll keep this short: if Tiziana Fabbricini doesn't bring you to a new emotional understanding of Violetta at the end of Act 1, you are probably dead. She is simply magnificent.

I have to admit, when I first heard Roberto Alagna in this performance of "Traviata," back in 1992, I thought he had no future. The voice is thin, pallid, and constantly spreads under pressure. And soprano Tiziana Fabbricini is even worse, having little or no voice at all. Muti conducts pretty well, but not in a league with the best Verdi interpreters. This recording is almost as painful to listen to (for somewhat different reasons) as the old Toscanini version. If you want a great "Traviata," you should get the classic Cotrubas-Domingo-Milnes-Kleiber recording on DG....or, try the 1968 film version (slightly abridged) with Moffo, Bonisolli and Bechi, one of the most underrated performances ever.

Oh, and if you want to hear a Violetta who will bring you to tears...listen to Magda Olivero sing the "Dite alla giovine" duet with Aldo Protti in Amsterdam, 1968. At the moment when Violetta realizes that she is giving Alfredo up for good, Olivero sings with the most heart-wrenching tone I have ever heard....I cannot listen to this recording without crying, it is so incredibly beautiful.