Verdi - Un ballo in maschera / Arroyo · Domingo · Cappuccilli · Cossotto · Grist · NPO · Muti [Import]

Giuseppe Verdi (Artist), Riccardo Muti (Artist), Plácido Domingo (Artist), Martina Arroyo (Artist), New Philharmonia Orchestra (Artist), Covent Garden Chorus of the Royal Opera House (Artist), Piero Cappuccilli (Artist), Fiorenza Cossotto (Artist), Reri Grist (Artist), Richard van Allan (Artist), Kenneth Collins (Artist), Giorgio Giorgetti (Artist), Gwynne Howell (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 30, 1997)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Angel Records
• ASIN: B000002SAL
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,142 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Prelude

2. Act One, Scene One: Posa in Pace, A' Bei Sogni Ristora

3. Act One, Scene One: S'avanza Il Conte

4. Act One, Scene One: La Rivedra Nell' Estasi

5. Act One, Scene One: Il Cenno Mio Di La Con Essi Attendi

6. Act One, Scene One: Alla Vita Che T'arride

7. Act One, Scene One: Il Primo Giudice

8. Act One, Scene One: Volta La Terrea

9. Act One, Scene One: Ogni Cura Si Doni Al Diletto

10. Act One, Scene Two: Zitti... L'Incanto Non Dessi Turbare... Re Dell' Abisso, Affrettati

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Act Two: Prelude

2. Act Two: Ecco L'Orrido Campo Ove S'Accoppia

3. Act Two: Ma Dall'Arido Stelo Divulsa

4. Act Two: Teco Io Sto

5. Act Two: Non Sai Tu Che Se L'Anima Mia

6. Act Two: Oh, Qual Soave Brivido

7. Act Two: Ahime! S'Appressa Alcun

8. Act Two: Amico, Gelosa T'Affido Una Cura

9. Act Two: Odi Tu Come Fremono Cupi

10. Act Two: Seguitemi

See all 29 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great conductor, great leading soprano, May 18, 2005

By 

R. M. Simmons "M. Simmons" (Mississippi) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Verdi - Un ballo in maschera / Arroyo · Domingo · Cappuccilli · Cossotto · Grist · NPO · Muti (Audio CD)

Having a great conductor/orchestra and one of the worlds most celebrated tenors certainly can't hurt, but this recording features a great baritone and a legendary mezzo. Last but not least, it also features a soprano of true distinction as well.

Martina Arroyo could always hold her own with the great sopranos of her day--a fact too easily forgotten. In this performance she actually beats out the competition, competition that includes Milanov, Tebaldi, and Price. Most critics would agree that this is Arroyo's finest recorded performance. And what a performance it is! Vocally, she is resplendent, and the recording is a glowing tribute to a soprano too often overshadowed by her contemporaries, but one who should never for a moment be overlooked or allowed to become an operatic footnote. Arroyo's performance demands that we sit up and take notice--and admire.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another very good Un Ballo, especially for Muti's conducting, December 20, 2007

By 

Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Verdi - Un ballo in maschera / Arroyo · Domingo · Cappuccilli · Cossotto · Grist · NPO · Muti (Audio CD)

Rccardo Muti earned his geatest acclaim as a Verdi conductor and a disciplinarian of the often unruly La Scala orchestra. They don't play on this Un Balo, but he makes the New Philharmonia sound earthy and vigorous. I like this rougher approach to Verdi beter than either abbado's over-polish or Solti's manic drive. Both have good versions of Un Ballo that set a standrd for Muti to live up to.

On the whole he succeeds. Domingo delivers one of his prime Verdi roles, perfeclty suited to his voice, as does Cossotto as Ulrica. Cappuccilli gives a strong but not totally memorable Renato -- he never seems to peirce to the heart of any character. If only Arroyo had been a stronger Amelia, this recording might rank at the very top, but she is rather bland and too careful in her phrasing -- the voice per se is lovely and evenly produced, even if it lacks spinto power. Callas and Leontyne Price have nothing to fear.

Overall, this set joins quite a few other first-rate Un Ballos that don't quite reach classic status. Callas and DiStefano are great, but their conductor, Votto, is a dud. Leontyne Price brings great power to the role and is almost matched by Carlo Bergonzi, but Leinsdorf is sluggish and without imagination. My favorite, when all is said and done, remains the 1985 Decca version with Pavarotti and Margaret Price. It reaches the heights when it counts, as in the Act II love scene, and Solti never forgets that Verdi is about passion and the tragic power of fate.

1 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Set in the Provinces, October 5, 2006

By 

John D. Pilkey "Puluga II" (Santa Clarita, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Verdi - Un ballo in maschera / Arroyo · Domingo · Cappuccilli · Cossotto · Grist · NPO · Muti (Audio CD)

This opera combines wonderfully entertaining music with a wacky setting. Its reputation has been unfairly weakened by an implausible setting in New England. Verdi was never Romantic enough to care much about national cultures, especially a culture distinguishing colonial New England from a Protestant nation like Sweden. Italy for centuries had not been a nation but the heartland of the ancient Roman Empire and the international Roman Catholic Church. That perspective translated into a neoclassical indifference toward deviant provincial cultures. Italian opera composers such as Jommelli and Paisiello flourished in the neoclassical period; and Rossini's style did not differ all that much from theirs. Although Verdi sometimes looked back with disdain on Rossini's stylistic limitations, neither Bellini, Donizetti nor Verdi himself ever broke with certain Italian characteristics derived from that older tradition. That tradition meant an implicit internationalism making New England nothing but just another province, in fact a province of another province, Britannia.

The weird woman in a cave, Ulrica (sung by Fiorenza Cossutto), is just another version of Azucena, who is set in Spain (the province of Hispania) in Il Trovatore. In Verdi's imagination a "strega" is basically a "strega" no matter where she appears, out in the provinces or back home in Italy. Cultural anachronisms such as the masked ball or the dueling code may ignore actual New England Protestantism; but Protestantism, in this view, is provincial religion not to be taken seriously. Why, for that matter, should the new republic in North America be essentially all that different from the old republic of Venice, which neatly went out of existence a decade after the completion of the United States constitution. As I listen to the bell-clear tones of Reri Grist as the page Oscar, my imagination accepts the premise that I am witnessing events from the basic world of Western Civilization as viewed from the heartland.