Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnificent, June 3, 1999
Lanza had the most glorious natural tenor voice ever. One can only wonder, what he would have been if he had sung at the great opera houses with the great singers he belonged with. What he could have learned from them? But he did more to popularize opera than anyone before him. Here we can see why. His voice is just magnificent, beautiful, with breathtaking high notes.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW!!! What A Great Singer!, May 1, 1999
By A Customer
Mario is a great singer! He has a beautiful voice and beautiful songs that make you fall in love all over again. I was born in the wrong time era!
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A handful of great performances, August 22, 2001
This CD is essentially a reworking of BMG's 1989 The Great Caruso/Caruso Favorites, but with better sound. All eight arias from the earlier CD are included, together with Lanza's 1949 Celeste Aida, and eight of the 12 Caruso Favorites selections. (My only gripe is that they've left out the four best tracks!)
Celeste Aida aside, all of the arias were recorded in May 1950. Just 29 at the time, Lanza is in great voice, but stylistically and intonation-wise is not always up to par. While the two arias from Tosca - Recondita Armonia and E Lucevan le Stelle - are superb, Vesti la Giubba, La Donna e' Mobile, Cielo e Mar and Una Furtiva Lagrima were all sung more impressively by Lanza on other occasions. Here the tenor is either sharp or stylistically sloppy - or both! (I put it down to youthful exuberance :))
Celeste Aida, from Lanza's first commercial session, is more impressive, though the tenor would go on to record better versions for The Great Caruso soundtrack. Questa o Quella, on the other hand, is the best of his three versions - an exciting tour de force that isn't exactly what Verdi had in mind, but at the same time is quite irresistible. The same can be said of Parmi Veder le Lagrime (sung, as critic Henry Foley has noted, with the stentorian force of an Otello rather than the Duke), but it's fine singing nonetheless.
Among the miscellaneous recordings of Spanish, Italian, and Neapolitan songs, Granada stands out with its brilliantly sustained high A in the opening section. (Note that Lanza sings this in a key a full tone and a half above the usual versions of Carreras, Domingo, et al.) My only regret is that conductor Ray Sinatra fails to keep up the momentum of the opening. The tempo should have been much faster (check out the Mario Lanza At MGM CD for a different - and faster - version).
There are also some very interesting performances taken from Lanza's 1959 Caruso Favourites LP, recorded in the year of his death. The highlights are a poignant (and prophetic) Ideale, and the daunting and rarely heard Serenata, for which Caruso wrote the lyrics. Given that Lanza had already suffered one heart attack that year, and was on his way to another, his singing here is impressive in its heroism. The entire original album, which includes fine renditions of Senza Nisciuno, Vaghissima Sembianza, and Pour Un Baiser, can be heard in equally good sound on the twofer disc For The First Time/Caruso Favorites, released by Collectables.
Overall "Historical Recordings" is a good release that certainly whets the appetite for more of this amazing tenor. One should bear in mind, however, that the disc only scratches the surface of Lanza's accomplishments in opera and Neapolitan song. For the latter, check out the extraordinary album Mario! (now available on the CD Mario! Lanza At His Best); for a better representation of his operatic recordings, I recommend the 1999 compilation CD Opera Arias and Duets and the 2004 twofer Serenade/A Cavalcade of Show Tunes. Both are reviewed elsewhere on this site.
One final quibble: the liner notes are badly written and wildly inaccurate. Believe them at your peril!
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