Search - Vincenzo Bellini, Riccardo Muti, Rome RAI Symphony Orchestra and Chorus :: Bellini: I Puritani

Knockout live recording, absolutely brilliant.

Michael Newberry | Santa Monica | 02/16/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Recorded live (though without any sound of the audience) in Rome in 1969 under Muti's sensitive and dramatic conducting. The sound is remarkably good, and the voices are recorded far foreword. Freni, Bruscantini, and Pavarotti sing superbly and seemingly effortlessly. Pavarotti is unbelievable! The whole thing comes out beautifully. Though the Callas-I Puritani with Serafin conducting in the studio is a must have, it seems Callas sings restrained, perhaps she had to tone down her voice not to blow away the 1953 microphones! But Serafin's conducting drives rigorously until the last note! The other famous recording, Sutherland-Pavarotti-Bonynge, has magnificent singing, but the conducting loses all momentum rendering the 3rd and last Act formless. This live recording is my first choice, but the Callas-Serafin is the standard by which the others should be compared."

A BEAUTIFUL "PURITANI"

L. Mitnick | Chicago, Illinois United States | 01/11/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is actually not a live performance. It was a 1969 recording made by the Italian Radio Network in Rome, which is why there is no audience applause and really excellent sound (which might even be stereo!). Riccardo Muti is much less rigid here than he was to be on his later 1979 EMI studio recording with Montserrat Caballe and Alfredo Kraus, which allows the singers considerably more latitude than was the case a decade later. The singers here, of course, are top drawer. Mirella Freni sounds young, fresh, and is a beautifully lyrical Elvira. She still had at this time a few optional notes above the top C, which, admittedly, she uses sparingly, though effectively. She does not have the coloratura technique of Joan Sutherland, who, with all due respect, put in all sorts of extra coloratura interpolations and added cadenzas that were only hers to command. Nonetheless, Freni achieves a true vocal pathos and vulnerability that completely eludes Sutherland. At all points, the singing is very, very beautiful.

Luciano Pavarotti is superlative here, even better, I think, than he was to be four years later, when he commercially recorded the opera with Joan Sutherland. At the time of this performance, Pavarotti was little known outside of Italy, and his voice was an instrument of sublime beauty. This is most emphatically NOT the Pavarotti who much later became a grossly overweight operatic media Bozo. If nothing else, this recording shows what a great and serious artist he would have become had his success not gone to his head (as well as the rest of his body). The sheer beauty of his singing here is something to be experienced instead of discussed.

Personally, I find this "Puritani" to be the most listener-friendly around, and it's the version I return to most often. While I also admire the coloratura fireworks of Joan Sutherland (who, I again say, adds many, many interpolated top notes and decorations that were never written by Bellini in the first place), I also realize these fireworks were her speciality, and she gave of them generously, but Freni's diction is a thousand times clearer, and she is in the end, a far more communicative artist than Sutherland was. In fact, I don't think that even Maria Callas found more pathos in this role than Freni does."

Excellent singing on this fine live recording

Yuri | 12/14/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Having Mirella Freni sing with such full golden tone is a luxury in this bel canto role and though her top notes are tentative the quality is beyond doubt,Callas is of course better equipped for Elvira but she was never partnered by Pavarotti whose clear,mellifluous tones breathe life into Arturo only occasionally being strained by the high tessitura,these two produce magnificant singing!Bonaldo Giaiotti is a paragon amongst basses, refined but firmly resonant with an outstanding technique only Bruscantini falls below par being dry and under characterising the role of Riccardo,Muti conducts well seeming more flexible here than he was to become and the orchestra responds adequately,the quality of this live recording is more than acceptable."