Giuseppe Verdi Aldo Ceccato San Carlo Theater Orchestra amp Chorus Naples - Verdi La Traviata (22 tracks) +Album Reviews

Love Beverly Sills, but a bad recording

Eric Y. Korpon | Washington, DC United States | 07/15/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I still remember the night I first heard Beverly Sills sing La Traviata at Wolf Trap in 1977. I saw this recording and nostalgia prompted me to buy it. Her voice is as I remeber it, but the recording doesn't do her justice. The microphone placement is bad. It seems like the orchestra overposers her and at the applause, there is a really loud set of hands that seem to be right under the mic and it gets annoying."

A Great Performance Marred Only By The Bad Acoustics

Rudy Avila | Lennox, Ca United States | 09/18/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This live recording of Verdi's La Traviata is marred by its terrible sound and bad acoustics. Such problems are to be expected of live recordings. Nevertheless, there is greater quality of sound in Beverly Sill's studio recording of Traviata, which she sung opposite tenor Nicolai Gedda available on the EMI record label. There are two versions, one as a compact disc album and the other as compact disc within a book featuring illustrations, the libretto and background on the composer and cast of singers available on the Black Dog Opera Series. This live recording was an attempt to capture Beverly Sill's debut in Naples, January 17, 1970, at the San Carlo opera house. What people probably don't know about Beverly Sills is she sung Traviata more than any other soprano ever did. At one time, Beverly Sills sang the role more than 30 times in a course of a month or two, and that in the US alone. She performed Violetta at the Metropolitan Opera, at the Wolf Trap Festival (a production which was filmed live and is available on DVD and VHS) Violetta was a role which carried with it many dramatic opportunities for Sills. Beverly Sills sang the role with passion, conviction and even a spirituality. She IS a thoroughly believable Violetta. At first, in Act 1 as a festive Paris socialite, bubbly, warm and displaying stratospheric coloratura as in the Brindisi and closing Sempre Libera aria. In her duet with Germont in Act 2 she becomes noble, self-sacrificing and compassionate - "Ditte A La Giovine" "Morro La Mia Memoria" still very much in despair that she is forced to leave Alfredo knowing she will ultimately die. Her Death Scene in the final act is very moving and poignant. Sills' feathery light voice is perfect for the role of a frail, dying woman who can't be vigorous in action nor in voice. Why do so many dramatic, big voices sing the role of a dying young girl ? The role is better suited for such lyric voices as Roberta Peters, Lily Pons, Anna Moffo and most recently Renee Fleming. The lighter voices produce the more realistic effect for Violetta. Yet the more popular Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe, Victoria De Los Angeles, and recently Angela Gheorghiu and Anna Netrebko have all sung Violettas with extremely heavy voices with success. I don't understand why. Callas is superfluously dramatic and pretentious in the role, Sutherland sings only to sound beautiful instead of convincing, and both Caballe and De Los Angeles were not credible as girls dying of tubercolosis when they were both large, chubby women- the very thing that did not sit well with the premiere in early 1850's when Fanny Salvini sang the role which sent the audience laughing because they could not believe such a plump, healthy woman was dying. This is why Beverly Sills, with her sweet, lyric voice, passionate in all the right places is the perfect soprano for the role of Violetta without all the theatrics most sopranos have done before. I have always thought that Beverly Sills is particularily mesmerizing in the finale to Act 2 when she rises after fainting and sings "Alfredo, Alfredo, In Questo Core Non Poui Comprendere Tutto L'Amore Tu Non Conosce Que Fino Prezzo Del Tuo Desprezzo Provato L'o Ma Vera El Tempo En Que Saprai" "Alfredo, In This Heart You Don't Understand How Much I love you, At the price of your hate I have tested it. But The Day Will Come When You Will Know....and the chorus, Alfredo, Germont join in.

This recording has really bad sound. There's no getting away from it. But if you are a fan of Beverly Sills and want to contain a memento of her debut in Naples then this is the recording to get. If that is the case, it is a recording that has personal value to the fan."

Great Traviata!!

saskita | Uruguay | 11/06/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I must admit that this Traviata remebered mer a lot to the Callas, di Stefano Traviata, becouse Of the terrible sound. You can hardly hear the female voices, but I`m going to judge this cd in terms of interpretation and not of sound.
I found out that this Traviata is Wonderful. Kraus really great in "0 mio rimorso" and all the opera. Alway in perfect voice and a wonderful interpretation of Alfredo.
Sills became my favorite Violetta after Callas. Great Coloraturas in the first act and drama in the second and third. Wonderful the duet with Germont intepretated by Zanasi. Not The best Germont but without doubts very concentrated in his role.
The direction is perfect I loved all the tempos.
Forgeting the bad sound this is a Traviata that should be remembered as one of the bests of all."

Sills and Krauss, live in Naples in 1970 on recording of ...

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 12/20/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"SOURCE:

Live performance, recorded January 17, 1970 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples.

SOUND:

This set bears all the earmarks of a pirate recording. It was plainly made from the audience, since the most clearly recorded thing in the performance is the applause of the horny-handed enthusiast who was obviously sitting next to the microphone. (For those who speak Italian, there is also a nice running commentary on the opera that carries on during the periods of applause.) The recorder/pirate was apparently sitting about midway back in the house, since that balance between the singers and the orchestra is not as outrageously bad as it would have been had he been in the first four or five rows. The recorder was also well to the right or left of center of the house, since there is a noticeable drop-off of the voices as they meander from one side of the stage to the other.

I see that previous Amazon reviewers have made a point of the poor sound quality of this recording. I certainly agree that this set does not sound like the late, much lamented studio recordings of opera, with their many carefully-located microphones strategically placed to catch every delicate whisper and nuance from the singers and orchestra. On the other hand, it strikes me that this set offers a very realistic reproduction of what one actually hears, over to the side and midway back in a real opera house. That being the case, I find myself considerably less dismayed by the sound here than the other reviewers.

CAST:

VIOLETTA VALERY, great shining star of the Parisian demi-monde with an inexplicable taste for shallow, callow young men - Beverly Sills (soprano)

ALFREDO GERMONT, the shallowest and callowest of young men - Alfredo Krauss (tenor)

GIORGIO GERMONT, his respectable and long-suffering father - Mario Zanasi (baritone)

FLORA BERVOIX - Violetta's friend and another demi-mondaine - Marisa Zotti (mezzo-soprano)

GASTON DE LETORIÈRES, a young man enjoying the pleasures of Paris who first brings Violetta and Alfredo together - Vittorio Pandano (tenor)

BARONE DOUPHOL, a high-titled lowlife - Nino Carta (baritone)

MARCHESE D'OBIGNY, a high-titled lowlife - Renzo Gonsales (bass)

DOTTORE GRENVIL, a medical man who cannot hold off the inevitable - Gino Calò (bass)

ANNINA, Violetta's maid - Anna Maria Borrelli (soprano)

GIUSEPPE, a servant - Alfredo Vernetti (tenor)

CONDUCTOR:

Aldo Ceccato, with the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro San Carlo, Naples.

DOCUMENTATION:

The standard, bleak, barebones Opera d'Oro package:

~ No libretto.

~ Brief and generic summary of the opera by the industrious Bill Parker, who, as always, is narrowly bound by the stringent space limitations ditated by the publishers.

~ Track list which omits both timings and any identification of who is singing.

~ Nothing on the specifics of this production (beyond that shown above in this review) or about the performers.

COMMENTARY:

For all intents and purposes, this recording is all about Beverly Sills and Alfredo Krauss in a live performance of "La Traviata."

Violetta Valery was one of Sills' signature roles and one that she offered many times upon the stages of the opera world. She recorded the part in the studio, but there is an undeniable zing in this live performance which appears only fitfully in the more formal and controlled studio version. Sills was unquestionably a major performer of the doomed courtesan, Violetta. Many praise her rather light touch on Viletta against that of her heavier-voiced contemporaries and immediate predecessors. While I freely admit that Sills a true star in "La Traviata," I am one of those who prefer the richer, fuller voices of her great fellow-performers in the role, even in the final moments of the opera, as Violetta fades, flares and then dies. This sort of ranking is, naturally, entirely subjective and dependent on the tastes and biases of each individual listener.

Alfredo Krauss was an intelligent singer who maintained a long-lived, high-level career by carefully refusing to push his voice beyond its natural, lyric tenor limits. He could project a sonic image of youthfulness almost to the very end of his singing days. He shared with Cesare Valletti and Giancinto Prandelli the ability to make Alfredo sound just like the shallow, callow schoolboy that he is, while other great tenors, for all their talent, seemed just too strong and charismatic to be entirely convincing as that deplorable hanger-on and insecure twerp. To my ears, Krauss offers something very like a definitive performance of Alfredo on this recording.

The rest of the cast is competent, but not especially memorable. Mario Zanasi as Old Germont sounds all right, but just a little too youthful, self-confident and undismayed at the antics of his idiot offspring.

On the whole, this recording is an invaluable documentation of Sills and Krauss in a fine live performance. Potential purchasers, however, will have to face the fact that the soundscape presented here is very different from that of a studio recording.

Purely as a matter of personal taste, I think this "La Traviata" is worth four stars.

LEC/AM/12-08"

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