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Classics on a Summer's Evening / Sinopoli, Gheorghiu, AlagnaRating:
Release Date: 03 July, 2001 Retail Price: $29.98 OUR Price: $26.99 You SAVE: $2.99! Cast: |
Classics on a Summer's Evening / Sinopoli, Gheorghiu, Alagna Reviews
a summer evening to remember, and to enjoy again
As other reviews have mentioned, this is a performance by beautiful people, of beautiful music, in a beautiful setting.
In addition to the flawless singing of Gheorghiu and Alagna, there are wonderful opportunities for the chorus, including Verdi's "Anvil Chorus" from Il trovatore, and the Triumphal Chorus from Aida.
Sinopoli varies the program interspersing several overtures with the singing:
La Traviata
Nabucco
Carmen
Luisa Miller
Aida
As if this weren't enough to insure the freshness of each number, they have included two ballet selections that complement the program--dances from Carmen and Aida.
The program closes with a peaceful "Va pensiero" from Nabucco.
What a wonderful way--in sounds and sights--to enjoy a summer evening!
Thoroughly Enjoyable !
I agree entirely with the reviewer from Chile and would like to expand a little bit. Alagna is great and as he enjoys an excellent control of his breath, he never shouts. He also enjoys a huge voice well beyond his physical size and Gheorgchiu is wonderful too. Her singing has a beauty and charm of her own and I wouldn't compare her with either Callas or Caballe.
The photography is most excellent: Dresden, one of the fewest well preserved city, is well captured from views taken obviously from a chopper, along and above the river covering both the city and it's beautiful architectures before and after dusk. Needless to say, the photography of the performers and the recorded sound are equally excellent and one just can't expect more.
The director is successful in his arrangement. Unlike most other concerts featuring a single or a couple of superstars with the camera glued to close-ups of the superstars so that often the audience is just having too much of them. Here after their individual solos and a duet, we have either some music in the in between or else we have some ballet dancers in the intervals so that the audience won't get bored.
The conductor was obviuosly at his heyday, for he sadly passed away just 2 or 3 years later. The orchestra is great: in terms of the violins ( particularly the concert master) or the solo cello, or the clarinetist ( who was absolutely fantastic) or even the solo flute... I simply prefer this orchestra to the present Berlin Philharmonic. Nonetheless, (somewhat like Furtwrangler conducting Strauss is not quite the same thing as Strauss himself conducting,) one wonders if a German orchestra is the most ideal orchestra for the essentially Mediterranean music: the Italian operas/arias despite the fact that the conductor is Italian himself ?
As a whole, the concert is somewhat like a New Year Concert in the sense that the two soloists would never overtip the balance of the whole repertoire ( the two simple added some extra flavour & embellishment to the concert) but neither is there too much of a climax or focus. But that would cater well for the new comers to opera, one would suppose.
More Customer Reviews (6 total)
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