I finally tracked down a copy of this 2006
recording. It's hard to believe I haven't tagged any posts with LCdT for almost
a full
year. A while back I featured Tito's three arias sung
by Charles
Castronovo, not realizing they were from this recording. A quick search
did not reveal any other clips from this CD over at the Toob. In the next week or so, I will see what I can
do to address this gap.
Looking forward to your thoughts as I haven't heard this one yet! I do enjoy the Castronovo arias.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be a concert performance. It's not terribly dramatic (not always in a bad way) and I kind of blame the maestro for that. Gens is a better Vitellia at La monnaie, and VK seems to do more straight singing than usual (without so much crazy--but exciting--register changes. Overall the singing is all quite admirable. It makes a good case for the lovely music, but so far it doesn't seem to have much drama going for it. I need to keep listening, though.
Deleteyou know i listened to this same recording and quit after 1/3 of the way.. i think they polished/cleaned it up so much there was hardly any noise left, and along with it any characterizations (-thadieu)
DeleteYa. I've listened to it several more times. It's not a bad performance really. But someone new to the opera would probably wonder why the rest of us are so in love with it. It would be interesting to hear the unedited tapes. Given that most of the cast can be heard in better performances, I'm afraid the only reason to have it is for Mr. Castronovo's arias (and those are still on YouTube.)
ReplyDeleteOn a similar note, I've read somewhere about this maestro being difficult when he disagrees with the staging of an opera. (This is of course a concert performance. Maybe it actually does represent his "dramatic" vision of this opera. I hope not because that would be sad.)