 High Quality Singers, Poor Quality Recording, December 10, 2012
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This review is from: Mozart: Don Giovanni (Audio CD)
I got this CD because Tito Gobbi is my favorite baritone of all time. I was delighted when I found out this recording was available, and by this time I was already familiar enough with Don Giovanni to enjoy the music without trying to follow the story line. There are some marvelously beautiful voices in this recording. Unfortunately, the live recording suffers from the singers appearing to be too far or the orchestra getting muffled with the voices. Also, and to my surprise, I didn't feel Gobbi truly owned his role. I don't know if it's me or if he was uncomfortable and disoriented in the German arena. I want to say the latter was the case. I simply did not get to enjoy his Don Giovanni like I have others. It's a shame. I know he's perfect for it. His Figaro and Scarpia are proof enough of his suave bravado, but here he seems lost at best or drowned out by the orchestra. Un Italiano perduto in Alemania. Still worth having in your collector's box, but not as your first recording of this Mozart masterpiece. |
Monday, December 10, 2012
My Amazon review of Tito Gobbi in Mozart's Don Giovanni
Monday, November 19, 2012
Rossini's Le comte Ory starring Juan Diego Florez (2003)
This recording of Rossini's Le comte Ory stars Florez in his best form and is a rare Rossini delight. The composer had a knack for writing beautiful music that at the same time was so comical, not just in a theatrical sense, but in the musical composition itself. I burst out laughing at the choruses; the trios and duets were delicate enough to make Mozart proud yet still retain their Rossini picaresque quality.
The Act One Finale became an instant favorite of mine. The voices literally skip over each other in a delightful, fanciful melody that builds to a booming crescendo that celebrates vitality. Curiously, the mezzo didn't have a solo. The bass solo was pleasant but repetitive and lacked the ingenuity of The Barber of Seville's bass solo "La calunnia e un venticello." The demand for high notes from the soprano were beyond what seem humanly possible yet were executed here with such grace it is to marvel at.
The tenor truly carries the weight of the entire opera and he is practically in every scene. Florez here was masterful and carried the pacing well, which is rare of me to say of him normally and especially recently. This role requires the tenor to be a team player and lead the way without drowning out the other voices. Florez took that initiative and proves to be a great lirico leggero.
The opera as a whole is so light-hearted that it feels too short. The most impressive quality of this opera is the seamless way in which Rossini blends voices in and out of each other in every form of song available, whether duet, trio, quartet or chorus. Even in the arias the singers are never alone. It truly feels like a comic ensemble piece and a tour de force of coloratura. Thank Heavens for such rare gems of the classical music world!
The Act One Finale became an instant favorite of mine. The voices literally skip over each other in a delightful, fanciful melody that builds to a booming crescendo that celebrates vitality. Curiously, the mezzo didn't have a solo. The bass solo was pleasant but repetitive and lacked the ingenuity of The Barber of Seville's bass solo "La calunnia e un venticello." The demand for high notes from the soprano were beyond what seem humanly possible yet were executed here with such grace it is to marvel at.
The tenor truly carries the weight of the entire opera and he is practically in every scene. Florez here was masterful and carried the pacing well, which is rare of me to say of him normally and especially recently. This role requires the tenor to be a team player and lead the way without drowning out the other voices. Florez took that initiative and proves to be a great lirico leggero.
The opera as a whole is so light-hearted that it feels too short. The most impressive quality of this opera is the seamless way in which Rossini blends voices in and out of each other in every form of song available, whether duet, trio, quartet or chorus. Even in the arias the singers are never alone. It truly feels like a comic ensemble piece and a tour de force of coloratura. Thank Heavens for such rare gems of the classical music world!
Sunday, September 23, 2012
My Amazon review of Mozart's Don Giovanni
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 Making Mozart proud, September 23, 2012
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This review is from: Mozart: Don Giovanni (Audio CD)
This is my first experience with a Mozart opera. It's hard getting into it after being so used to the Italian masters. But once I watched a video of the Karajan production and played this over and over, I became truly in love with it. It's long but shock full of great arias, duets and quartets. The more you listen to it, the more its style stays with you and the genius of each piece strikes you. You can see why Mozart is Mozart and influenced all major composers who came after, most noticeably Rossini, who clearly uses musical phrases from here in his own operas, including _The Barber of Seville_. I truly enjoyed hearing the similarities.I have yet to experience Mozart's other operas but this one will certainly stay with me as a tour de force. Performed well, as it is in this recording, its three-hour length becomes negligible as the stream of events unfold seamlessly towards the great resounding finale with the Commendatore. Still, it's an opera best admired seen first than purely heard and this CD package does not come with a libretto, making it impossible to follow if you're not already familiar with the opera. Purely as a recording of Don Giovanni, this is quality at its best and will not disappoint. Every voice is in top form and moves masterfully over the vocal challenges presented by Mozart. |
My Amazon Review of the Carreras Foscari CD
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| The quintessential Foscari, September 23, 2012
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This review is from: Verdi: I due Foscari (Audio CD)
This recording of this obscure early Verdi opera is heavenly. The voices are beautiful and in their prime. Unfortunately, some of the drama is lost as this opera is a less-inspired version of Nabucco and must be seen to appreciate the drama. The music and voices alone don't do the trick. Carreras sounds simply heavenly singing "Dal piu remoto esilio." And Ricciarelli sounds like an angel dropped from the heavens to please our ears with her exquisite voice.The soprano is in nearly every scene of this opera and, in true Verdi fashion, carries the weight of the opera and is challenged continuously. It may not be his most beautiful sounding opera, but it's certainly not any easier on the voices. You truly have to be a master to pull this opera off. It's quickly become one of my favorites, both for its rarity and theme. There is still plenty of Verdi to enjoy here. He does some amazing transitions, has a powerful prelude, and gives the Doge, Jacopo, Lucrezia and the Council of Ten each their own theme music that adds a dramatic quality to an otherwise uneventful opera. I'm proud to own it. |
My Amazon Review of Verdi's The Two Foscari
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| Quality Singing, Meager Staging, September 23, 2012
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This review is from: Verdi - I Due Foscari / Bruson, Roark-Strummer, Cupido, Roni, Gavazzeni, La Scala Opera (DVD)
I just saw the LA Opera's production of this rare Verdi opera starring Placido Domingo and while the LA Opera's production design and costumes are far superior to this 80's La Scala production, the voices in this video are far superior. Renato Bruson does great early-Verdi. I have La Scala's production of Nabucco with him and he never disappoints.The production design on this stage is very sparse and makes it hard to get into this already obscure opera, but if you love Verdi and the challenges he gives his sopranos as well as the seamless way in which he goes from a duetto to a terzetto to a quartet, this production demonstrates it effortlessly. Bruson definitely steals the show in the finale. To his credit, Placido does the same in the LA Opera's production but he definitely tires faster in his old age. His theatricality, however, is matchless! One hopes they have a DVD of the production for the sake of the costumes and production design. The soprano and tenor, however, leave much to be desired. Alas! A great age of operatic voices has ended. |
Friday, August 31, 2012
Stop wanting things and start letting them
Do you ever find yourself in a messed-up situation and notice after the fact that the warning signs were there all along, then wonder how you could have possibly missed them? Well, that’s happened to me twice in one week and, as always, wanting to get to the root of the problem, I realized they had a common cause: namely "wanting." We make a big fuss about desire in America. We build ourselves up to believe that if we want something bad enough, it is attainable. “Follow your dreams. Be all you can be.” But it’s "wanting" in the first place that draws us away from who we really are.
Lao Tzu was the first philosopher to say so in China hundreds of years before Christ and the Greeks. His Tao Teh Ching is one of the most important books you could ever own. It has a very holistic approach towards being human in tune with the universe. He doesn’t pound us with a God, he tells us about the Way. And he teaches that to be in harmony with yourself and the world around you, you simply have to NOT want. Everything should flow and be natural. In other words, stop trying so hard to make things happen and instead let them. Of course, that doesn’t mean sit in your room and do nothing. It’s simply a different attitude towards the things that you do. You stop letting the ego dominate by saying, “I did this. I want that. I will achieve this.” Stop using the word mine. Instead say, “I am compelled to do this. I see this coming to fruition.” Instead of it being mine, it’s now part of the Way.
The ego blinds you to what’s right in front of you. I’ve had my wake-up call and I hope to continue to break away from the ego that’s being constantly fed through the media by tuning out. You have to stop wanting things to happen the way you’d like them to. You simply have to make a sincere effort and let it happen the Way it’s meant to happen. There lies true happiness and wisdom. And yes, it’s hard to do at first. But like with everything, where there's a will there's a Way.
“When one’s task is accomplished,
One lets go of it and seeks no reward or recognition.
Because one does not claim credit for oneself,
One does not do any damage to oneself.”
Excerpt from Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching
Friday, August 10, 2012
The Illness killing Humanity
The way I see it -- and I see it quite clearly -- humanity is suffering from a fatal two-fold illness. First is our refusal to love. Second is our refusal to accept responsibility for our lives. The lack of love is evident by the abundance of greed, selfishness and aggression bred of fear in the collective human psyche in our times. If there were love, these evils would not be so predominant across the board. What brought to mind the lack of responsibility is interesting.
I make plenty of mistakes in my life but I try at least to be aware of them, so I can identify why I make them and try to amend the personality traits that lead to such harmful decisions. I don't want to continue being unhappy and I understand that it all begins with attitude, even if changing that attitude requires time and effort.
All of us who are unhappy with where we are in our lives refuse to accept that, outside influences aside, our attitudes put us there. And if perhaps we are not responsible for being put there, we are certainly responsible for staying there. This is very difficult for the human ego to accept because it's stubborn and proud.
Some time ago I realized that if I am unhappy with my job and the idiots surrounding me, all I need to do is observe their behavior to understand the same attitude and personality problems that led me to ending up around them. It's a scary and distasteful exercise to undertake but it is accurate. If you honestly and sincerely want your life to change for the better, your best bet is to observe those qualities in others that you find odious and acknowledge that you also have them and must eliminate them, because that is what's holding you back from progress. However, that requires accepting responsibility for your life and we have all been born in the media-driven generations that want to be party animals forever. And so we stay in this mode until we reach a mid-life crisis and see that we've done nothing with our time but sulk and perpetuate a victim mentality, and now our most productive years are past us and we have nothing to share with our children but bitterness and grudges. Sound awful? It sure is.
We must accept responsibility for our lives and stop making excuses for our failures or a life spent refusing to act. It is better to do something than to live in fear of it and do nothing. Success or failure doesn't matter. It's the experience and the growth that comes with it that does. And your attitude determines ultimately the outcome; nothing else. If it didn't kill you, then you can only grow stronger from it. But we are so mentally embarrassed of even trying and possibly failing that we end up doing nothing, sulking and blaming anyone but ourselves.
This is certainly the modern disease, purposely implanted to keep us from making true positive changes in our lives and, by doing so, on the planet Herself. I cannot deny that I suffer from this disease as well. Waking myself up from it and injecting the antidote is an ongoing daily struggle, but one that I must fight. But that's because I genuinely want to be happy and embrace love in my life, and that journey begins by changing the mental attitude. Perhaps not enough people have a will to experience joy, happiness and love.
That's the true crisis right now on this planet and nothing else, not the economy or lack of resources. We refuse to live in harmony with the Creation. If not enough of us turn around, we will make ourselves extinct. Stop worrying about money and pining after things you cannot take with you to the grave. What matters now is the future we build together. What resonates is cherishing the moments we share with one another.
We are the Masters. Our Becoming is in our own hands.
I make plenty of mistakes in my life but I try at least to be aware of them, so I can identify why I make them and try to amend the personality traits that lead to such harmful decisions. I don't want to continue being unhappy and I understand that it all begins with attitude, even if changing that attitude requires time and effort.
All of us who are unhappy with where we are in our lives refuse to accept that, outside influences aside, our attitudes put us there. And if perhaps we are not responsible for being put there, we are certainly responsible for staying there. This is very difficult for the human ego to accept because it's stubborn and proud.
Some time ago I realized that if I am unhappy with my job and the idiots surrounding me, all I need to do is observe their behavior to understand the same attitude and personality problems that led me to ending up around them. It's a scary and distasteful exercise to undertake but it is accurate. If you honestly and sincerely want your life to change for the better, your best bet is to observe those qualities in others that you find odious and acknowledge that you also have them and must eliminate them, because that is what's holding you back from progress. However, that requires accepting responsibility for your life and we have all been born in the media-driven generations that want to be party animals forever. And so we stay in this mode until we reach a mid-life crisis and see that we've done nothing with our time but sulk and perpetuate a victim mentality, and now our most productive years are past us and we have nothing to share with our children but bitterness and grudges. Sound awful? It sure is.
We must accept responsibility for our lives and stop making excuses for our failures or a life spent refusing to act. It is better to do something than to live in fear of it and do nothing. Success or failure doesn't matter. It's the experience and the growth that comes with it that does. And your attitude determines ultimately the outcome; nothing else. If it didn't kill you, then you can only grow stronger from it. But we are so mentally embarrassed of even trying and possibly failing that we end up doing nothing, sulking and blaming anyone but ourselves.
This is certainly the modern disease, purposely implanted to keep us from making true positive changes in our lives and, by doing so, on the planet Herself. I cannot deny that I suffer from this disease as well. Waking myself up from it and injecting the antidote is an ongoing daily struggle, but one that I must fight. But that's because I genuinely want to be happy and embrace love in my life, and that journey begins by changing the mental attitude. Perhaps not enough people have a will to experience joy, happiness and love.
That's the true crisis right now on this planet and nothing else, not the economy or lack of resources. We refuse to live in harmony with the Creation. If not enough of us turn around, we will make ourselves extinct. Stop worrying about money and pining after things you cannot take with you to the grave. What matters now is the future we build together. What resonates is cherishing the moments we share with one another.
We are the Masters. Our Becoming is in our own hands.
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