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Montserrat Caballe sings Bellini & Verdi Arias | EMI 6828722

Montserrat Caballe sings Bellini & Verdi Arias

Label: EMI

Cat No: 6828722

Barcode: 5099968287221

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 4th March 2013

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Contents

Works

Bellini, Vincenzo

I Puritani
» O rendetemi la speme ...Qui la voce sua soave
» Son vergin vezzosa
» Torno il riso ...Vien diletto
Il Pirata
» Col sorriso d'innocenza
» Oh! s'io potessi
» Qual suono ...Oh Sole! ti vela (Act 2)

Verdi, Giuseppe

Aida
» Qui Radames verra! ...O patria mia (Act 3)
Don Carlo
» Tu che le vanita conoscesti (Act 4)
La forza del destino
» Pace, pace, mio Dio
Macbeth
» Una macchia e qui tuttora (Act 4)
Otello
» Ave Maria
» Era piu calmo? ...Mia madre aveva una povera ancella (Act 4)

Artists

Montserrat Caballe (soprano)
Alfredo Kraus (tenor)
Julia Hamari (mezzo-soprano)
Matteo Manuguerra (baritone)
Agostino Ferrin (bass)
Flora Rafanelli (soprano)
Elizabeth Bainbridge (mezzo-soprano)
Thomas Allen (baritone)
Ambrosian Opera Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Coro e Orchestra della RAI
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductors

Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Riccardo Muti
Carlo Maria Giulini
Anton Guadagno

Works

Bellini, Vincenzo

I Puritani
» O rendetemi la speme ...Qui la voce sua soave
» Son vergin vezzosa
» Torno il riso ...Vien diletto
Il Pirata
» Col sorriso d'innocenza
» Oh! s'io potessi
» Qual suono ...Oh Sole! ti vela (Act 2)

Verdi, Giuseppe

Aida
» Qui Radames verra! ...O patria mia (Act 3)
Don Carlo
» Tu che le vanita conoscesti (Act 4)
La forza del destino
» Pace, pace, mio Dio
Macbeth
» Una macchia e qui tuttora (Act 4)
Otello
» Ave Maria
» Era piu calmo? ...Mia madre aveva una povera ancella (Act 4)

Artists

Montserrat Caballe (soprano)
Alfredo Kraus (tenor)
Julia Hamari (mezzo-soprano)
Matteo Manuguerra (baritone)
Agostino Ferrin (bass)
Flora Rafanelli (soprano)
Elizabeth Bainbridge (mezzo-soprano)
Thomas Allen (baritone)
Ambrosian Opera Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Coro e Orchestra della RAI
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductors

Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Riccardo Muti
Carlo Maria Giulini
Anton Guadagno

About

Montserrat Caballé was one of the most stimulating and refined singers in opera, concert and recital in the second half of the 20th century. Born in Barcelona on 23 April 1933, she studied at the Barcelona Liceo and made her concert debut there in 1954. After opera engagements at Basle and Bremen and guest appearances in Milan, Vienna and Lisbon, she became a major international star in 1965 when she substituted for an ailing Marilyn Horne in a concert performance of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia in New York.

Her long and highly successful career has encompassed a wide range of repertoire, including roles in a number of demanding bel canto operas in which she followed Maria Callas, who had brought these works back into public favour.

This CD, together with the 5-CD set 'The Sound of Montserrat Caballé', is being released to mark the diva’s 80th birthday.

The recital opens with the aria ‘Son vergin vezzosa’ sung by Elvira, the daughter of an English Puritan nobleman, to express happiness at her forthcoming marriage to the Cavalier Arturo in Bellini’s I puritani. But her joy gives way to madness when she wrongly believes Arturo has betrayed her, and her extended mad scene that begins ‘O rendetemi la speme’ is one of the high points in the bel canto repertoire. These two items give Caballé the opportunity to demonstrate her exquisitely beautiful voice and also to make use of her outstanding technical ability to sing florid music, as well as bring it to life dramatically when required.

Next comes the closing scene from Bellini’s Il pirata, another long scene in which the heroine Imogene is deranged by grief as she watches the man she loves ascending the scaffold to be executed. This is another feast of bel canto singing at its most accomplished.

We then move to Verdi and his unfortunate heroine Aida, torn between her love for the dashing Egyptian soldier Radamès and her beloved homeland Ethiopia as she awaits him in a secret desert assignation: ‘Qui Radamès verrà...O patria mia’.

Caballé then gives us a superb account of the poignant scene in Don Carlo where the queen Elisabetta recalls how happy she was in France when she was betrothed to Don Carlo, a Spanish prince, before she was forced for political reasons to marry Don Carlo’s elderly father, King Philip II of Spain

In the next aria, ‘Pace, Pace, mio Dio’ from La forza del destino, Caballé, tackles perhaps the most dramatic of the arias heard here. Leonora, a Spanish noblewoman, believing her lover to have deserted her after he accidentally killed her father, is living as a hermit in a cave in the mountains. She longs for the peace that death will one day bring her, but her solitude is interrupted by the abrupt arrival of a stranger at the entrance to her cave.

Verdi was a great admirer of Shakespeare and the programme ends with extracts from his settings of two of the bard’s plays. These are the eerie Sleepwalking Scene from Macbeth where Lady Macbeth is re-living in her dreams the horrendous murder of King Duncan that she carried out earlier in the play, and the poignant Willow Song and Ave Maria from the final scene of Otello where Caballé’s Desdemona is heartbreakingly moving.

Contents:
Vincenzo Bellini

I puritani
1. Son vergin vezzosa (Act I)
2. O rendetemi la speme...Qui la voce...
3. Tornò il riso....Vien diletto (Act II)
Alfredo Kraus (tenor) • Julia Hamari (mezzo-soprano) • Matteo Manuguerra (baritone) • Agostino Ferrin (bass)
Ambrosian Opera Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra / Riccardo Muti
Recorded: 18–30.VI & 1, 4.VII.1979, Kingsway Hall, London

Il pirata
4. Oh! s’io potessi...
5. Col sorriso d’innocenza...
6. Qual suono....Oh Sole! ti vela (Act II)
Flora Rafanelli (soprano)
Coro e Orchestra della RAI / Gianandrea Gavazzeni
Recorded: 14–31.VII.1970, RAI Studios, Rome

Giuseppe Verdi
Aida
7. Qui Radamès verrà...O patria mia (Act III)
New Philharmonia Orchestra / Riccardo Muti
Recorded: 2–9 & 11.VII.1974, Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London

Don Carlo
8. Tu che le vanità (Act IV)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Carlo Maria Giulini
Recorded: 18–31.VIII.1971, Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London

La forza del destino
9. Pace, pace, mio Dio (Act IV)

Macbeth

10. Una macchia è qui tutt’ora (Act IV)

Otello
11. Era più calmo?...Mia madre aveva una povera ancella (Act IV)
12. Ave Maria (Act IV)
Elizabeth Bainbridge (mezzo-soprano) • Thomas Allen (baritone)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Anton Guadagno
Recorded: 8–11.VI.1971, No.1 Studio, Abbey Road, London

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