FREE UK SHIPPING OVER £35!

Leoncavallo - Pagliacci | Brilliant Classics 94016

Leoncavallo - Pagliacci

New Item

Label: Brilliant Classics

Cat No: 94016

Barcode: 5028421940168

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 22nd February 2010

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

Contents

Artists

Victoria de los Angeles
Jussi Bjorling
Robert Merrill
Paul Franke
George Cehanovsky
Richard Wright
Robert Shaw Chorale
RCA Victor Orchestra

Conductor

Renato Cellini

Works

Leoncavallo, Ruggiero

Pagliacci

Artists

Victoria de los Angeles
Jussi Bjorling
Robert Merrill
Paul Franke
George Cehanovsky
Richard Wright
Robert Shaw Chorale
RCA Victor Orchestra

Conductor

Renato Cellini

About

Another superb reissue from the EMI catalogue.

The plot of Leoncavallo’s opera Pagliacci is based on an incident in Montalto, Calabria, where his father was a judge. Leoncavallo wrote the opera at tremendous speed, and thanks to promoter Edoardo Sonzogno it went on a world tour after the 1892 premiere in Milan to London, Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm, Moscow, New York, Mexico City and Buenos Aires. With its gritty story of real people and events, it is perhaps the finest example of verismo opera.

It was immediately adopted by the great singers of the day, especially Caruso, who made one of the earliest gramophone recordings of Pagliacco’s great aria. Some critics at the time – chief among them Edouard Hanslick - called the music crude, but performers and public alike have taken the work to heart and it is among the most popular operas in the repertory to this day.

Cast:
- Victoria De Los: Angeles Nedda
- Jussi Björling: Canio
- Leonard Warren: Tonio
- Robert Merrill: Silvio
- Paul Franke: Beppe
- George Cehanovsky, Richard Wright: Peasants


This a welcome reissue of an admired set from the mid 1950s, notable for the refined, perhaps too refined, Nedda of los Angeles and the dramatically restrained, perhaps too restrained, Canio of Björling. I found Leonard Warren’s Tonio the most convincing performance of all: he sings a resplendent Prologue, then a subtly characterized Tonio. Robert Merrill, at the height of his powers, is a sensuous Silvio, while Cellini’s conducting is measured and the playing more than adequate. I enjoyed reencountering them, especially for los Angeles’s beautiful account with Merrill of the Nedda/Silvio love duet and for Bjorling’s splendours in the final scene.’ - Gramophone, 1989

Error on this page? Let us know here

Need more information on this product? Click here