Forza 3

Bernardo Gaffi's 'La forza del divino amore' (The Power of Divine Love) is an intriguing rarity, and receives its premiere recording on the Chaconne label. It is an oratorio (for chamber forces with solo trumpet), one of eight by the composer which were popular in their day, and it is based on an episode in the life of St Teresa of Ávila. It is a beautiful score, performed by Ensemble 'Pian & Forte', a group formed in 1989 and dedicated to rediscovering and performing works of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Ensemble is joined by three vocal soloists, renowned exponents of the music of this period.

It is appropriate that the first recording of the first version of Forza should come from St Petersburg, where the work had its premiere in 1862. However, whilst the premiere was predominantly an Italian affair, this set is given entirely by Russian artists. The differences between this version and Verdi's 1869 revision for La Scala are marked: they are delineated by two essays in the accompanying booklet but even more discerningly in Julian Budden's indispensable The Operas of Verdi (in this case Vol. 2, Cassell: 1978). So it isn't necessary for me to rehearse here all the changes (even if I had the space to do so), only the main ones.

Gianna Nannini - X Forza E X Amore (1993)
Rock | EAC rip | Flac, Log, Cue | Covers 600 dpi | 311 Mb

X Forza e X Amore è un album musicale del 1993 della cantautrice Gianna Nannini. In linea col pensiero di Scandalo, continua il "radical folk". Qui Gianna usa come suoni folk i suoni e i rumori della natura. Va in Maremma a raccogliere e registrare i suoni direttamente sul posto. Ne esce una straordinaria miscela fra rock e canto popolare toscano.

This is a tremendously enjoyable production of an opera that can be difficult to bring off. La forza del destino is so epic that it runs the risk of sprawling, and if the performers and the stage director don’t exercise self-discipline, the opera quickly loses its focus. I don’t think anyone will argue that this is the best-sung performance that he or she ever heard—in spite of its difficulties, there are many good audio-only recordings of this opera—but this is one of those times when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The last time I reviewed a DVD of this opera in these pages, it was a version dating from 1983 from the Metropolitan Opera, with Leontyne Price, Giuseppe Giacomini, and Leo Nucci in the lead roles… Raymond Tuttle