Othelo Verdi

Au moment de cet enregistrement, au début des années quatre-vingt, Sir Georg Solti était encore tout auréolé du prestige d'une précédente interprétation du Bal masqué réalisée en 33 tours. Plus encore que dans la première mouture, le chef d'origine hongroise exacerbe ici la violence du drame, poussant tous les personnages vers leur destin, dans un souffle épique d'une rare intensité. Une distribution quasiment idéale fait face au chef : un Pavarotti de la grande époque, un Bruson idiomatique et une Christa Ludwig d'une ardeur insoupçonnée.

The Verdi Messa da Requiem is probably the best known Requiem in the repertoire. Many great conductors have recorded it. I’m thinking of Toscanini at New York/1951, Victor De Sabata at Milan/1954 and probably the best known of all Carlo-Maria Giulini at London/1964-65. Some more recent versions have proved popular notably John Eliot Gardiner using period instruments in London/1992, Claudio Abbado at Berlin/2001 and also Nikolaus Harnoncourt at Vienna/2004.

VA - Verdi at the Met: Legendary Performances from the Metropolitan Opera (2013) (20 CD Box Set)
EAC Rip | FLAC (Tracks, log) | 20 CDs, 21:27:47 min | Covers included | 3,53 Gb
Genre: Classical, Opera & Classical Vocal / Label: Sony Classical

Verdi at the Met captures the drama of Verdi's greatest operas as they were performed live at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. These ten recordings cover four decades starting with La Traviata in 1935 and feature some of the best-loved voices and conductors of the twentieth century. The famous pairing of tenor Richard Tucker and baritone Leonard Warren can be heard in Simon Boccanegra and La Forza del Destino.

Of the 10 selections on this disc of Verdi “discoveries”, four are bona fide world premieres, though in one of those, the Variations for Oboe and Orchestra, only the orchestral part is by Verdi. In the late 1830s clarinetist Giacomo Mori hired the young Verdi to provide an orchestra accompaniment to his variations on the theme “Canto di Virginia”. Here, Verdi displays his early skill at handling large orchestral forces, and the same can be said of his Variations for Piano and Orchestra. However, there are few musical hints in these works–or in the Capriccio for Oboe and Orchestra, the Sinfonia in C, or the Adagio for Trumpet and Orchestra–that suggest the great master Verdi was to become.

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.

These CDs have been issued by Decca in their "Legendary Performances" series; the recording was originally issued on the Ace of Diamonds label in 1960. Fritz Reiner belonged to that era of revered authoritarian conductors (including Toscanini, Klemperer and Beecham) who dominated the pre-Second World War orchestral scene. His reputation was achieved very largely through his interpretations of Wagner opera in America and Europe and his orchestral directorships in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Chicago. This recording of the Verdi Requiem came towards the very end of his conducting career and only 3 years before his death.

Verdi, child of the people, king of popular opera, began life as the son of an innkeeper. He was brought up in modest circumstances. He first received lessons from the village priest, who was amazed by the young musician’s talents. Verdi’s musical education was rounded and complete: at the age of sixteen, the composer wrote fugues, masses and symphonies, which he would later destroy. As he met with reticence in Milan, he settled in Busseto where he fell victim to the pettiness of the town. However, his strong willpower enabled him to pursue his musical path without paying heed to what people said.

Verdi’s Requiem is a work of white-hot dramatic intensity, infused with his lifetime of composing opera. His approach to religion is explosive, emotional, and full of temperament and fear, the latter being wonderfully conveyed by López-Cobos in this concert performance.

Giuseppe Verdi was commissioned by the Paris Opera to write a grand opera for the Great Exhibition of 1855. The opera's subject was to be the Sicilian Vespers, the infamous massacre of the French by Sicilians in 1282 Palermo. Verdi's librettist for the work was Eugène Scribe and difficulties arose at once. Verdi, who favored lean realistic drama, was handcuffed by the French grand opera formula with its five act form, lavish choruses and ballet. The work with its original French title, 'Les Vêpres siciliennes' premiered to great acclaim but Verdi was never pleased with it. Eventually it was translated into Italian and this is the version that has survived.

Les Vêpres Siciliennes is one of Verdi’s misunderstood operas. It is usually presented to audiences today as I vespri Siciliani - that is, in a clumsy and pedestrian Italian translation and as such gives a false representation of Verdi’s original concept. This opera was composed for the Paris Opera to a libretto by Eugene Scribe, one of the greatest poets of the day and Charles Duveyrier. Verdi embraces the French idiom – the musical forms, the orchestration, the vocal writing – with the same grandeur and sense of occasion as Rossini and Meyerbeer before him. Certainly to give an opera in translation is no crime but to continually deprive the public of this particularly beautiful marriage of text and music is close to criminal. This is the third in the Verdi Originals series and this BBC recording of the opera finally restores the original French libretto.