Search - Vincenzo Bellini, Renata Scotto, Luciano Pavarotti :: Bellini - I Capuleti e I Montecchi / Scotto, Aragall, Pavarotti

A Wonderful Performance

John Cragg | Delta(greater Vancouver), B.C Canada | 10/03/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There are four good reasons to buy this set:1) Giacomo Aragall singing Romeo. The Spanish tenor is at the height of his powers here, and uses his beautiful, light voice to turn in a remarkably subtle and strong performance, making Romeo a manly, romantic hero and not some wimp. Marvellous!2) Renata Scotto as a fascinating and impressive Juliet. She also was captured at the top of her development and this is music ideal for her voice. Her Juliet is a woman of delicacy and substance. Again a magnificent performance, even if the two principals sound like adult lovers and not the dopey teenagers required for the weird story to make much sense. The set includes some bonus tracks at the end providing about 20 minutes of Scotto singing excerpts from Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Bizet and Mascagni. These are less of an addition than might be thought, since the recording quality is such as to emphasize weaknesses in the voice and produce rather screeching sounds in some jumps and crescendos. Still, even these are interesting, and in the main work Scotto is radiant.3) Luciano Pavarotti, singing the comparatively minor role of Tibaldo. Here is the young Pavarotti, terribly exciting with his well controlled use of his incredible instrument. Worth the price of admission alone.4) The committed and involved playing of the La Scala forces under the baton of Claudio (not Roberto) Abbado, who apparently also did the adaptation to allow a tenor Romeo. He produces an exciting overall performance, so that this performance is far more than some spectacular star turns.There are also unfortunately some good reasons not to buy this set:1) Giacomo Aragall singing Romeo. Romeo was originally a contralto or mezzo part. Using a tenor alters the musical balance and so is not what Bellini originally intended. However, I think that having a masculine-sounding Romeo is a sufficient improvement to make this an unimportant shortcoming of the set. Maybe it is even an advantage. Most mezzos (with the possible exception of Frederica von Stade who showed as Cherubino that she could convincingly sound like a randy male teenager) do not sound suitable to the part and do not produce a satisfying dramatic contrast with Juliet. The lack of extended success of the opera may be due to this poor dramatic balance in part.2) Poor sound quality, which at best is boxy and unresonant and at worst has the principals seriously off mike. But the sound-quality is not nearly as bad as that in many live Italian recordings of the 60's, and most of the recording is of high enough quality to convey the excitement of the performance. The audience is comparatively well behaved in this recording.3) The truly wretched booklet which Gala includes. It lacks a libretto and a synopsis (needed here particularly since the source of the story is not Shakespeare). To add insult to injury, the track index gives only the first three or four words on each track and who sings them, useful only if one has a libretto.These weaknesses in the recording do not outweigh the advantages. At the budget price, this set is well worth having"

Exciting Singing!

Tracy L. Powell | Bangkok, Thailand | 02/06/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you love Bellini's soaring melodies and exciting singing then this recording of I Capuleti e i Montecchi is for you. Renata Scotto has never been one of my favorite singers. But I do respect her and in this recording she performs Giulietta well enough. Giulietta is just a role that I find forgetable. Her aria "Oh Quante Volte" is a bore to me. The stars of this recording (made live from La Scala in 1968) are Luciano Pavarotti and Jaime Aragall. Yes Romeo was written for contralto, but I'll take a tenor (expecially Aragall on this night) any day. Their passionate singing is incredible. The Romeo/Tebaldo duet is unforgetable as it is ended by Pavarotti and Aragall on an amazing high note. I have also heard the RCA recording with Kasarova/Mei/Vargas. But I believe this Gala recording makes a better argument for the opera."

Not true to the score? Don't bother!

Chaconnesque | Singapore, Singapore Singapore | 04/17/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"By its virtue of a tenor Romeo, the team here led by Abbado has turned a relic of the Opera Seria days into a true-blue Romantic opera. If you enjoy travesty roles by all means go and get the Larmore/Hong version or the Kasarova/Mei version, which are really good. However, like Berlioz, I have always found a mezzo Romeo hard to swallow. Had Bellini lived longer, he might have re-written the opera to meet the rapidly changing tastes of the time. After the original was to satisfy the whim of Giuditta Grisi (elder sister of the famous Giulia), for whom Vaccai had written the same role earlier. (Mozart had unfulfilled aims to re-write the travesty roles in Idomeneo for tenor before his early death - I'll assume Bellini has similar aims). If you've no qualms about listening to a matronly mezzo Adalgisa, why not a tenor Romeo here? Heck with the imagined imbalance! Aragall, Scotto and Pavarotti are in their prime and gave fantastic performances here. Somebody should do a recording nowadays with Florez, Alvarez and Vargicova perhaps?"