Search - Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Ferenc Fricsay :: Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor

Meeting Lucia for the first time all over again.

RENS | Dover, NH USA | 09/10/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This performance recording of a 1953 Berlin production is well worth the attention of anyone who is fond of Donizetti's Lucia da Lammermoor. Or in this case, von Lammermoor, since the opera is sung in German. Hearing it in German allows the listener to make a new approach to the work. Ferenc Fricsay draws the best from the orchestra and is senstive to the singers' needs. Maria Stader sings a lovely Lucia. All in all, the cast is well chosen and performs excellently: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ernst Haefliger, Sieglinde Wagner, Karl Hoppe). And surprisingly the mono sound is very, very good.



The album also includes extended excerpts of Fischer-Dieskau's first opera recording, Verdi's Don Carlos under the direction of Ferenc Fricsay and taken from a performance in Berlin in 1948. F-D sings the role of the Marquis Posa. The sound is good enough for 1948. Better said, the digital remastering of both operas in 2003 was very well done."

Despite cuts, BEST LUCIA EVER!!!

Gustav Mahler | Miami, FL | 03/03/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm sure this will infuriate the Italian opera oriented readers I seem to infuriate with the most bargain attempts are any kind of objective criticism, but the qualities that raise this recording above all others are:



1. Excellent singers that work as a unified group not just individual stars. (The performance of the famous sextet is a revelation.)



2. Singers free of the whooping and scooping, huffing and puffing common to most Italian oriented singers. They actually follow dynamic markings, phrase indications, and though in German, project the meaning of the words. This is probably due to them spending the greater part of their respective careers with music of greater quality and overall substance.



3. A first class conductor who, for once, approaches the work with a high degree of musical respect."