Search - Filippa Giordano :: Filippa Giordano

Understand this album for what it is, and what it is not.

Aardvark | 02/02/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Opera aficianados take note - she is not an opera singer. It is pointless to consider her as one. You might as well snipe at a nasturtium for not being a rose. She is a pop singer. If you are looking for nuanced interpretations of classic bel canto opera, why the heck did you pick this album up in the first place? You know where to look already.



I completely disagree with the opera buffs who say that it is a travesty that she recorded these albums and besmirched the great masters. She did not record this for *you*. She recorded this for listeners of pop music. Have you heard what passes for pop music? Evidently not, or you would realize her albums far surpass everything currently in play... and if that is damning to pop music, well, so it is.



If one person... a single soul... listens to this album and is inspired enough to go out and listen to "the real thing" then Filippa Giordano has done them a great service and made the world a richer place. Opera aficionados are not born knowing and appreciating opera. One must be exposed to the music in the first place. Many people grow up having NEVER heard opera. This sort of album has a chance at being played in venues where Callas and Fleming couldn't get feet in the door. To the uninitiated, opera can seem bewildering and unintelligible, full of unfamiliar conventions. Filippa Giordano uses pop conventions to put these arias in musical terms that pop music lovers can grasp. Melodic familiarity goes miles toward connecting people to the emotional core of an operatic performance. Before you spew venom, consider that you are potentially thwarting a pathway that may lead to genuine appreciation of "real" opera down the pike. Bite your tongue. Go listen to your own recordings of the masters. You are right. They are infinitely more sophisticated. But this album has considerable value despite its flaws, and it wasn't created for you."

Opera Geeks, get a life

Music Lover | Halifax, NS Canada | 05/05/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is an album by a gifted pop singer singing some beautiful classical arias. Now, opera geeks are going apoplectic that this woman has the temerity to do so. I listen to opera, and I am occasionally relieved to hear CDs like this. It's nice not to hear a singer sounding like several people are tightening her Wagnerian corset so hard that she is expelling air through every orifice in her body. It is not the music that keeps opera unaccessible to everyone except pretentious pseudo-intellectuals (you don't need a Ph.D. to appreciate it). No, what has kept opera out of the mainstream is the constipated sounds too many opera singers make. If you like beautiful music sung well, if not brilliantly, you will like this CD. And for the record, I loathe C?line Dion's and Whitney Houston's music passionately, so don't let the first reviewer's comments dissuade you from this CD."