Search - Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Franci, Orchestra of the Florence May Festival :: Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea

Terribly wonderful!

pier paolo | Caserta , Italy | 07/13/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"sorry for my english... Probably the best Opera I've ever heard! Melody at its highest levels.. the most perfect fusion between words and music."

Great Old Style Performance on a budget label

Meath Man | SILVER SPRING, MD USA | 01/14/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have heard three 1960's reconstructions of Poppea, featuring a tenor (not soprano) as Nerone, and using a modern orchestra. These include the Pritchard/Leppard/Covent Garden performance, the strange Karajan/Vienna live performance, and this Italian performance. This is the best of them. It's a tape of a live performance so the sound is a bit rough, but the performance is impassioned and the singing is wonderful. Captures the spirit of the piece better than anything I've heard yet."

Should not have been released

E. Fidler | San Diego, CA USA | 11/03/2001

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I attended a memorable 1994 performance of Poppea at Rice University, which featured a standout Jean Stein in the title role. Compared to that, this recording was most disappointing (the other glowing reviews not withstanding). The only bearable singer here is the tenor -- the basses are gravelly in the extreme, and Poppea hoots and cackles her way through her numbers. The inauthentic, bass-heavy orchestra would be better suited to a Vaughn Williams Fantasia; the wobbly chorus is more akin to 20th-century music as well. Soloists and orchestra are not together in several places, and the performance feels unimpassioned and underrehearsed. That's no wonder, since the chorus and orchestra are not even real ensembles -- just musicians assembled for the "Florence May Festival". "Rough" does not begin to describe the sound. There was no editing of the live performance whatsoever, so you can hear the soloists stomping up to (and away from) the microphone, page turns, and the like. Most disconcertingly, background conversations are audible on several tracks! Likewise, no corner was left uncut in the liner notes: there are no lyrics, no performer bios, and they've combined several numbers per track ... while omitting those details from the capsule descriptions of the tracks. Thus, it's often impossible to tell who is singing in the middle of a track. I know this recording is priced to sell, but your money is best spent on a disk with higher production values -- and performers who specialize in early music."