Search - Giuseppe Verdi, Edward Downes, Omroeporkest :: Verdi: Ernani (Highlights)

Domingo's ERNANI from Amsterdam

Filippo Secondo | 09/16/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"These 1972 excerpts (77 minutes) focus mainly on Domingo's Dutch debut in the title role. Unfortunately, Felicia Weathers' Elvira is not well represented (she loses her aria and cabaletta), most certainly because she wasn't in good voice (though she had flu, she saved the day, in the absence of a substitute): the first extracts testify to her futile struggle to sing the role's high notes (painful to hear), but she does improve later on. Though in far better voice than Weathers, Domingo isn't free from a couple of sloppy moments (eg he annoyingly abandons singing with the chorus towards the end of his cabaletta in order to save his voice for the high note, for me a distasteful habit). The little-known Agosto Ferrin is more successful as Silva than the unknown Piero Francia, a wobbly and hectoring Don Carlo, who fortunately has little to sing here. Superb chorus, orchestra (Edward Downes conducts), and sound."