Search - Vincenzo Bellini, Rainer Steubing, Riccardo Muti :: Vincenzo Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi

Almost unbearable beauty - Bellini sung to the point of ecst

Ingrid Heyn | Melbourne, Australia | 03/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a magical recording... From the opening to the heartbreaking end, one is caught, captivated, spellbound. In fact, "spellbinding" is so completely the word I must use that I have to fight not to repeat myself.



Edita Gruberova is, of course, one of the world's most superb bel canto singers. Her voice is a lyric dramatic coloratura - no hint of strain in her top notes, beautiful gleaming colour all the way down, with agile facility and a superb way of stringing her vocal line along the radiance of a rising sun.



Agnes Baltsa is so unbeatable as Romeo that it is a privilege to hear her. There is such an almost... ferocious quality in her voice... a ferocity that is strictly disciplined within a superb technique. In her duet work with Gruberova, oh!! Oh! It's the stuff of legends!



The rest of the cast is very good indeed.



There are other recordings of this gorgeous opera - but believe me, not ONE of them approaches even the outer limits of this unmatched recording. I am unable to listen to "O quante volto" as sung by Gruberova without feeling tears start. It's simply that beautiful."

Good but not great performance of good but not great opera

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 12/29/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"SOURCE:

This recording is an assemblage of takes from live performances at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden during April 1984. Since there is very little stage noise and the audience makes its presence known only at the end of each act, I suspect that some material from rehearsals was also included in the final product.



The opera was released by EMI at full price in 1985. This particular version is the second issue, under the label EMI Classics and offered at a mid-range price in 1994. There is nothing in the accompanying documentation to suggest that the 1994 version was remastered or otherwise varied from the 1985 set.



SOUND:

The sound on this set seems to elicit different reactions from reviewer to reviewer. The Good, Grey Gramophone Magazine opined that "The sound retains a theatre balance, with the orchestra kept in its proper place," while an Amazon reviewer grumbled that the singers could not be heard over the orchestra. My own reaction was that this was a slightly strange-sounding opera recording. Stereo separation is not particularly emphasized and the recording is not as resonant as one might expect. It took me some time to realize that this set sounded much more like a real performance in a real opera house than it sounds like a recording. As a matter of purely personal taste, I prefer the old, up-front, in-your-face sound for the soloists that was characteristic of the 1950s and 60s. That is not to be found here. On the other hand, following along first with the libretto and then with the vocal score, it didn't strike me that the soloists less clear than they would sound in a real performance in a real opera house.



CAST:

Giulietta (Shakespeare's Juliet), daughter of Capellio, betrothed to Tebaldo, but in love with Romeo - Edita Gruberova (soprano)

Romeo (here pronounced "Ro-MAY-o, of course), newly returned from exile forced upon him for having killed Capellio's son and now appointed ambassador of the Ghibbellines to their despised enemies, the Guelphs, a hothead much given to loud threats of war and bloodshed - Agnes Baltsa (mezzo-soprano)

Tebaldo (a peculiar hybrid of Shakespeare's Tybalt and Paris), an equally hotheaded upholder of the Guelph cause who dearly loves Giulietta - Dano Raffanti (tenor)

Capellio (Shakespeare's Old Capulet), the local head of the Guelph faction who hates all Ghibbellines in general and Romeo in particular - Gwynne Howell (bass)

Lorenzo (a combination of Shakespeare's Friar Lawrence and the Apothecary), a secular physician and member of the household of the Capuleti who initially, at least, attempts to be the voice of peace and reason - John Tomlinson (bass)



CONDUCTOR:

Ricardo Muti with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.



TEXT:

Felice Romani, the librettist of this opera, insisted that he had not based his work on Shakespeare, but rather on Shakespeare's 16th Century sources. Hector Berlioz, in critic mode, was, to say the very least, not a fan of Romani's work. "No Shakespeare, nothing--a wasted opportunity," he called it.



For the historically minded, William Shakespeare wrote his "Romeo and Juliet" in the 1590s, during the early days of his career. As was usual for him, he based his play on older materials. The first literary mention of the Montagues and the Capulets is in Dante's "Purgatorio," vi, lines 106-108. The Montagues lived in Verona and the Capulets in Cremona. They were used by Dante as examples of warring factions that had been exterminated. About 1530, Luigi da Porto mistakenly assumed that the Montagues and the Capulets had both resided in Verona and had feuded with one another. He worked up a tale that involved two young members of his warring clans, Giulietta and Romeo. In 1554, Matteo Bandello published a novella called "Romeo e Giulietta" which proved to be an international hit. A French version was adapted from Bandello by Pierre Boaistuau in 1559. This, in turn, was translated into English in 1562 by Arthur Brooke as a "tragical history" in verse form called "Romeus and Juliet," later to be pounced on by Will Shakespeare in search of a popular hit. The only major changes that Shakespeare made in Brooke's plot were to compress the time frame and to introduce Tybalt into the story at an earlier point in order to build him up as a worthy adversary for Romeo. And, oh, yes, he created an array of living characters such as had never been conceived before.



A number of commentators have taken note of the much simplified plot of "I Capuleti e i Montecchi," which among other things reduces the more than twenty characters found in Shakespeare's play to five in the opera. They have accounted for it by declaring that Shakespeare's version was not yet well-known in the world, so Romani must have based his work on earlier versions of the story, by which I presume they mean Bandello or da Porto. I don't buy that explanation. By 1830, the cult of Bardolatry was firmly established. The standard German translations (that many Germans to this day hold to be superior to the English originals) were well along. Two generations earlier, the tourist industry of Stratford Upon Avon had been given a kick start by the great actor, Garrick (in a bicentennial celebration conceived by David Garrick, written by David Garrick, produced by David Garrick, directed by David Garrick and starring David Garrick--additional dialogue by W. Shakespeare.) Just seventeen years later, Verdi would write his "Macbeth" and make sketches for a "King Lear," that greatest of all operatic might-have-beens. One of the twenty or so books that Verdi kept close to himself until the day he died was an Italian translation of the works of Shakespeare.



No, I do not think that Romani dealt with any obscure 16th Century originals. I think that he had heard or read a short summary of Shakespeare's play, ignored or forgot most of it and then attempted to reproduce it while in a frame of mind that regarded the exaggerated posturing of "Ernani" and its ilk to be great art. Berlioz was perfectly correct about this libretto. In both the literal and the figurative senses of the word, it is a travesty.



DOCUMENTATION:

This 1994 edition comes with a 63-page booklet that comes with a 1984 essay by John McMurray on the opera and its history that is not as fatuous as is usual for these things, and actually contains a couple of interesting comments.There is a libretto in Italian and English. The track list is conveniently keyed to the libretto. Six photographs of the singers performing in the opera are provided, as well as a handsome sketch of the young Bellini.



COMMENTARY:

This recording is based on a highly popular revival of the opera mounted at Covent Garden in 1984. As something of a British success, it has been awarded gushing accolades from the Good Grey and very British Gramophone Magazine in each of its three appearances in the marketplace.



I am not quite as enthusiastic as the Gramophone. Simply as an opera, "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" presents a problem: it's a pretty good piece of work, but it is not a great opera. Bellini was not yet the tragic melodic genius that he became for his big three works, "La sonnambula," "Norma" and "I Puritani." In fact, because the composer was working to a strict six-week deadline, much of "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" consists of re-cycled musical material from Bellini's "Zaira," which had been a resounding flop in the year before. The work is workmanlike and sound enough, but lacking in that indefinable ping of greatness. It certainly lacks the hit tunes that force themselves into one's memory so effectively in the Big Three.



The five principal singers are certainly sound and workmanlike. The two women, Gruberova and Baltsa, are the best of the lot, singing with dramatic skill and passion that cannot be faulted but which, nevertheless, strikes me as not quite all that might be drawn out of this Giulietta and Romeo. The men are OK, and in the case of tenor Raffanti a bit better than OK, but still completely forgettable.



Muti's single-minded dedication to the score as it appears on paper is always problematic. Here he presents an operatic steak that is unquestionably well-prepared. The problem is that I prefer my steaks with a little more sizzle. This is why I am less enthusiastic about the performances of Gruberova and Baltsa than I might otherwise be. There are times when I simply want to hear the prima donnas off the leash.



This is a good but not great performance of a good but not great opera. I think it deserves four stars.



LEC/Am/12-09"