MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

CD REVIEW



Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively AmazonUK   AmazonUS

 

 

Giacomo PUCCINI (1858–1924)
Madama Butterfly (1904) - highlights
Act I:
1. Ah! quanto cielo! quanto mar! … Ancora un passo or via [3:45]
2. Bimba dagli occhi pieni di malia [11:35]
Act II:
3. Un bel di vedremo [4:37]
4. E questo? E questo? ...Che tua madre dovrà [5:14]
5. Scuoti quwlla fronda di ciliegio [5:18]
6. Humming Chorus [3:21]
7. Verrà, verrà [1:58]
8. Addio, fiorito asil…Glielo dirai?... Che vuol da me?... Come una mosca prigioniera … Con onor muore [18:11]
Renata Scotto (soprano) – Madama Butterfly; Anna di Stasio (mezzo) – Suzuki; Carlo Bergonzi (tenor) – B.F. Pinkerton; Rolando Panerai (baritone) – Sharpless; Silvana Padoan (mezzo) – Kate Pinkerton
Rome Opera House Chorus and Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli
rec. Rome Opera House, 16-27 August 1966. ADD
CLASSICS FOR PLEASURE 3933702 [54:27]

 


Highlights discs like the present one can be quite frustrating. As soon as one gets involved in the drama we come to the end of the excerpt. More often than not this is in the middle of an act and the music is faded down. It is a blessing to find at least two longer stretches of continuous music on this disc: the duet between Pinkerton and Butterfly from act I. I just wish it had started even earlier, at Pinkerton’s Viene la sera, since Bergonzi sings his role so marvellously. Then comes a sequence in act II from Pinkerton’s short farewell Addio, fiorito asil until Butterfly’s death. In both cases there is a natural end-of-act.

It may seem unfair first of all to apostrophize the tenor in what is after all a soprano’s opera, but Carlo Bergonzi was in tremendous form, lyrical and ardent. He was probably the best Pinkerton on record, and I have not left out of the reckoning Gedda, Pavarotti or Björling. Björling, in his last complete opera was already marked by the heart-defect that took his life a year later. Bergonzi recorded the role several years earlier for Decca against Tebaldi and with Serafin conducting – also a recommendable set. This one is special on account of Sir John’s lovingly attentive conducting. As far as I can remember his only other opera recordings were Dido and Aeneas with Victoria de los Angeles and Otello with Gwyneth Jones, James McCracken and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. It is through this Butterfly that he is best remembered as an opera conductor. Barbirolli could be idiosyncratic, especially during his last years, but such was his commitment and love for the music that he almost always brought off even the most dangerously slow tempos. The Adagietto from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 is a famous example of this and so are many memorable moments in this recording: the cherry blossom duet, the Humming Chorus and also the Pinkerton – Butterfly duet in act 1.

In Renata Scotto he has a Butterfly of exceptional sensitivity and insight. When Scotto made her operatic debut, aged 18, she first sang Violetta. Her second role was Madama Butterfly. After numerous performances over a period of almost fourteen years she was deeply inside the part by the time this recording was made and her voice was still in excellent shape. She was still mainly a lyrical soprano but early on showed such dramatic potential that it’s no wonder she gradually took on heavier roles like Tosca and Norma. I have a companion disc (Nabucco highlights) to the present one, recorded twelve years later, and it is instructive to notice how this kind of repertoire affected her voice. As Butterfly she has something of the bite and edge of Callas, and this was to develop during years to come. She has her moments of penetrating tone and a less than ideally controlled vibrato – listen to Un bel di vedremo – but the sensitive phrasing and feeling silences criticism. Her final scene, before her suicide, is truly heartrending.

The choice of excerpts concentrates on her rendering of the title role and leaves the rest of the cast – apart from Bergonzi – very much in the shadows. We hear a snippet of Rolando Panerai’s Sharpless and Anna di Stasio in the Cherry Blossom duet shows what a fine singer she was. The Rome Opera Chorus are soft and beautiful in the Humming Chorus. The vintage 1960s recording is atmospheric and the only adverse criticism I have is the parsimonious playing time. On the other hand the disc is inexpensive. No texts and translations but at least we get a cued synopsis.

The complete opera is now in EMI’s medium prices GROC series with full documentation. This must always be a first recommendation, but for readers who are already well stocked with Butterflies but want to have samples of two of the finest Italian singers of forty years ago, this is an excellent buy.

Göran Forsling 

 

 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.