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             


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


 
REVIEW
RECORDING OF THE MONTH


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos 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

 

 

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS

Verismo
see end of review for full details
Renée Fleming (soprano)
Coro e Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Giuseppe Verdi/Marco Armiliato
rec. 5, 6, 8-10 August 2008, Auditorium di Milano. Italy. DDD
DECCA 478 1533 [72:20]

Experience Classicsonline

On this new Decca release prolific recording artist and much loved soprano Renée Fleming sings Italian arias popular and rare. We have opera arias by Puccini from La bohème, Turandot, La rondine, Suor Angelica and Manon Lescaut. In addition Fleming has unearthed many forgotten opera jewels including rare repertoire by Puccini’s contemporaries Mascagni, Giordano, Cilea, Catalani, Leoncavallo and Zandonai. The period covered by the disc is a concentrated one, yet immensely rich and prolific, ranging from La Wally in 1892 to Turandot in 1926. 

The title of the disc Verismo refers to the artistic and cultural movement aimed at the realism of contemporary everyday life that flashed comet-like across the arts world.  

Most of the verismo composers formed part of the giovane scuola (young school) a larger group of Italian composers who had made the remarkable transition from the legacy of Verdi. Flourishing at the turn of the 20th century these composers were strongly influenced by the naturalistic literary movement of authors such as Émile Zola. In the world of Italian opera verismo originated in 1890 with Mascagni’s one act Cavalleria rusticana. Strangely heroine Santuzza’s aria Voi lo sapete from Mascagni’s landmark opera is not included in this collection.

Choosing the repertoire for Verismo was a revelatory process for Renée Fleming, “I was surprised by the sheer volume and variety of the Italian operas from this period that we aren’t familiar with Above all, my goal with this recording is to share a broader selection from an especially rich tradition of Italian opera, so that these Verismo heroines can be heard again in all their beauty and complexity.”

Fleming here portrays a wide range of heroines. There is Wally the Tyrolean village girl, Fedora and Gloria, women of the nobility, the nun Angelica and two courtesans Magda and Stephana. There is Lodoletta a foundling, the upwardly mobile Manon, the music-hall performer Zazà, a factory worker Conchita and seamstress Mimì. Finally we are taken to the Far East for Liù a Chinese slave girl and Iris the lowly daughter of a blind man in Japan.

Renée Fleming provides a high level of artistic consistency across all the works on the disc. However, there are several tracks that I especially enjoyed. From Puccini’s Suor Angelica (1918) Fleming gives a memorable and quite moving performance as the nun Sister Angelica in her sorrowful lament Senza Mamma. In the body of this showpiece aria I detected some slight fluttering in the voice but the long held note at the conclusion is marvellously sung.

High drama is the order of the day in the aria Un di (ero piccina) from Mascagni’s Iris an opera rarely staged since its 1898 premiere in Rome. The heroine is Iris the astonishingly naive daughter of a high-minded blind man. Fleming sings beautifully her rather curiously worded text of the evil-eyed octopus creeping out from the vast, dead sea.

Puccini’s underrated 1917 masterpiece La rondine centres around heroine Magda de Civry, a courtesan. Magda’s act I aria Ore dolci e divine is as swish and elegant as a stroll in a fashionable Parisian park. From La bohème (1896) the aria Si mi chiamo Mimi is heart-rending and sung here with such loving affection.

In Leoncavallo’s rarely heard version of La bohème from 1897, Fleming conveys a swaggering lilt to the lovesick Mimi’s aria Musette svaria sulla bocca viva. A hidden gem is the tender aria Angioletto, il tuo nome? from Leoncavallo’s steamy 1900 operatic rarity Zazà with the heroine a French music-hall singer. As Zazà the assured Fleming’s encounter with the little daughter of her married lover would melt the stoniest of hearts.

From Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (1893), cruelly tormented and abandoned, emotions lies heavy in Manon’s set-piece Sola perduta, abandonata. Fleming’s intensely moving interpretation is almost too hard to bear. It is fascinating to hear the aria in this claimed world premiere recording of the composer’s original manuscript version. By contrast the Spanish dance rhythms including the sound of castanets in the aria Ier della fabbrica from Zandonai’s opera Conchita (1911) conjures up images of the heady atmosphere of flamenco.

In the aria Tutto tramonta from Fedora (1898) by Giordano the dying heroine Princess Fedora sings an achingly beautiful lament. This tear-jerking aria includes an off-stage child’s voice that greatly adds to the poignancy. Giordano’s Siberia (1903) is a neglected opera that includes the memorable traditional tune the Song of the Volga Boatmen. With astonishing rapture Fleming as the tragic courtesan Stephana sings No! Se un pensier… Nel suo amore rianimata one of the sweetest imaginable arias in the repertoire.

The final track of the disc is the celebrated quartet Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso from the second act of Puccini’s La rondine. Here Fleming and star tenor Jonas Kaufman are joined by soprano Barbara Vignudelli and tenor Paolo Cauteruccio (spelled incorrectly in the booklet). Puccini certainly indulges the listener in this sumptuous and moving love music with the quartet blending beautifully. It’s hard to better the description in the booklet of, “the listener wallowing in a love-struck ecstasy unsurpassed by Puccini.”

Well drilled and alert to the requirements of these scores the orchestra provide splendid accompaniment. The Decca engineers provide excellent sound quality with an especially impressive balance between singer, chorus and orchestra. The tracks are listed on the back of the jewel case but are not numbered. It’s a nuisance trawling inside the booklet to obtain this basic information. In addition I’m not sure how much handling the tissue-like paper in the booklet can stand.

Renée Fleming’s creamy vocals are stunning and in quite beautiful condition. Maybe the cream has thickened as I felt that I detected the development of a slightly richer edge to her timbre. Intelligent and accomplished she is incredibly controlled and effortlessly conveys the intense sentimentality of verismo. There are better communicators of the Italian language than Fleming but her rapt enthusiasm more than compensates. I hope it is not too long before I can hear Miss Fleming in a live production. This is a wonderful collection of arias from verismo heroines that is worthy of acclaim. It’s a shame that this Decca disc arrived too late for my list of 2009 Records of the Year.

Michael Cookson 


Track listing
Verismo
1. Puccini: Senza Mamma from Suor Angelica
2. Mascagni: Un di (ero piccina) from Iris
3. Puccini: Ore dolci e divine from La rondine
with Saito Kaoru, Lucia Mencaroni, Barbara Vignudelli
4. Mascagni: Flammen perdonami! from Lodoletta
5. Catalani: Ne mai dunque avro pace? from La Wally
6. Puccini: Si. Mi chiamo Mimi from La bohème
7. Leoncavallo: Musette svaria sulla bocca viva from La bohème
8. Leoncavallo: Mimi Pinson, la biondinetta from La bohème
with Paolo Cautoruccio, Marco Calabrese, Saito Kaoru,
Annalisa Dessi, Carlos Gomez and Gilles Armani
9. Puccini: Addio… Donde lieta from La bohème
with Arturo Chacón-Cruz
10. Leoncavallo: Angioletto, il tuo nome? from Zazà
with Emma Latis
11. Puccini: Sola perduta, abandonata from Manon Lescaut
(original manuscript version - world premiere recording)
12. Zandonai: Ier della fabbrica from Conchita
13. Cilea: O mia cuna, fiorita from Gloria
14. Giordano: Tutto tramonta from Fedora
with Arturo Chacón-Cruz and Emma Latis
15. Puccini: Tu che di gel cinta from Turandot with Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Marco Calabrese and Barbara Vignudelli
16. Giordano: No! Se un pensier… Nel suo amore rianimata from Siberia
17. Puccini: Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso from La rondine with Jonas Kaufmann, Barbara Vignudelli and Paolo Cauteruccio

 


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






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.