Verdi: Falstaff

✅ This product is in New/Sealed Condition.

Amazon.com The ripe miracle of Verdi's old age, Falstaff is his last opera and many would say his best. It's through-composed, without the numbers and arias that typify the rest of his output; only Falstaff's "honor" monolog makes it into aria collections. This is a connoisseur's opera, but one all can enjoy, full of inventive orchestration, hilarious comedy, and, at its close, heart-warming reconciliation. Two recordings have dominated, Toscanini's classic 1950 version, brilliantly conducted with a good cast, and Karajan's 1956 stereo version with a great orchestra, the Philharmonia, and a great Falstaff in Tito Gobbi. Gardiner's version is to those as a fly is to an elephant. The period instrument band lurches from raw explosiveness to feeble whimpering. The singers range from good to adequate. Lafont's Falstaff might be interesting on stage, but on disc his generalized interpretation and ordinary voice don't compel. Gardiner whips through the score with energy, but also with a cold aggressiveness at odds with the music. The engineers give us opaque sound with the orchestra front and center, blanketing the singers. Set the volume at realistic levels for quiet parts and the loud ones blast you out of the room; set it for the loud parts, and huge chunks of the work vanish from audibility. Toscanini on RCA and Karajan on EMI are still the champs. --Dan Davis
ASIN: B000059ZIB
VSKU: COV.B000059ZIB.N
Condition: New
Author/Artist:Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique|Jean-Philippe Lafont|Giuseppe Verdi|Hillevi Martinpelto|Anthony Michaels-Moore|John Eliot Gardiner|Sara Mingardo|Rebecca Evans|Antonello Palombi|Eirian James
Binding: Audio cd