Good recording of Turandot
Sture Jonsson
good recording of Puccinis Turandot ?
When I say good recording I mean one with good performances by the musicians
and singers. I do not mean that it must have a good "soundstage" or any such
HiFi dribble.
Of course the sound quality should also be good, but in my experience that is
much easier to find than really good performances.
Please respond by e-mail if possible.
Many thanks in advance !
Regards,
Sture
Paul Goodman
>Can one (or more) of you nice, musically well educated people advise
Sture,
A recording that I like is with the London Philharmonic Orchestra,
Zubin Mehta conducting. It is an older recording with Joan Sutherland
and Luciano Pavarotti in the lead roles.
- Paul
Sami Mitra
>
>A recording that I like is with the London Philharmonic Orchestra,
>Zubin Mehta conducting. It is an older recording with Joan Sutherland
>and Luciano Pavarotti in the lead roles.
>
I do recommend this recording strongly too. However, it
is "older" in only a relative sense, in that it is pre-digital.
The analog sound on this disc is simply ravishing, and
this is one example that goes to show how much folks
who pass by recordings because they are not recorded
digitally can be giving up! (Besides, because it is
about 20 years old, you get Pavarotti at his unhamming
best, and Sutherland and Caballe are in superb voice.
Also, this is a testimony to Mehta's capability in his
halcyon days, as is his Il Trovatore from this period.)
Note, also, that the Nilsson/Corelli/Scotto/Molinar-Pradelli
recording, another wondorous Turandot, is also in decent
sound (not like the former though) and is another recording
to consider without worrying about too-dated sound. It
came out some years before the one Paul mentions.
As an interesting collectible on the side one
might want to consider the Eva Turner/Barbirolli/friends(?)
excerpts from the Coronation Year at Covent Garden,
with the second half of the disc reprising the first
(performences from different nights). Since this is
from 1936(7?) don't expect decent sound! But the
early flush of Turandot comes through wonderfully.
Sami Mitra
Jon Conrad
>Can one (or more) of you nice, musically well educated people advise me on a
>good recording of Puccinis Turandot ?
>When I say good recording I mean one with good performances by the musicians
>and singers.
Ahem...surely you don't mean to imply that "the musicians" do not
include the singers?? :-)
*The* Turandot and Calaf of the recent past were Birgit Nilsson and
Franco Corelli. They recorded it together for EMI, with
Molinari-Pradelli conducting. But the orchestra is only ok, and the
chorus rather less than that (this is true of any of the recordings that
use Rome Opera, I'm afraid). And since so much of the fun of this opera
is in the nifty orchestral and choral writing, that's a real lack.
So my recommendation coincides with the other one I've seen posted: the
Decca/London recording conducted by Mehta, with the London Philharmonic
Orch., the John Aldiss Choir, and a cast that was at least partially new
to their roles, but all highly effective on the recording: Joan
Sutherland (Turandot -- one of her best recordings, amazingly enough),
Montserrat Caballe (Liu), Luciano Pavarotti (Calaf), Nicolai Ghiaurov
(Timur), Peter Pears (Emperor), Tom Krause (Ping). 20 years after it
first came out, I still get a kick out of hearing it; it really does a
job and packs a wallop. It may be the best recorded of all too.
Jon Alan Conrad