|
|
Amazon.com's Price: $48.98 Prices subject to change.Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: Audio CDEAN: 0685738110827 Format: Import Label: Warner Music France Manufacturer: Warner Music France Number Of Discs: 2 Publisher: Warner Music France Release Date: November 07, 2000 Studio: Warner Music France Editorial Review: Amazon.com: Thanks to his omnivorous curiosity, conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt has revived an authentic masterpiece. Several opera composers--Lully, Handel, and Gluck--had already availed themselves of the amorous and stormy adventures of the knight Rinaldo and the enchantress Armida, drawn from Tasso's Jerusalem Liberated. Composed in 1784, Haydn's Armida was his the final opera he wrote for his patron Prince Esterházy, but it was also the composer's debut opera seria. Even so--and just like Mozart--Haydn knew how to free himself from the rigid and monotonous alternation of aria and recitative that customarily governed this genre. Thus the final act, which unfolds in an enchanted forest, offers us a half-hour of nearly uninterrupted music, even prefiguring the romantic shape of things to come in the 19th century. This recording was made from a concert performance in June 2000 in Vienna's sumptuous Musikverein under the blazing baton of Harnoncourt. The cast is impeccable--including Christoph Prégardien and Patricia Petibon and dominated by the stunning Cecilia Bartoli, who can swerve within a few bars from boiling anger to the most overwhelming amorous pleading. --Franck Erikson Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Music from an Earlier Cold WarFor five centuries, the confrontation between east-west "super powers" took place at the border between the Hapsburg dominions of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, a confrontation that had become a Cold War of bluffs and mockeries by the time of Haydn's only opera seria , Armida (1783). Both powers were well past their military prime and unable to realize their own weaknesses, but the psychology of age-old conflict surely informed the audience response to this portrayal of Rinaldo, the Christian ... Read More Rating: - Valuable ContributionJoseph Haydn (1732 - 1809): Armida. Dramma Eroico in Tre Atti. Performed by: Cecilia Bartoli (Armida); Christopher Prégardien (Rinaldo); Patricia Petibon (Zelmira); Oliver Widmer (Idreno); Scot Weir (Ubaldo); Markus Schäfer (Clotarco); Concentus Musicus Wien [Vienna], dir. Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Recorded live at the Vienna "Musikverein" in June 2000 by Martin Sauer and Michael Brammann. Published in 2000 by Warner on the Teldec Das Alte Werk label as 8573-81108-2. Total playing time: approx. 129 minutes. ... Read More Rating:  - Haydn is no Mozart when writing operaHaydn, who reaches celestial heights in his string quartets and symphonies, is average in his opera writing, at least, compared with Mozart. The sound of this recording is lovely and Bartoli with her vocal gymnastics is always a joy to listen to. But, we are firmly on terra firma here - no soaring to the heavens. I have struggled to even get to the end of these CDs. Rating:  - Sexy!I'm not going to rave about Bartoli, we all know what she can do with what approaches sfogato mezzo with an extention to beat the band. And for those of you who care, yes, Marilyn Horne actually did say, "Honey! It's a pretty little voice" to Chris Purdy of WOSU/Columbus. I love Horne, but Bartoli is simply a mezzo of a different color. And so I'm going to rave about Pregardien, which is where the sexy part comes in. This gentleman is absolutely fabulous with a rich, well-placed and resonant tenor ... Read More Rating: - Sometimes aggressive leadershipThis recording stunned me. Cecilia Bartoli can sing softly and less affected as this recording shows one. All the performers are up to their tasks and they show no fear of Harnoncourt's sometimes aggressive leadership and the Concentus Musicus Wien sounds perfect. Teldec's recording quality is top notch. |
