This week Classical reviewer Geoff Adams listens to a
recording of Puccini's Madame Butterfly featuring Angela
Gheorghiu and Jonas Kauffman, and violin concertos by Louis
Spohr.
> Giacomo Puccini: Madame
Butterfly. Angela Gheorghiu, Jonas Kauffman, etc. EMI
2CDs.
Bouquets for this studio recording of the full-length opera:
to its soloists, chorus and orchestra (from the Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Antonio Pappano.) It
is a lively performance all round, immaculately recorded.
For many, Gheorghiu must replace classic recordings by Callas
and Scotto as a preferred modern soprano Butterfly.
She endows the geisha role with great colour and vocal
texture; tenor Kauffman's husky Pinkerton is also excellent.
The packaging of this set is a two-CD "Limited Edition"
deluxe clamshell, with 152-page booklet, libretto (and
translations), synopsis, liner notes and photos.
Beautifully presented and made in the 150th anniversary of
Puccini's birth, EMI has done him honour. This is a future
classic.
Highlights: Gheorghiu outstanding in In bel di
vedremo and Butterfly's death scene.
> Louis Spohr: Violin Concertos 6,
8 and 11. Simone Lamsma, Sinfonia Finlandia Jyvaskyla.
Naxos CD.
Spohr (1784-1859) was a famous German violinist in his time
and he trained more than 200 violinists, composers and
conductors. He wrote many operas, nine symphonies, and much
chamber music.
His 18 violin concertos are delightful - lyrical and elegant,
including elements of Paganini's virtuosity.
They should be played less rarely in concerts; Lamsma, a
young Dutch soloist who has won many honours, displays the
outstanding beauty of three of them on this fine recording.
The works include many formidable passages - double stopping
and slurred staccatos played with ease.
Lamsma has a fast vibrato in the style of Maurice Hasson, one
of her mentors. Patrick Gallois conducts a sensitive
orchestral accompaniment.
Highlight: Gorgeous tone of 1709 Carlo Tononi violin
captured by the engineers.
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