Verdi - Aida / Caballé · Domingo · Cossotto · Ghiaurov · Cappuccilli · Roni · NPO · Muti [Box set] [Original recording remastered]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
Behind the pyramids and the elephants, the long lines of prisoners of war and of slaves carrying booty, the choral shouts of "Glory to Egypt," and the splendid brass sounding the Triumphal March, Aida is the story of a love triangle: Aida, an Ethiopian princess who has become a slave in Egypt; Amneris, an Egyptian princess; and Radamès, the Egyptian general they both love (Aida secretly). There are ironies and conflicts: How can she love a man who is the enemy of her country, but who says he has fought and conquered for the sake of her love? It is suitable only for the biggest opera houses and therefore demands voices capable of great power as well as emotional expressiveness. Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, and Fiorenza Cossotto provide such voices, and Ricardo Muti conducts with a sense of drama and dynastic glory. --Joe McLellan

Verdi - Aida / Caballé · Domingo · Cossotto · Ghiaurov · Cappuccilli · Roni · NPO · Muti, Music, Giuseppe Verdi, Riccardo Muti, Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Choir of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Fiorenza Cossotto, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Piero Cappuccilli, Luigi Roni, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Italian Romantic Opera, Opera, Opera / Operetta / Oratorio

Verdi - Aida / Caballé · Domingo · Cossotto · Ghiaurov · Cappuccilli · Roni · NPO · Muti
Average customer rating:

Marvelous Aida!

Is there any Aida without pluses and minuses?

The most intimate of stories amidst spectacle sing with musical splendor!

HYPERBOLICAL AND GRANDIOSE

JUSTIFIES ITS FAME! Powerful, beautiful and exciting!

Verdi - Aida / Caballé · Domingo · Cossotto · Ghiaurov · Cappuccilli · Roni · NPO · Muti
Giuseppe Verdi , Riccardo Muti , Montserrat Caballe , Placido Domingo , New Philharmonia Orchestra , Choir of the Royal Opera House Covent Ga , Fiorenza Cossotto , Nicolai Ghiaurov , Piero Cappuccilli , and Luigi Roni
Manufacturer: EMI Classics
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Wagner: Lohengrin

ASIN: B00005NW0C
Release Date: 2001-09-11

Tracks:

Prld
Act 1, Scene 1: Si, Corre Voce Che L'Etiope Ardisca
Act 1, Scene 1: Se Quel Guerrier Io Fossi!
Act 1, Scene 1: Celeste Aida
Act 1, Scene 1: Quale Insolita Gioia Nel Tuo Sguardo!
Act 1, Scene 1: Vieni, O Diletta, Appressati
Act 1, Scene 1: Alta Cagion V'aduna
Act 1, Scene 1: Su! De Nilo Al Sacro Lido
Act 1, Scene 1: Ritorna Vincitor!
Act 1, Scene 1: I Sacri Nomi Di Padre, D'amante
Act 1, Scene 2: Possente, Possente Ftha
Act 1, Scene 2: Danza Sacra Delle Sacerdotesse
Act 1, Scene 2: Mortal, Diletto Ai Numi
Act 1, Scene 2: Nume, Custode E Vindice

Tracks:

Act 2, Scene 1: Chi Mai Fra Gl'Inni E I Plausi
Act 2, Scene 1: Danza Degli Schiavi Mori
Act 2, Scene 1: Vieni, Sul Crin Ti Piovano
Act 2, Scene 1: Fu La Sorte Dell'armi A' Tuoi Funesta
Act 2, Scene 1: Ebben, Qual Nuovo Fremito T'Assal, Gentile Aida?
Act 2, Scene 1: Pieta Ti Prenda Del Mio Dolor
Act 2, Scene 1: Su! Del Nilo Al Sacro Lido
Act 2, Scene 2: Gloria All'Egitto, Ad Iside
Act 2, Scene 2: Marcia Trionfale
Act 2, Scene 2: Ballabile
Act 2, Scene 2: Vieni, O Guerriero Vindice
Act 2, Scene 2: Salvator Della Patria
Act 2, Scene 2: Che Veggo! Egli? Mio Padre!
Act 2, Scene 2: Ma Tu, Re, Tu Signore Possente
Act 2, Scene 2: Il Dolor Che In Quel Volto Favella
Act 2, Scene 2: O Re, Pei Sacri Numi
Act 2, Scene 2: Gloria All'Egitto, Ad Iside

Tracks:

Act 3: O Tu Che Sei D'Osiride
Act 3: Vieni D'Iside Al Tempio
Act 3: Qui Radames Verra!
Act 3: O Patria Mia
Act 3: Ciel! Mio Padre!
Act 3: In Armi Ora Si Desta Il Popol Nostro
Act 3: Padre, A Costoro Schiava Non Sono
Act 3: Pur Ti Riveggo, Mia Dolce Aida
Act 3: Nel Fiero Anelito Di Nuova Guerra
Act 3: Fuggiam Gli Ardori Inospiti... La, Tra Foreste Vergini
Act 3: Aida!... Tu Non M'Ami
Act 3: Ma, Dimmi: Per Quale Via
Act 3: Traditor!... La Mia Rival!
Act 4, Scene 1: L'Aborrita Rivale A Me Sfuggia
Act 4, Scene 1: Gia I Sacerdoti Adunansi
Act 4, Scene 1: No, Vive Aida!... Vive!
Act 4, Scene 1: Ohime! Morir Mi Sento!
Act 4, Scene 1: Spirto Del Nume, Sovra Noi Discendi!
Act 4, Scene 1: Radames, Radames, Radames
Act 4, Scene 1: A Lui Vivo, La Tomba!
Act 4, Scene 2: La Fatal Pietra Sovra Me Si Chiuse
Act 4, Scene 2: Presago Il Core Della Tua Condanna
Act 4, Scene 2: Vedi? Di Morte L'Angelo
Act 4, Scene 2: O Terra, Addio

Amazon.com essential recording

Behind the pyramids and the elephants, the long lines of prisoners of war and of slaves carrying booty, the choral shouts of "Glory to Egypt," and the splendid brass sounding the Triumphal March, Aida is the story of a love triangle: Aida, an Ethiopian princess who has become a slave in Egypt; Amneris, an Egyptian princess; and Radamès, the Egyptian general they both love (Aida secretly). There are ironies and conflicts: How can she love a man who is the enemy of her country, but who says he has fought and conquered for the sake of her love? It is suitable only for the biggest opera houses and therefore demands voices capable of great power as well as emotional expressiveness. Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, and Fiorenza Cossotto provide such voices, and Ricardo Muti conducts with a sense of drama and dynastic glory. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews:

Marvelous Aida!.......2007-02-27

I love Aida. I own so many recordings that I've lost count as to how many I have in my library. In many ways, I think this is one of Verdi's most beautiful and sophisticated scores. Several conductors have handled (and butchered) the score, yet this recording shows how Verdi should really be sung and conducted. Riccardo Muti is perhaps the best Verdi conductor, even better than Toscanini (but not Serafin). His Verdi collection from EMI shows his talent from making the myriad of colors from Verdi's score emerge in such a way that would captivate the listener. His chosen tempi and dynamics are also very theatrical. The magic he performs with the orchestra brings out the several transparencies in Aida, and for this reason I would choose his conducting over that of Karajan's or Solti's. Granted, Montserrat Caballe is not a very visually appealing Aida, but her voice is magnificent--seamless from top to bottom, producing creamy tone wherever necessary. She isn't a true Aida. For that, you must go to Renata Tebaldi. However, Caballe manipulates her voice so that you would think that she was made for Aida. Placido Domingo sings with golden tone and committment throughout this performance. I think that this is a reference performance for Radames after Bergonzi's magnificent performance with Karajan. I'm sorry, but I never enjoyed Corelli's performance under Mehta. I thought he was past his prime there, and his lack of legato makes the private introspective moments sound overtly loud. His high notes are thrilling though. Piero Cappuccilli, one of the greatest Verdi baritones of the last century, sang an authoritative and brooding Amonasro. As wonderful as Gobbi's performance with Callas is, I think Cappuccilli's voice suited Amonasro better. Ghiaurov is a very looming Ramfis.

However, the main reason for me to purchase this set is for the high-octane performance of Amneris given by Fiorenza Cossotto. This brilliant mezzo soprano, whose career is suprisingly still ongoing, has a voice that was tailored to the temperaments of the Verdi mezzo roles. I think that while Giulietta Simionato may have had a warmer timbre, Cossotto inhabited the psychologies of her characters better. I have never heard a more demented Azucena from any other singer, and my recordings of her Eboli show a singer whose grace and elan are unequalled, even by the great Simionato. Her Adalgisa shows a secure instrument that is fluent in coloratura and brilliant in the top registers. Her Santuzza literally puts several sopranos into shame. Her Leonore from Donizetti's La Favorita is a reference performance, equipped with all the coloratura and very large, brilliant high notes. Her Dalila is simply seductive and powerful. Her Principessa di Boullion is menacing, and her Carmen is rightfully seductive. Her recorded Preziosilla on Levine's Forza is perhaps the most accurate and fun interpretation of the gypsy part I've ever heard. Her Lady Macbeth is fierce, and her Rosina is no pushover. Her Amneris, a role which she essayed frequently in many of the world's great theaters, is perhaps the definitive interpretation of the role. Neither Simionato or Barbieri could touch Fiorenza in the thrilling chest notes and the regal interpretation she gave the role. For her, and of course for the cast and Muti, should you buy this set. While some may find Tebaldi's Aida definitive, no one, in my opinion, can skirt around Cossotto's magnificent Amneris. Buy this Aida. It is an essential for any collection.

Is there any Aida without pluses and minuses?.......2006-06-01

It's peculiar that no single performance of Aida on records has ever attained consensus as 'the one', the closest candidate being the RCA-Decca performance with Leontyne Price and Jon Vickers. After decades of listening to most of the major contenders, here's how I would size them up.

Best conducting: Karajan on both his readings, the first for Decca in the early Sixties, the second for EMI in 1980. He has the glorious Vienna Phil. on both--for richness, depth, drama, and splendor nothing equals them. Karrajan himself provides a continuous outpouring of insights into Verdi's deceptively simple score.

Best Aida: For many, Leontyne Price will always be defined by this role, her signature for two decades and perfectly suited to her voice, with its dusky low range and incredible floated high notes. She sounds much fresher in her first RCA recording with Solti than in the remake with Leinsdorf. For other listeners there is no replacement for Callas and her intense involvement with the role, while Tebadi stands out for sheer lusciousness of voice.

Best Rhadames: Bjorling really didn't have the heft to sing this role onstage, but pairing Milanov in a classic RCA mono recording he sounds, as always, ravishing in style and tone. Vickers attacks the role with incredible intensity but is singularly un-Italian despite his glorious, heroic volume of sound. Among stylish tenors with smaller voices, Bergonzi under Karajan, paired with Tebaldi, wins high critical praise. Domingo, for all his virtues, always seems to come in second best.

Let's say we stop there; it's easy to see why the Price-Vickers-Solti set has such a strong following, and also the Tebaldi-Bergonzi-Karajan set. But complaints have always arisen about both, that Vickers has no Italian style and Solti conducts with brazen vulgarity. In the other set, the grouse is that Tebaldi wasn't in best voice and sounds too imperious, while Bergonzi, for all his polish, isn't a viscerally exciting Rhadames.

This carping opened the way for the 70's EMI set with Caballe and Domingo in their vocal prime. Muti conducts skilfully, moving the drama along quickly and with a refreshing lack of overdone sentimentality. Caballe isn't a spinto-dramatic soprano as called for, but she sings for the microphone with wonderful nuance and pathos (I find her less droopy than she often was). Domingo exhibits perfect tone and style, but his reading is a bit callow compared ot what he would achieve later in his career. In other words, there's no true greatness in any part but the whole hangs together nicely. It must be noted, though, that the bland Capuccilli as Amonasro ruins the drama of the Nile scene.

My review, such as it is, stops here, since other reviewers listed below have detailed the specifics of this recording. But I'd like to offer some notes about all the Aidas I've encountered over the years.

--Aida was Birgit Nilsson's best Italian role, and in her EMI recording she softens her steely tone and makes quite a nice success for herself. She is partnered with Corelli, whose vulgar bawling makes him unlistenable to my ears, but if you admire him, this performance led by a young Zubin Mehta ranks with the Caballe-Domingo one.

--Callas must be listened to on her own, or with Gobbi when he enters as her father in Act 3. Their Nile scene is incomparable, not to be missed. Too bad it's ruined by the entrance of the horribly stentorian, unstylish Richard Tucker, a huge blemish on this recording.

--Abbado should have come through with Aida from La Scala when he was musical director there, but his reading for DG is cautious and bland (the same goes for a live performance on Opera d'Oro with Arroyo and Domingo--they aren't great, either, though very good).

--Aidas who can't really manage the part include Katia Ricciarelli for Abbado and Freni for Karajan in his EMI remake (she's wildly overparted but moving and artistic nonetheless). Aprile Millo for Levine from the Met (Sony) can sing the notes but has nothing interesting to tell us. Heresy to say, but I feel the same way about the revered Zinka Milanov with Bjorling on RCA.

--A Rhadames who can't really sing the part is Carreras under Karajan, but he gives his all trying. Pavarotti sang the role both on stage and on disc (with an unknown and forgettable Aida), but his lyric tenor isn't right. Having said that, I was surprised at how enjoyable his Decca performance is. Domingo has sung the role for Muti, Leinsdorf, Abbado, and Levine. All are very good; probably the best is with Leinsdorf, a shame since the conducting is prosaic and the bloom was off Price's voice by then.

--Uninspired condcuting honors go to Leinsdorf, but I get little out of Levine's hectic, impesonal work on Sony, and the sainted Tulio Serafin on the Callas set is authentic but rather workaday. When it comes down to it, Solti for all his vulgarisms threw himself into his preformance, while Karajan is the greatest maestro to take on the opera, pace the fans of Toscanini, whose fiery reading isn't to my taste, even if it didn't have a second-rate cast and boxy, wooden sonics.

The most intimate of stories amidst spectacle sing with musical splendor!.......2005-11-11

What a cast? The only soprano if memory serves me that equals Caballe's beautify and dramatic offering is Zinka Milanov on the RCA/BMG label. As good as Barbieri is on that recoding Cossotto is the Amneris....she owned this role along with Azucena and la favorita...Domingo is dramatic and beautful in tone as always. Cappuccilli is also a worthy part of this great quartet. There are other great Aida's but this is special along with the Milnov, Barbieri recording! Both belong on your CD shelf along with Leontyne Price in one of her great Aida recordings

HYPERBOLICAL AND GRANDIOSE.......2003-09-16

That was how Shaw characterised Verdi, bracketing him with Victor Hugo. Shaw also sensed a falling-off in spontaneity in Aida, its place being taken by increasing sophistication. I doubt if he would have had such reservations if he had heard this tremendous performance, one of the most thrilling you will ever hear. To get it going, Domingo's Celeste Aida is, well, celestial, and he is in superb voice throughout. Caballe sings like an angel from paradise. I remember her interviewed on TV by Bernard Levin years ago, and she almost winced as she said 'For Verdi you need so much VOICE'. There is no doubt about it, Verdi's demands on the human voice are inhuman, and I was lost in admiration at the entire cast and their majestic response to the whole wonderful but monstrous challenge set to them. At least one thing is simple in Aida and that is the plot-line, which makes a nice change compared with, say, Trovatore, and the characters, strongly drawn though they are both by Ghislanzoni and the composer, are not complex like Rigoletto or Iago.

I suspect that singers who can surmount the musical challenge as triumphantly as these do just find that they are acting superbly as well. The conducting helps just a little of course. Verdi's orchestral conception has now advanced beyond the 'big guitar' stage and the sumptuous sound Muti obtains and the strong forward thrust of his tempi creats an enthralling sense of grandeur. I had to listen to this Aida without interruption, just carried along by the sheer power of it. Loss of spontaneity? -- not a bit of it. The Requiem was still to come, and nobody has ever found any loss of spontaneity in that. For all the heartbreaking tenderness and pathos the final impression left is of an overpowering drama.

JUSTIFIES ITS FAME! Powerful, beautiful and exciting!.......2003-02-27

Having listened to most of the famous Aida recordings, I've concluded that this comes closest to the ideal Aida performance in studio. All the singers on this set were at their best in their early '70s when this set was recorded. Their rich, powerful, secure voices and temperament are perfect for the roles.

Although I prefer Caballe in bel canto, as Aida she is superb, full of lyricism. Moreover, Caballe gives here one of her most dramatic studio performances. She doesn't have young Tebaldi's heavenly spinto sound but Montserrat's golden tone is almost equally affective. Notice Caballe's amazing vocal technique; the endless breath, the even registers and the seamless phrasing.

Domingo sings one of his most famous roles. He and Caballe have similar creamy voices and this makes the Aida-Radames duets very successful. He repeated the role in studio many times later but his partnership with Caballe produced the best results. Cossotto, Cappuccilli and Ghiaurov are flawless and remain my favourite Amneris, Amonastro and Ramfis. Muti conducts with grandness and lyricism and creates a masterful AIDA.

Even though this is THE BEST ALL-AROUND AIDA, other sopranos have also given great performances. Arroyo, Milanov, Price and Tebaldi are all superb (each in their own way). More recently, Millo has also successfully performed the title role.

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