Word: abbado
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Schumann: Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 (Pianist Lazar Berman, Columbia/Melodiya). Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 (Pianist Lazar Berman, London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado conductor, Columbia). Liszt: Annees de Pelerinage (Pianist Lazar Berman, Deutsche Grammophon; 3 LPs). More product, to borrow the record-company jargon, from the pianist who burst out of Russia two years ago and has been a one-man industry ever since. The less said about Berman's Schumann the better: he simply does not feel the music. No problems with the Rachmaninoff. Here is the fabled Berman technique operating with all its power, speed and subtlety...
...considered one of its best new productions. Typically, the company offered a cast of Italian and non-Italian singers, notably Italy's Piero Cappuccilli as Macbeth, the U.S.'s Shirley Verrett as Lady Macbeth and Bulgaria's Nicolai Ghiaurov as Banquo. On the podium was Claudio Abbado, the company's former music director who, at 43, is a conductor of international stature. The production was conceived and staged by Italy's Giorgio Strehler (see box). For Strehler, it was one of three moments in the spotlight. His staging of Figaro was the first...
...Abbado's conducting was a deft blend of energy, delicacy and a Toscanini-like instinct for the dramatic jugular. Even better, perhaps, was his mercurial handling two nights later of Rossini's La Cenerentola (Cinderella). This work is chamber music for the opera house and easily the high point of the composer's comic style. Abbado has that style in his bones...
...began working in the theater while in his early twenties. After World War II he settled in Milan and, at 26, was invited by La Scala to stage La Traviata. Since then he has directed several operas there. Collaborating with Conductor Claudio Abbado has been satisfying, in part because both men thrive on lengthy discussion and painstaking rehearsal. Speaking of their Boccanegra production, Strehler comments: "Directing the opera is like writing an essay on it -an effort to unlock the essence...
...many an opera buff the music is all well and good, but what really counts is the thrill of encountering a glamorous big-name conductor-such as Paris' Sir Georg Solti (who will conduct Le Nozze di Figaro and Otello) or La Scala's dashing Claudio Abbado (Macbeth, La Cenerentola, Simon Boccanegra). Or being present when an important artist breaks through into international stardom-as, say, Paris' dulcet-voiced soprano Margaret Price (the Countess in Figaro, Desdemona in Otello) may well do this time. Before La Scala and Paris wind up their two-week stands (Paris will...