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PUCCINI: TOSCA (2 LPs; London). Birgit Nilsson's voice is purest gold, and it takes men of equal quality to sing against her. She has found ideal antagonists in this recording: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Tosca's brutally intelligent tormentor and Franco Corelli as her devoted lover are almost overwhelming in their dynamic and masculine artistry. Yet Birgit summons all the fire in her Swedish soul and emulates, if not exactly incarnates, the Latin passions of Tosca, daring anyone to typecast her as merely a Wagnerian soprano. With Conductor Lorin Maazel whipping his orchestra along in unrelenting fury...
ALBAN BERG: WOZZECK (2 LPs; CBS Masterworks). To many students of music, Berg's masterpiece represents an enduring statement about human nature and musical revolution. To others, it is nothing but a stumble through an atonal desert. This recording will be appreciated by Berg's admirers, for Pierre Boulez's conducting is impeccable, and so is the courage of Walter Berry, who convincingly sings his way to murder and death through the cactus-like orchestration...
PUCCINI: LA RONDINE (2 LPs; RCA Victor). Magda, Puccini's sad "swallow," is close kin to Verdi's Violetta, the "wayward one." Puccini's little courtesan also leads a gay, cynical life in Paris until she meets her one true love, with whom she flees to the peace of a country villa. Then, to the strains of a rending melody, she leaves her lover when she realizes that her scarlet past would shock his proper parents. Anna Moffo illuminates the most lyrical and substantial elements in her poignant role, and her characterization is nicely...
VERDI: UN BALLO IN MASCHERA (RCA Victor: 3 LPs). Masked Ball's libretto is strictly crackplot, but Verdi's tunes justify the onstage bewilderment. The opera has an ominous history: the day Verdi brought his score to Naples, assassins tried to murder Napoleon III. Frightened Bourbon censors forced the composer to switch the locale of his rather gloomy tale (about the assassination of Sweden's 18th century King Gustav III) to exotic Massachusetts and to dramatize instead the assassination of the "Governor of Boston." Conducted appropriately by Boston's Erich Leinsdorf, this version stars the lush...
MONTEVERDI: L'INCORONAZIONE Dl POPPEA (Cambridge; 4 LPs). Monteverdi, the true father of opera, composed Popped in 1642, when the art was still in its infancy. This is the first complete recording of his lusty, utterly amoral libretto and gentle music. Yet the results probably fall short of Monteverdi's intentions. In his day, singers, not composers or conductors, were kings; and no modern revival can ever recapture their singular contributions to a performance. For instance, two major roles in Poppea, scored for castrato voices, are sung in this recording by a countertenor and tenor, who provide earnest...