Search - Giuseppe Verdi, Edward Downes, Royal Opera House Covent Garden Orchestra :: Un Ballo in Maschera

Avoid this Rip-Off

Michael J. Begley | Baltimore, MD USA | 05/30/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Sonically, this is a piece of garbage. The fancy price and the fancy packaging get you a recording that was made by someone who recorded this on a portable tape recorder in what is, apparently, a section of the theatre set aside for those suffering from lung disease. Wow and flutter galore, missing sections of music, the lead soprano (Shuard) sounds like a screaming shrew, probably because her big voice overloaded the saturation point of the tape. Vickers is fabulous, and Resnik is very good; Bastianini sounds gorgeous - and bored. The conductor barely holds the orchestra and pit together. A shameful release from a major opera house. But I know no other recording of Vickers in the role. But unless you are a devoted fan of the tenor, there are at least a dozen better Ballos, most less expensive than this."

WOW! Vickers is amazing!!!

H. Van Nostrand | Laguna Niguel, CA United States | 08/30/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Wow! Vickers is amazing. I have never heard this role sung so masculine. Vickers is huge and so lithe. He is like Bergonzi on steroids... And the guy who said the sound is awful obviously doesn't listen to pirated recordings. This is perfectly acceptable 60's pirate sound. The rest of the cast is good but Vickers is Exceptional... I've never heard a Gustavo like him. Magnificent."

The Young Vickers in Full Flight

Shaun Greenleaf | San Francisco | 08/27/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The sound: adequate, with extraneous audience noise, and yes, a few brief sections of the music missing. True. But nowhere else is Vickers magisterial Gustavo captured, and that makes the minor imperfections of this perfectly listenable release simply unimportant. Although Vickers' mature repertoire is well captured on studio and live recordings, the Italian roles he later abandoned for a handful of Wagner heroes and a few other heroic tenor parts (Otello, Samson, Peter Grimes) can barely be glimpsed--most notably on the brilliant Italian aria recital under Serafin, recorded in 1960, and the Solti Aida set made around the same time. Nobody would--or should--purchase this as their only, or first, recording of Ballo, an opera notably well-served on recordings. This is for the cognoscenti. And for those collectors, this set is an essential document of one of the post-war period's most important singers, the great Jon Vickers, supported by an excellent cast in an exciting and idiomatic performance. The '57 Covent garden Trojans performance under Kubelik has just become available too--another must-have. If Covent Garden has more, I offer fervent prayers that they will release all they can without worrying about the quibbles of "audiophiles". Some people no doubt complain that the Parthenon is looking a bit shabby these days."