Search - Vincenzo Bellini, Lorin Maazel, Rome RAI Orchestra :: Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi

"This live performance...is of particular interest to fans of mezzo Fiorenza Cossotto, here caught early in her career, before the voice had grown into the dramatic, Verdian instrument we're familiar with. She sings Romeo well, with a fine, boyish tone. Otherwise unknown soprano Antonietta Pastori is a lovely Giulietta, singing with small, well-focused, pretty tone. Similarly not-famous Renato Gavarini is a very good Tebaldo ? rhythmically accurate and exhibiting a good-sized, tonally pleasant tenor..its interesting to note what fine singers were floating around Italy in the 1950s; today they might be stars." -ROBERT LEVINE, CLASSICSTODAY Bellini?s opera version of the Romeo and Juliet story is one of his finest early works, the first to unequivocally display his mature style. It had a fully successful early run, although it has suffered much neglect in subsequent years, in modern times mostly because the part of Romeo is written for a mezzo-soprano. The opera is now customarily given in the original voice ranges, and the present recording is of one of the first modern performances to do so. Live performance, Rome, October 23, 1958.