"I love Verdi's Forza. It's big and dramatic. The plot is quite absurd, but then it's about the force of destiny (aka coincidence meets really bad luck). It's not called 'the force of character,' or 'the force of logic,' eh?
The big news on this disk is not just the idiomatic performances of Caniglia, Stignani and Pasero--you can hear those on other disks.
It's the CEDAR sound system remastering that's the real star here.
I've heard lots of performances from this period, and this is one of the finest masterings around.
Somehow the engineers managed to create a more spacious soundscape in a recording that, in other versions, commentators call "boxy."
The orchestra-only passages are tremendous--clear, separated. When the voices come in, it's true that the voices are forward and the orchestra retreats to the background. But that probably comes from the original recording techniques, not from a failure of the remastering engineers.
So yes, yes, yes get this performance. But seriously, seriously consider buying this remastering. You won't believe it's from a 1941 Italian recording."