Search - Puccini, Cotrubas, New Phil Orch :: Puccini: Il Trittico

A DISAPPOINTING RE-RELEASE

Patrick J. Mack | santa monica, california | 09/01/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"
For those of you who already own this great recording and are hoping for a polished re-release I have bad news.

These recordings have not been re-mastered at all nor have any new queue points been added. Il Tabarro still only has one, only, at the very beginning and Angelica and Schicci both have only two each.

It's a shame that Sony chose to re-issue these recordings, unlike EMI and Decca which both re-mastered their old sets, without any kind of improvement over the originals. If you haven't heard these, because they have been out of circulation for a while, please, with my blessing, the casts and the conducting are nearly perfect. Worth it for any fan of Marilyn Horne especially. Her Zia Principessa is, to me, the best ever recorded. But it's ridiculous that Sony put this set out without even adding the traditional queue points...again. It's not like they don't know better. A real shame and a waste of money.

"

Finally!!

Juan Morales | 09/10/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have owned these three operas on vinyl forever. So you have no idea how glad I was when I saw that Sony was reissuing them on CD after being out of print for a long time. In my opinion this has to be the best recording of Il Trittico ever! Domingo is incredible as Luigi in "Il Tabarro". I don't recall anybody else doing the "Folle di Gelosia" aria as moving as he does. Scotto as Angelica is incredible and Marilyn Horne as the aunt is probably the best on record. Of course I might be biased because it just so happens that Scotto's recording of "Suor Angelica" was my introduction to opera so it has a special place in my heart. What can anybody say about Tito Gobbi as Schichi? Did he ever make a bad recording? Possibly the only weak link in this set is Ileana Cotrubas doing "O Mio Babbino Caro". The aria has been sung so often by so many sopranos (specially since it was used in the movie A Room With A View) that I have heard it done better. The only thing I did not like about these discs is the tracks. "Il Tabarro" is all on one track, "Suor Angelica" is on two tracks (track two starts at Senza Mamma) and "Gianni Schichi" is also on two tracks (track two starts at O Mio Babbino Caro). I can't imagine that the original issue of these recordings on CD were divided thus, so I can't understand why Sony released these this way. Needless to say (at this price) there is no libretto included, but the synopsis is quite good for those who are not familiar with these."