Giacomo Puccini Mstislav Rostropovich Orchestre National de France

Breathtaking!

Impostazione | New York City Area | 06/16/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the most beautiful tenor voices ever, Bonisolli brings to us a warm and rich tone and a calm and languid passion in Mario Cavaradossi. His legato is pristine and no one ever sang "e lucevan le stelle" with such poise and limpidity of line. Amazing! Vishnevskaya gives her all. How wonderful to turn on a soprano who sliced the nonsense and got the heart of Tosca. Her voice was no longer at its zenith, but who cares. She gave everything including a stimulating and poetic high Bflat in Vissi D'arte that surely reached God.

Manuguerra's voice is beautiful and then some. The conducting is reflective and imaginative. The flaw is that sometimes the microphones are too close in one phrase and the next too far. Or one singer is close and another is far back. These are small things to get over but as always DG brings in quality sound.

A moving experience. How I'd like to have seen one like it!"

Intense, Passionate, This AT LAST IS THE TOSCA OF MY DREAMS

Impostazione | 01/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Puccini's Tosca is the most performed, most thrilling opera in any opera company. The soprano who can do justice to the role has secured her place in operatic stardom. Sopranos in the role of Tosca have their own devotees but it's never a bad idea to try them all out. And I have. Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Birgit Nilsson, Leontyne Price, Carol Vaness, Catherine Malfitano, Katia Ricciarelli, Mirella Freni and Angela Gheorghiu. My apologies to all these glorious sopranos who in their own unique fashion have made great Toscas. But Russian diva Galina Vishnevskaya breathed so much life into the role it' simply amazing. While she has the distinct Slavic bite in her voice and the wobbly high register(so did Callas) and she is not as lyrically relaxed as Tebaldi or Price, she is passionate. She fully characterizes her jealous nature and her fierceness. There are tender moments too, as is the glorious Vissi D'Arte. And for anyone who wants to be convinced that she may well be the greatest Tosca PLEASE LISTEN TO THE DEATH OF SCARPIA SCENE. POSSIBLY THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME ON RECORD. LISTEN TO HOW SHE MASTERFULLY SAYS THE LINES "ODI TO ANCORA ? GUARDAMI SON TOSCA OR SCARPIA!" (Do you hear me still ? It's Tosca, or Scarpia!" MUORI DANNATO MUORI MUORI..No one can say those lines like her! Furthermore, Franco Bonisolli is a terrific Cavaradossi and Manuguerra is a thunderous and wicked Scarpia. The sound is great, the conductor does a great job. Please check out this inexpensive but memorable Tosca recording."

Vocals seem pushed, but otherwise, a fine version

OperaOnline.us | Boston, MA | 07/31/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This 2-CD set is a 2005 release of a 1976 recording featuring Galina Vishnevskaya singing the role of Floria Tosca and Franco Bonisolli singing the role of Mario Cavaradossi. The orchestration is provided by the Orchestra National de France, Mstislav Rostropovich, conducting. This offering has a fine cast all around, and the music under the direction of Maestro Rostropovich is full and delivered with all the right emphasis you would expect in a score that calls for such emotional highs and lows. What is notable about this release is the sheer, almost overwhelming power of the performances of the principle singers. At times the vocalizations might seem too pushed, and you can hear those occasions in the singers' voices. Peter Conrad, in a blurb on the rear of the CD, calls Ms. Vishnevskaya's delivery "a desperate rapture". Still, what is important for Tosca is that those performing the roles feel involved, and this CD lacks nothing in that regard. There is good balance between the orchestration and the singers, and the CD quality is as you would expect on a digital remaster. The accompanying booklet contains a brief historical background and, along with the title of each song, an explanation of what is occurring during each passage."

More To Love About This Tosca

OperaOnline.us | 01/11/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Other than the sensational Galina Vishnevskaya as a passionate and dramatic Tosca, kudos to tenor Franco Bonisolli as Mario Cavaradossi and Manuel Manuguerra as Scarpia. Bonisolli is nothing like the tenors that have portrayed Mario as a rebel artist with passion. Bonisolli may not be a Mario Del Monaco, Franco Corelli, Luciano Pavoratti, Placido Domingo or Jose Carreras but he sings a very fine Cavaradossi. Truth is his Mario has the darkest voice I've ever heard. It's a mature singing voice (he must have been older in '76) and a very relaxed, very casual, bereft of intensity and melodrama. Manuguerra sings with a loud and dramatic voice, but he offers no subtlety nor particularly interesting angles to the character. He does not ooze sexuality the way that Samuel Ramey or Ruggero Raimondi do, not is he over the top like Tito Gobbi or Giuseppe Taddei. He is simply a straight-forward, no-nonsense Scarpia and it works on this recording for some reason.

About the sound: More than any other Tosca I've heard, this one has a very crisp, clear and fluid sound. The music flows, simply FLOWS naturally from one scene to another and there is very little bombast or pomp the way that say Karajan treats the score to the music or Zubin Mehta in the 74 RCA recording. There is no verisimo treatment here. It is lyrical in the appropriately romantic sequences such as Act 1's love duet with Mario and Tosca and the Final Love Duet in Act 3. The pacing is slower but not overly slow like in the 1991 Deutsche Grammophone recording with Mirella Freni under Sinopoli. Also, this is the only Tosca that uses the Chorus in the Cantata in Act 2 at the Palacio Farnese (which Scarpia and Mario are overhearing) in a way that is so close that one thinks it's in the room with them. There is no "off-stage" sound. It is beautifu and haunting to hear. Galina's Tosca was called a "Desperate Rapture". Her Slavic tone is dramatic enough to convince as a diva and a woman who risks all for love. Simply beautiful."

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