Search - Richard [1] Strauss, Beverly Wolff, Franco Ventriglia :: Richard Strauss: Salome

A sexy live performance of Caballe as Salome !

Viva Caballe | 01/02/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a live salome to own.Montserrat Caballe gives us a salome here great enough to rival her own studio recording.Caballe sounds very sexy here,and at times outright orgasmic.Her beautiful voice is thrilling as salome,soaring through strauss's hedonistic music,like a goddess.She is able to tap reserves of power at all the climatic moments,and she is totally immersed in her character at this performance.She reveles in this music,revealing a very sexy and almost pagan glee,in her phrasing of the words and her shaping of the vocal line.The sound is really decent,and the conducting at key moments is electrifying.This is a classic live opera that any Caballe and Salome fan would delight in."

Murky mono sound sabotages a great performance from Mehta an

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 04/06/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The previous reviewer is enthusiastic but off base about what this radio broadcast is actually like. It dates from 1971 and features Caballe in her prime, with Zubin Mehta in his, conducting the Rome Radio Orchestra as if they wre the Vienna Phil. The sound, however, is murky AM radio mono, which captures the voices serviceably at times but blurs the orchestra almost beyond recognition. Balances are dreadful.



Therefore, despite Mehta's expert and vital leadership -- he has always been good in Strauss -- and Caballe's shimmering vocal beauties, this Opera d'Oro production is pretty marginal, especially when you consider that they have released a masterful alternative with Leonie Rysanek at the same bargain price. I will say, however, that the entire cast here is in great form, and sparks fly. Resorting to Caballe's RCA studio vrsion is the most prudent choice, even though Leinsdorf's stiff-necked conducting pales beside the young Mehta's.





For anyone who's still tempted, here's a cast list:

Montserrat Caballe (Soprano - Salome)

Siegmund Nimsgern (Bass - Jokanaan)

Beverly Wolff (Mezzo Soprano - Herodias)

Wieslaw Ochman (Tenor - Narraboth)

Karlheinz Thiemann (Tenor - Herod)

Margarita Lilowa (Alto - Page)

Robert Amis El Hage (Tenor - 1st Jew)

Gianfranco Manganotti (Tenor - 2nd Jew)

Franco Ventriglia (Bass - 1st Soldier)

Plinio Clabassi (Bass - 2nd Soldier)



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