Search - Gioachino Rossini, Riccardo Chailly, Sonia Ganassi :: Rossini: Stabat Mater

The Stabat Mater is full of Rossini's best late-style writing, with plenty of virtuoso vocal lines, great tunes, and exciting choruses. This new CD takes a decidedly Romantic view of the work (as Chailly often does with Rossini), using a large orchestra and chorus and lots of grandly operatic gestures, and the singers are big-voiced and extroverted. The Dutch players and singers are superbly schooled and make joyful, full sounds, and there's never a dull moment under Chailly. The soloists please in different degrees: Barbara Frittoli is an exciting singer, and her "Inflammatus" is, indeed, flaming, with big high Cs, but her vibrato is just on the cusp of getting in the way of the music. Sonia Ganassi is milkily smooth in the mezzo part and the two women meld well. Pertusi's bass-baritone is the right weight for the music and while Giuseppe Sabbatini's voice may not be as beautiful as Pavarotti's or, heaven forbid, Björling's, he gets through the "Cujus animam" gloriously. Some may prefer Chung's version on DG (with Organasova and Bartoli) or Kertesz's on Decca (peak Pavarotti), but in all, this is a very worthwhile release. --Robert Levine