|
|
|
|
|
Warner Classics, February 25, 2015 |
|
|
Antonio Pappano helms Aida in a monumental studio recording with Jonas Kaufmann
|
|
Over the past 20 years, studio recordings of large-scale operas have become
something of a rarity. Verdi’s Aida has a reputation as one of the grandest
operas in the repertoire, so this new Warner Classics recording,
authentically Italian in provenance and scheduled for release in October
2015, constitutes a major event.
Aida, conducted by Sir Antonio
Pappano, was recorded in February 2015 under studio conditions in the
Auditorium of Rome’s Parco della Musica – Sala Santa Cecilia. The superb
2,800-seat concert hall, designed by Renzo Piano, was able to accommodate
all the spatial effects – such as off-stage chorus and woodwind/brass banda
– that Verdi built into his score, and the producer, Stephen Johns evoked
towering temples and echoing tombs without recourse to electronic trickery.
On February 27th the Auditorium will be also the setting for a concert
performance of Aida, with exactly the same line-up of artists, which sold
out months in advance.
Pappano has been music director of the
Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia since 2005.
This is his second studio recording of a Verdi opera (after Il trovatore),
and his Warner Classics catalogue features an award-winning Santa Cecilia
album of the composer’s Requiem. There, as in the new Aida, the soprano is
Anja Harteros, one of the rare singers who can offer both the amplitude and
delicacy that Verdi demands of his captive Ethiopian princess. This is her
first assumption of the role, but she has firmly established her Verdi
credentials in La traviata, Il trovatore, Simon Boccanegra, La forza del
destino, Don Carlo and Otello.
Tenor Jonas Kaufmann has already
partnered Harteros in Il trovatore, La forza del destino and Don Carlo, and
here he makes his debut in the role of the Egyptian general Radamès, a
conquering hero who shows his sensitive side in his love for Aida. With his
phenomenal ability to produce both ringing high notes and a tender
pianissimo, Kaufmann is a natural for this role, and he and Pappano have
already collaborated in Italian opera for Warner Classics in two recordings
of Puccini: Madama Butterly (also with the forces of Santa Cecilia) and
Tosca (a live DVD from London’s Royal Opera House).
Russian
mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk – who has sung Amneris at La Scala, Milan,
the San Carlo in Naples, the Verona Arena and the Mariinsky Theatre in St
Petersburg – rises to all Verdi’s vocal and dramatic challenges. This
Egyptian princess is suitably sumptuous and sensuous of tone throughout her
wide range, and as convincing in her subtle scheming as in her huge
outbursts of anger and desperation.
The velvet-toned French baritone
Ludovic Tézier – who, along with Harteros and Kaufmann, enjoyed a huge
success in La forza del destino in Munich in the 2013-14 season – sings
Aida’s cunning warrior father, Amonasro, while the role of the implacable
high priest Ramfis is taken by the Uruguyan bass Erwin Schrott, who also
appears on the Warner Classics DVD of Verdi’s Les Vêpres siciliennes,
recorded live under Pappano’s baton at the Royal Opera House in 2013.
Sir Antonio Pappano’s vivid sense of theatre is shared by the players
and singers of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Imaginatively and
atmospherically scored, Aida is as much about intimacy as epic spectacle,
and the close relationship between the Roman orchestra and Pappano became
abundantly apparent as the musicians responded to his direction with the
utmost immediacy.
The members of the chorus – such an important
element in this opera, not least in the climactic Triumphal Scene –
complemented the richness and accuracy of their vocalism with an
unmistakeably authentic sense for the sound and meaning of the text. They
sang “Gloria all’Egitto!”, but it was also a matter of “Gloria a Roma!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|