Donizetti: Elisir D'amore

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Cat No: 8110125-26

Release Date: 01 January 2001

Label: Naxos - Historical / Naxos Historical

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 2

Barcode: 636943112526

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: DONIZETTI

Description
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) - L’elisir d’amoreA melodramma giocoso in two acts, to a libretto by Felice Romano, after Scribe’s text for Auberís opera Le philtre. From its very first performance L’elisir d’amore has been admired by opera lovers for its gaiety, lyricism and bitter-sweet humour. During those years when Donizetti was ‘out of fashion’ in most of the world’s opera houses, it remained one of the handful of his works that was occasionally produced - almost always to enthusiastic acclaim. After its immensely successful 1832 Milan première the opera was soon heard throughout Italy, and reached London’s Lyceum Theatre in 1836. New York saw L’elisir two years later when it was staged at the Park Theatre, but it first graced the boards of the Met only in January 1904, when the starry cast made the wait almost worthwhile; Enrico Caruso as Nemorino, Marcella Sembrich as Adina and Antonio Scotti as Belcore. Caruso’s celebrated successors at the Met included the golden Beniamino Gigli, the honeyed Tito Schipa and, as we know from this recording, the plangent-toned Ferruccio Tagliavini. Bidù Sayão inherited the role of Adina from, most famously, the brilliant Frieda Hempel, and added her own inimitable lively charm for the eighteen performances of it that she sang with the Met company; all in all a promising cast for this Christmas Eve performance of 1949.Nemorino was one of Tagliavini’s great roles; not only had he the most exquisite lyric tenor voice of his day - a true tenore di grazia - but he relished opportunities to display the sense of fun that the role demands. At his first appearance, as Nemorino apostrophises on the beauty of the distant Adina, Tagliavini immediately demonstrates his celebrated sweetness of tone, and sweet it stays throughout almost the entire opera; at times he forces, to make a momentary effect and the voice hardens, but his remains one of the most elegant of all Nemorinos. His piéce de résistance, ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ in the final scene, is among the best examples of Donizetti singing on record - no wonder Tagliavini was so much admired during the 1940s and 50s when he was at his vocal peak. Listen, too, to the duet at the close of the first scene; how this lovelorn young peasant pleads in vain with Adina, and how she care-lessly rejects him! This shows them both at their characterful best. Adina, of course, must also be sweet of voice - and hard of heart - until her final capitulation in the last scene; she flirts and rebuffs by turns. By the time she first sang the role at the Met in 1941, Sayão had already perfected the art of soubrettish charm; her portrayals of Mozart’s Susanna and Zerlina were good training grounds, and in L’elisir her teasing is at its most accomplished! Try the trio with Nemorino and Belcore in Scene 2 in which, to the peasant’s despair, she promises marriag
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