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Anna Netrebko, Andrea Concetti and more - Sempre Libera

List price:	~~$16.98~~
Our price:	$13.99 that is 18% off!
Media:	Audio CD
Record label:	Deutsche Grammophon
Release date:	10 August, 2004

Average user rating: Average user rating: 3

Yes, just two stars (and that is being generous)

For singing that is so lacking in intonation and specific character, two stars is generous - the opening of the Sonnambula excerpt which is unusually charming for what one gets much of the rest of the way on this disc. Even there, she does not sustain it. The first part of her sequence of two arias is over long before one is ready for it to, because she has brought absolutely no life to it. There is no filling out of the line, possibly because it is so shapeless, as to not exist in the first place. Several high notes in strenuous passages are something between shrieked and barked.

She opens the cabaletta to the Puritani mad scene (Bellini opera) with a reach of nearly over a major ninth for the portion of the tune that covers an octave (before the reach in the line for the F above the higher E-Flat occurs), then loses breath control during the runs that follow, after giving the shapeless treatment to the slow cavatina before. It does not seem to faze her, that with Bellini, she is on what has been considered by at least several generations past, to be on sacred ground, as noone probably ever told her .... The glass harmonica accompaniment is very nice in the Lucia Mad Scene. A downward mixed scalewise/chromatic descent over nearly two octaves in the cabaletta to the Mad Scene had me wanting to reach for any dramamine nearby, the sense of pitch is so unsteady, and nothing to do with having lost her place - i.e. Callas during the prison scene in the classic 1951 Firenze Vespri sicliani with Christoff and Kleiber - a funny moment to even all Callas fans, because her sense of pitch at that time was perfectly innate. One can not quite get around to discuss how she portrays the four or five heroines exemplified on this disc, since so much lack of intonation and line just distracts from this even starting to be a real or meaningful possibility.

The english horn solo at the start of the long Otello excerpt is played arhythmically, thus inexpressively, and Netrebko - ersatz-Renata Scotto - scoops the beginning of the Ave Maria and places the tone too far back (Barbara Frittoli - almost thoroughly the very same thing on the most recent Met broadcast of the same - but at least there one had some highly expressive english horn and orchestral playing to distract from mediocre singing, from Levine and his forces). The huge job done on her PR and photo-op undercuts her - as the back panel photograph is remindful a line or two about slim hips or no hips at all in a famous Edward Albee play. Has this woman yet sung two consecutive phrases in tune, either before in her career with Gergiev at the Mariinsky or after her career went international? Unless the music is easy, this disc (her second recital on DGG - the first one no better) will have you believing that that may not be a possibility. The disc ends with an evenly vocalized but heavily, wearily phrased O mio babbino caro from Gianni Schicchi - something that could have been saved for another day? The whole disc comes across as one that has been heavily edited, and also that places chorus and supporting soloists too far back, almost as though a few times that their voices come from the floor below. The voice of Netrebko is a naturally beautiful instrument, even with a little dark coloring to it, but one that has not been well trained at all, and needless to say, not anywhere yet ready for the international spotlight of, for instance, a recording contract with the Yellow Label.

Una cantante madurando

Ya está en las tiendas el nuevo trabajo de la soprano rusa Anna Netrebko. Con la Mahler Chamber Orchresta, al mando de Claudio Abbado y con las testimoniales apariciones de cantantes de la talla de Sara Mingardo, Saimir Pirgu o Nicola Ulivieri (¡ni más ni menos), la Netrebko asume un repertorio que solo las autenticas divas pueden permitirse: escenas de Sonambula (toda la escena del Sonambulismo), Lucia di Lamermoor, Puritani (las escenas de la locura), Otello (toda la escena del acto IV), La Traviata (E strano...) y de propina, el Oh mio babbino caro de 'Gianni Schichi'.
Todos conocemos el hecho de que la Netrebko se ha convertido en un fenómeno de primera magnitud en el mundo de la ópera, destacando por su belleza fisica (el cuadernillo es generoso en cuanto a bellas fotos) Su ascenso es fulgurante, y ya en 2002 llamó mi atención en un papel secundario en Londres.
Pues bien, en Netrebko tenemos a una cantante de timbre francamente agradable, y con algún detalle de buen gusto en los reguladores. La voz es más lírica que ligera, razón por la que yo creo que está cantando un repertorio equivocado; no en vano, la escena de Desdémona (con el lujo de una testimonial Sara Mingardo como Emilia) es lo mejor del disco. Ahí si aparecen las cualidades de Netrebko elevadas a la máxima potencia. Tambien el resultado es satisfactorio en el 'Oh mio babbino caro'.
Pero en el resto del repertorio, la Netrebko se ve superada (sobre todo en las cabalettas culminadas con agudos cercanos al fiasco) por el hecho de tener una zona aguda dudosa y una técnica que aún tiene bastante que mejorar.
Pero mi consejo es que se deje de cantar papeles de coloratura y pase a cantar partes más líricas, que seguro que le irá mucho mejor. De momento no, pero con el paso de los años, quizá lleguemos a tener nueva gran diva de la ópera.

Recreational Opera Listener Fav

The past couple of years I have found myself supplementing my audio catalogue with more and more opera....Far from being an officianado, but wanting to listen to contemporary artists, I have struggled finding 'hip' classical opera. After seeing a special on 60 Minutes of Anna, I loved her rebellious platform of defying the normal 300 lb prima donna diva mold but being a HOT, young and hip artist bring her phenom voice to mainstream listeners with opera as the medium. Anyway, this CD has stayed in my automobile for over two months......great stuff!