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Adam: Le Toreador / Bonynge, Jo, Aler, Trempont


Release Date: 03/17/1998 
Label:  Decca   Catalog #: 455664   Spars Code: DDD 
Composer:  Adolphe Adam
Performer:  Sumi Jo,  John Aler,  Michel Trempont,  Véronique Vella
Conductor:  Richard Bonynge
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Welsh National Opera Orchestra
Number of Discs: 1 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 1 Hours 17 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

Le Toréador shines forth as one of the most delicious and sparkling operettas in the repertoire, a work that can stand comparison with the best of Offenbach. Sumi Jo is on top form, her sparkling coloratura diamond bright and effortlessly fluent.

Richard Bonynge's ability to persuade Decca to record out-of-the-way nineteenth-century French stage works has been to our repeated benefit over the past 40 years. Yet few of the results have been more welcome than this delightful operatic soufflé. Not that the music is completely unfamiliar, since a 1963 radio version was briefly available on Musidisc's Gaieté Lyrique label (3/92). However, that omitted not only the dialogue but also the overture, some Read more major arias and important incidental music, all of which are included here.

Despite the title, there is little specifically Spanish about the piece beyond the Barcelona setting and the cuckolded elderly husband who just happens to have been a toreador. The love interest is between the former opera-singer wife and her flautist admirer, and it is the important contribution of the flute (almost a fourth character, and admirably played by Jonathan Burgess) that accounts for much of the aforementioned incidental music. The admirer identifies himself by means of assorted operatic airs and grades the seriousness of the husband's infidelities by whether he plays a fandango or a cachucha. The score's most familiar number is a set of variations on Ah vous dirai-je maman (Twinkle, twinkle, little star, if you like); but there is much else that brings out Sumi Jo's crystal-clear, effortless coloratura to marvellous effect, as well as showing off John Aler's ardent, elegant tenor and Michel Trempont's well-practised comic baritone. Delicious!

-- Gramophone [4/1998]

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...'Le Toréador' shines forth as one of the most delicious and sparkling opérettes in the repertoire, a work that can stand comparison with the best of Offenbach...

-- Fanfare (5-6/98, pp.62-63)

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...Sumi Jo is on top form, her sparkling coloratura diamond bright and effortlessly fluent, especially effective in the arias with flute obbligato....this is a delightful confection, all spun sugar and froth, but a treat all the same...

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5)

-- BBC Music Magazine
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Works on This Recording

1. Le toréador by Adolphe Adam
Performer:  Sumi Jo (Soprano), John Aler (Tenor), Michel Trempont (Tenor),
Véronique Vella (Soprano)
Conductor:  Richard Bonynge
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Welsh National Opera Orchestra
Period: Romantic 
Written: ?1849; France 
 Date of Recording: 01/1996 
Language: French 

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