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Rossini: Il Barbiere Di Siviglia / Abbado, Battle, Domingo


Release Date: 04/13/1993 
Label:  Deutsche Grammophon   Catalog #: 435763   Spars Code: DDD 
Composer:  Gioachino Rossini
Performer:  Kathleen Battle,  Ruggero Raimondi,  Lucio Gallo,  Carlos Chausson,   ... 
Conductor:  Claudio Abbado
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Chamber Orchestra of Europe,  Venice Teatro la Fenice Chorus
Number of Discs: 2 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 2 Hours 34 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

It is 21 years since the appearance on LP of Claudio Abbado's earlier DG recording of Rossini's Il barbiere... Abbado's new recording, made in studio sessions earlier this year in Ferrara's Teatro Comunale, proves to be something of a servant with two masters. In one sense, it is an Abbado remake using an even fuller text than before. Equally, it is a commercial property guilefully cast to attract the maximum attention in an over-crowded market.

The two most potentially eccentric ploys—Plácido Domingo as Figaro and Kathleen Battle as Rosina—work rather well. It is difficult to make out a case for a soprano Rosina. Rossini wrote the role for his favourite voice-type, the mezzo soprano. We don't have chapter and verse Read more why he did this but it was almost certainly aimed at bringing rich shadings to the characterization. (In La Cenerentola the higher-lying roles go to the birdbrained ugly sisters.) One thing is certain: Rosina is no adolescent shrew; though this is what she often became in days gone by when soubrettes appropriated the role. (On record, Roberta Peters is a fairly good example on Leinsdorf's three-CD 1959 RCA set.)

Fortunately, as well as possessing a fabulously fluent coloratura technique, Kathleen Battle also has richer, smokier tones in her voice. Her Rosina is sexually alluring, agile and ingratiating, but never vapid. Abbado doesn't allow transpositions of key. Raimondi sings the Calumny Aria in D (with wonderfully waspish quiet colourings but, alas, no longer with genuine cannon-charges of tone at the climaxes) and Battle sings "Una poco voce fa" in E. (Peters on RCA sings it up a tone in F.) That is not to say that there aren't dozens of small adjustments and occasional octave lifts in Battle's performance. Some of these falsify Rossini's textural colourings; and then one longs for the authentic touch of a Berganza or a Callas (with Gobbi, Alva and Galliera on two EMI CDs). Rarely, though, does Battle seem out of sorts with the role. Only one passage seriously worried me. The mock-pathos in the Act 1 finale of Rosina's "Senipre un'istoria" is oddly charmless as Battle delivers it with various pert soprano adjustments.

Domingo's Figaro reveals the astonishing craft and natural musicianship of this great singer. It is in many respects a masterly performance; yet in the last analysis the whole idea is subverted by the casting of a curiously baritonal lenore di grazia as Almaviva. In the opening recitatives Frank Lopardo often sounds like Figaro, whilst Domingo sounds like the ardent aristocratic Almaviva. In the Act I dueuo "All'idea" Domingo's Figaro is a more patrician figure than Lopardo's somewhat plebeian Count. Domingo the irrepressible lover surfaces again in the duet with Rosina. Lopardo's Almaviva is a decent enough performance (he gives us a memorably whinging musicmaster in Act 2) but he has been miscast. But, then, who could have sung Almaviva to Domingo's Figaro? Pavarotti, perhaps. But who else?

Lucio Gallo's furtive, dapper, inwardly angry Dr Bartolo is as much a triumph of guileful characterization as it is of high-wire virtuoso musicianship. Indeed, the virtuosity of the pattersinging is one of the set's most remarkable features. In almost every instance the opening up of familiar theatre cuts in patter sequences extends our pleasure as much as it must have tasted the stamina of the cast during the sessions.

In all this, Abbado's experience proves crucial. But, then, he was always very good at controlling Rossini ensembles. What we have from him on this latest set is an entirely new sense of the inner detail of Rossini's score. More than ever, he seems willing to chance his arm with Rossini in a way he rarely does with, say, a Beethoven symphony. (The worlds are not entirely remote from one another. Rossini's Act I finale and Beethoven's Eighth Symphony are stars in the same constellation.) Certainly, it is difficult to imagine a recording of Il barbiere—unless it is Gui's—that is better conducted. Abbado has always had a fine ear for Rossini's texturing and a keen sense of rhythm, to which are now added relish, imagination and a willingness to live dangerously. In all this the players of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe are his fearless confederates.

-- Gramophone [12/1992]
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Works on This Recording

1. Il barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini
Performer:  Kathleen Battle (Soprano), Ruggero Raimondi (Bass), Lucio Gallo (Baritone),
Carlos Chausson (Baritone), Gabriela Sima (Mezzo Soprano), Frank Lopardo (Tenor),
Ronald Schneider (Baritone), Goran Simic (Bass), Placido Domingo (Tenor)
Conductor:  Claudio Abbado
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Chamber Orchestra of Europe,  Venice Teatro la Fenice Chorus
Period: Romantic 
Written: 1816; Italy 
 Date of Recording: 02/1992 
Venue:  Teatro Comunale, Ferrara, Italy 
Length: 154 Minutes 31 Secs. 
Language: Italian 

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