Granados Goyescas
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Enrique Granados (y Campiña)
Genre:
Opera
Label: Valois
Magazine Review Date: 5/1997
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 60
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: V4791
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Goyescas |
Enrique Granados (y Campiña), Composer
Antoni Ros Marbà, Conductor Enrique Baquerizo, Paquiro, Baritone Enrique Granados (y Campiña), Composer Lola Casariego, Pepa, Mezzo soprano Madrid Symphony Orchestra María Bayo, Rosario, Soprano Milagros Martin, Singer, Mezzo soprano Orfeón Donostiarra Ramón Vargas, Fernando, Tenor |
Author: Lionel Salter
Never has there been a more literal illustration of the tag Prima la musica, poi le parole (“The music first, then the words”) than the opera Goyescas. Granados worked the music up orchestrally from the two books of his piano Goyescas composed three years earlier, and Fernando Periquet, who had written the texts for his tonadillas, was given the unenviable task of adding a libretto to fit it (more or less), on the basis of a creaking plot cobbled together by the composer. Periquet is scarcely to be blamed for weak dramaturgy, stilted language, lack of continuity and absence of characterization in the result, which is a series of tableaux rather than a properly conceived opera. (It received five performances at the New York Met in 1916 but has rarely tempted anyone else to stage it since.) However, the picturesque, if inconsequential, charm of the music is undeniable, and the nature of the work makes it particularly suitable for gramophone listening.
It is certainly given nearly every chance in the present performance, which is notable above all for its superior and sensitive orchestral playing, both when accompanying and on its own, as in the famous “Intermedio” (which Granados reluctantly added at the last moment) and a later interlude before Rosario’s big solo scene in the garden (“The maiden and the nightingale”). Incidentally, although at the start of the “Ball by lamplight” the libretto states that a couple are dancing to the sound of the guitar, there is no guitar in the score. The chorus, who are worked very hard for the first half hour and then dispensed with, sing with fervour, though their words can rarely be made out. There is a good majo in Enrique Baquerizo, even if he sounds rather too noble for such a low-life role; but the main burden of the solo singing falls on Ramon Vargas and Maria Bayo as the upper-class lovers, who have the last two scenes of the opera to themselves. She sings with great passion and tenderness (though we cannot but remember the ineffable Victoria de los Angeles in the opera’s one aria): he is as excellent and intelligent as we already know him to be from previous recordings of Italian opera – this really is a tenor to cherish. First-rate recording quality adds to the disc’s attraction.'
It is certainly given nearly every chance in the present performance, which is notable above all for its superior and sensitive orchestral playing, both when accompanying and on its own, as in the famous “Intermedio” (which Granados reluctantly added at the last moment) and a later interlude before Rosario’s big solo scene in the garden (“The maiden and the nightingale”). Incidentally, although at the start of the “Ball by lamplight” the libretto states that a couple are dancing to the sound of the guitar, there is no guitar in the score. The chorus, who are worked very hard for the first half hour and then dispensed with, sing with fervour, though their words can rarely be made out. There is a good majo in Enrique Baquerizo, even if he sounds rather too noble for such a low-life role; but the main burden of the solo singing falls on Ramon Vargas and Maria Bayo as the upper-class lovers, who have the last two scenes of the opera to themselves. She sings with great passion and tenderness (though we cannot but remember the ineffable Victoria de los Angeles in the opera’s one aria): he is as excellent and intelligent as we already know him to be from previous recordings of Italian opera – this really is a tenor to cherish. First-rate recording quality adds to the disc’s attraction.'
Granados Goyescas
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
Subscribe
Gramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.