Est 1923

Mascagni (L')amico Fritz

A welcome return for this 1968 L’amico Fritz with the young Freni and Pavarotti enchanting in the central roles

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Pietro Mascagni

Genre:

Opera

Label: Great Recordings of the Century

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 93

Mastering:

ADD

Catalogue Number: 567376-2

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(L')amico Fritz Pietro Mascagni, Composer
Benito di Bella, Hanezò, Baritone
Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Conductor
Luciano Pavarotti, Fritz Kobus, Tenor
Luigi Pontiggia, Federico
Lura Didier Gambardella, Beppe, Mezzo soprano
Malvina Major, Caterina
Mirella Freni, Suzel, Soprano
Pietro Mascagni, Composer
Royal Opera House Chorus, Covent Garden
Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden
Vicente Sardinero, David, Baritone
L’amico Fritz is a charming and at times moving piece, but a fragile one, and the excellence of this performance lies in its recognition of that. It was Mascagni’s second opera, premiered a year after the huge success of Cavalleria rusticana, and its fresh, unassuming pastoral lyricism was obviously designed to demonstrate that he had more than one string to his bow. The young but confirmed bachelor Fritz, the shy country girl Suzel and the genial match-making rabbi David are figures on a homelier, more domestic scale than the tempestuous Santuzza and Turiddu, and Mascagni did his work no favours in acknowledging this by giving them arias that are on the whole much too short to become popular favourites detached from the opera. Poor Suzel, pouring out her heart with grief at Fritz’s apparent spurning of her, has two solos in Act 3 of genuine, poignant emotion, but neither lasts more than two minutes. There is a love duet, but its climax is in the orchestra. The one familiar number, the adorable Cherry duet, can only hint at an emotion that one is too timid to express, the other as yet hardly aware of.
It needs a delicate touch, in short. Freni’s voice has the bloom of youth untouched upon it, Pavarotti is winningly responsive to words, in honeyed and ardent voice, while Sardinero, sounding a bit young for David, gives admirable support. Gavazzeni obviously loved this opera dearly, making the most of Mascagni’s rustic colours and his curious but effective use of off-stage music (the chorus is always off-stage, and there’s a gypsy fiddle and a peasant banda); he never over-plays the score’s hesitant, half-formed emotions. Though the remastering cannot disguise the fact that the voices are a bit too forward, the sound is very pleasing. A lesser work than Cavalleria ? If you insist, but a lovable one.'

Mascagni (L')amico Fritz

(L')amico Fritz

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