ROSSINI La Cenerentola WAGNER Tristan und Isolde

Operatic extremes from Jurowski live in Glyndebourne’s own sound

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Gioachino Rossini

Label: Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 153

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: GFOCD018-07

GFOCD018-07 ROSSINI La Cenerentola Jurowski

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(La) Cenerentola, or La bontà in trionfo, 'Cinderella' Gioachino Rossini, Composer
Alessandro Corbelli, Don Magnifico, Baritone
Gioachino Rossini, Composer
Glyndebourne Chorus
Lucia Cirillo, Tisbe, Mezzo soprano
Maxim Mironov, Don Ramiro, Tenor
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Pietro Spagnoli, Dandini, Baritone
Raquela Sheeran, Clorinda, Soprano
Ruxandra Donose, Angelina, Mezzo soprano
Umberto Chiummo, Alidoro, Bass-baritone
Wladimir Jurowski, Conductor

Composer or Director: Richard Wagner

Label: Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 227

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: GFOCD019-09

GFOCD019-09 WAGNER Tristan und Isolde, Jurowski

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Tristan und Isolde Richard Wagner, Composer
Andrew Kennedy, Shepherd, Tenor
Andrezej Dobber, Kurwenal, Baritone
Anja Kampe, Isolde, Soprano
George Zeppenfeld, King Marke, Bass
Glyndebourne Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Peter Gijsbertsen, Sailor, Tenor
Richard Mosley-Evans, Steersman, Baritone
Richard Wagner, Composer
Sarah Connolly, Brangäne, Mezzo soprano
Torsten Kerl, Tristan, Tenor
Trevor Scheunemann, Melot, Baritone
Wladimir Jurowski, Conductor
Glyndebourne has been mean to absent with its releases of genuine historical material – the Fritz Busch live Figaro and Zauberflöte, a pre-war Macbeth and the performances given at the first Edinburgh Festivals all call out for attention. But it has been generous, prompt and imaginative with its modern performances. This pair of recordings, from 2007 and 2009 respectively – part of a four-record tribute to the baker’s dozen years of departing music director Vladimir Jurowski – represents an enlargement of productions already released on DVD.

Jurowski’s takeover of Tristan (after Ji∑í B∆lohlávek had debuted the work at the Festival with Romantic lushness) and his ‘translation’ of La Cenerentola from the LPO to the original-instrument world of the OAE are testimonies to the range of a conductor who can appear in the styles of such contrasting repertoire. The pacing, the dynamics, the explosions of (deliberately) anarchic sound – in fact the whole humour and italianità – of this Cenerentola match the ambivalent moods of Peter Hall’s stage production. As Rodney Milnes explains in a perceptive booklet-note marred by appalling proofreading, this is sometimes a very serious and dark opera indeed. This later casting retains the leads of Donose’s Angelina (quite a dark voice, most fluent in coloratura), Mironov’s Ramiro (agile casting of this ferociously difficult role) and the sisters, while introducing more experience with Chiummo’s Alidoro and Corbelli’s Magnifico. But it is the instruments of the orchestra, especially the winds, and the resulting pit/stage balance as realised by Jurowski, who are the real stars of the show. An essential purchase, whatever other canaries (Bartoli?) you must have on your Rossinian desert isle.

For their music director’s Tristan revival – great credit to the casting department – Glyndebourne secured a wholly different yet equally effective distribution of roles from their premiere. Jurowski’s approach, seemingly influenced by original-instrument balances, might be crudely summarised as summum contra Karajan. Unlike the latter’s (in)famous EMI recording, you could reconstruct every line of the score from this performance because Jurowski, his orchestra and his engineers do not sacrifice everything for power and brilliance. Jurowski also has an artful (I would add ‘contemporary’) way of just holding back on the emotional placing of the music under the voice. In the truest sense of the word, he accompanies Kampe’s Liebestod. We’re in no way cheated of the impact of that famous final resolution but nor is it the climax of a vocalise. The conductor’s work with both turn-of-the-19th/20th-century scores and more modern works also feeds into his interpretation. In a fine cast, Kampe’s Isolde (strong on text and real love) is exceptional. This release certainly joins the short shortlist of recorded Tristans alongside the Kleibers, Knappertsbusch and Furtwängler.

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