While baritone Tito Gobbi is known primarily for nineteenth century repertoire, his professional breakthrough came when he sang the Italian premiere of Wozzeck in Rome in 1942, in Italian. This CD preserves a performance of the opera from 1954, made with the Rome RAI Orchestra and Chorus. Conductor Nino Sanzogno obviously "gets" the opera -- his pacing and shadings make that clear -- and he draws searingly dramatic performances from the singers and the orchestra. The orchestra starts off shakily (the winds miss the first ...
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While baritone Tito Gobbi is known primarily for nineteenth century repertoire, his professional breakthrough came when he sang the Italian premiere of Wozzeck in Rome in 1942, in Italian. This CD preserves a performance of the opera from 1954, made with the Rome RAI Orchestra and Chorus. Conductor Nino Sanzogno obviously "gets" the opera -- his pacing and shadings make that clear -- and he draws searingly dramatic performances from the singers and the orchestra. The orchestra starts off shakily (the winds miss the first few notes of the opera), but once it gets on its feet, the playing is passionate and Italianate. What makes this performance stand out from many newer, more sophisticated and polished efforts is the bel canto approach of the singers, who don't treat this as "modern" music, but sing with the vocal style they would bring to verismo repertoire. (The plot certainly fits into the verismo tradition, and in this Italian-language version, it's easy to hear Wozzeck as a late verismo opera, but...
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