Puccini

La rondine Elena Mo!uc, Yosep Kang, Evelin Novak, Álvaro Zambrono, Siobhan Stagg, Elbenita Kajtazi, Stephanie Lauricella; Bavarian Radio Choir; Munich Radio Orchestra/ Ivan Repušic CPO 555 0752 100:19 mins (2 discs) There are lovely moments in this live recording of La rondine, a curiously levelheaded reworking of La traviata in which hearts are bruised rather than broken. Ivan Repušic coaxes playing with plenty of spring and succulence from the Munich Radio Orchestra. The Act II dance music is glossy and animated, but the dewy scoring at the close of Act III seems unmerited by a dryeyed situation. Coloristic fragments such as ‘Nella trepida luce d’un mattin’ are more moving in context than ‘Chi il bel sogno di Doretta’. Dramatic tension, such as it is, arrives too late. Does Magda (Elena Mo#uc) really love Ruggero (Yosep Kang) or is their romance merely a distraction from her regrets?

Mo#uc’s smooth, well-centred lyric soprano loses connection with the text above the stave, and while Kang has a pleasingly focused, young-sounding voice, there are passages where expressivity comes at the expense of intonation. The secondary couple, Lisette (Evelin Novak) and Prunier (Álvaro Zambrano), are more engaging, more precise in their Italian and more fully characterised, with a sense of real affection behind a convenient affair between an aspiring singer and a songwriter. Supporting roles are superbly sung, with a clean blend from sopranos Siobhan Stagg and Elbenita Kajtazi, and mezzosoprano Stephanie Lauricella. The Bavarian Radio Choir sings brightly but lacks the juice of a full-time opera chorus. Anna Picard

PERFORMANCE ★★★ RECORDING ★★★★