Puccini’s operas on disc
Our recommended recordings
Puccini and the gramophone might have been made for each other. First, artists such as Enrico Caruso recorded individual arias and then in the hi-fi age came the complete operas. Once upon a time, Le villi was an orphan in the recording studio. No longer. The young José Cura is a magnificent Roberto for the conductor Bruno Aprea at the Festival della Valle Istria in 1994 (Nuovo Era 7218). As for Edgar, Plácido Domingo makes a satisfying lead in Alberto Veronesi’s studio recording (Deutsche Gramnophon 4776102).
No one was ever quite so ‘alone, lost and abandoned’ as Montserrat Caballé’s Manon Lescaut and Plácido Domingo as Des Grieux is eager and lovelorn by turns (Warner Classics 7359822). The most satisfying La bohème is one of the most recent – a performance on
DVD and Blu-ray from the Royal Opera House with a near faultless Mimì in Nicole Car and Michael Fabiano’s anguished Rodolfo
(Opus Arte OA1272D). If it’s Tosca, then it has to be Maria Callas’s landmark 1953 recording with Giuseppe di Stefano as Cavardossi and Tito Gobbi as a savage Scarpia (Naxos 8.110256-57). Despite its age (1974), Mirella Freni’s Madam Butterfly for Herbert von Karajan with Pavarotti as a Pinkerton is hard to beat (Decca 417 5772). More recently, there’s Angela Gheorghiu with Jonas Kaufmann (Warner Classics 456 2152). Kaufmann is an outstanding Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West on DVD and Blu-ray, and Nina Stemme is the most affecting Minnie of recent years (Sony 88875064069).
Once ignored, La Rondine has taken wing on stage and in the recording studio in recent years. Conductor Antonio Pappano clearly relishes the score and Angela Gheorghiu – a handsome Magda – has reinvented the role around the world (Warner Classics 6407482). Il trittico is a conundrum. Do you look for the three one-acters recorded as one or plump for a separate recording for each opera? Richard Jones directed all three to great effect at the Royal
Opera House and it makes a fine DVD with Eva-maria Westbroek on top form in
Il tabarro, Lucio Gallo as a richly comic Gianni Schicchi and Anna Larsson with the right degree of emotional froideur for the old Princess in Suor Angelica (Opus Arte OA1070D). To sing Turandot you need Wagnerian heft and Verdian lyricism. It has to be Birgit Nilsson, always with Franco Corelli as a near perfect Calaf, either on her 1965 studio recording (Warner Classics 7693272) or live from the Met in New York in 1966 (Metropolitan Opera 1135701822).