Karajan: Donizetti – Lucia Di Lammermoor (2 CD, APE)

Orchestra: Rias Sinfonie Orchester
Conductor: Herbert Von Karajan
Composer: Gaetano Donizetti
Audio CD
Number of Discs: 2
Format: APE (image+cue)
Label: Melodram
Size: 448 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes

Enrico – Rolando Panerai
Lucia – Maria Callas
Edgardo – Giuseppe Di Stefano
Arturo – Giuseppe Zampieri
Raimondo – Nicola Zaccaria
Alisa – Luisa Villa
Normanno – Mario Carlin

Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano
RIAS Sinfonie Orchester
Herbert von Karajan

A magnificent Lucia

This is possibly one of Leyla Gencer’s finest vocal performances to have been preserved. Although Lucia is certainly not a role one would associate with her, at this early stage in her career (1957) she was easily able to scale the heights of Lucia’s music while still bringing her own unique brand of dramatic intensity to it. She can give the divine Callas a good run for her money here. Prandelli’s Edgardo is a classic example of beautiful and polished singing. The music suites him well and his excellent technique enables him to shine. The baritone is adequate.

The sounds starts off rather poorly, being very shallow and brittle, but settles down nicely by Lucia’s entrance to decent listening sound. For anyone who loves the art the of magnificent Gencer, this is a “must have” recording. 5 stars and a hearty “bravo!!!’