Audio CD
SPARS Code: DDD
Number of Discs: 2
Format: APE (image+cue)
Label: Sony
Size: 546 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Lord Enrico Asthon – Anthony Michaels-Moore
Miss Lucia – Andrea Rost
Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood – Bruce Ford
Raimondo Bidebent – Alastair Miles
Alisa – Louise Winter
Lord Arturo Bucklaw – Paul Charles Clarke
Normanno – Ryland Davies
The Hannover Band, London Voices
Charles Mackerras
mackerras_donizetti_lucia_di_lammermoor02.rar – 292.0 MB
A Naked Lucia
“Why Another Lucia?” you say. Well in fact this is not just another Lucia, but the original 1835 version. I thank Sir Charles for having the good sense to return to Donizetti’s original 1835 draft. Now we can finally hear what the man wrote, without all that ornamentation. It still has plenty of coloratura embelishments in it & Andrea Rost handles them with sharp precission. Gone of course are the high endings, but there are still plenty of high notes to get the blood rushing. The lower endings also sound more natural. Remembering that early sopranos were not trained to project high notes like our singers of today. Their strength was in the chest register. With a well balanced cast, chorus & orcheatra, Sir Charles has swept us back to the original production. Andrea Rost is a first rate Lucia and should not be compared to previous Lucias, like (our) Joan Sutherland, Calas or the likes, as she is performing a completely different opera, one where there is no rival. Caballé did do a straight version some years back, but that was so …awful it should never have been recorded let alone released. This peformance, however, is so “Alive” you can actually feel the atmosphere of a full production. Anthony Michaels-Moore, Bruce Ford & Alistair Miles are perfect in their respective roles. The blending of Michaels-Moore & Ford’s voices in the Act ll duet: “Ah! O sole, più ratto” sends shivers up my spine. The rest of the soloists are equally as good. The London Voices are extremely convincing in their role and the Hanover Band with original instruments; well they are something else. What an orchestra, under the direction of Sir Charles Mackerras deliver a chilling score.
I cannot stop playing this version & I thank Sony for bringing it to us.
I do want to say that I still love the Joan Sutherland version, but I find myself playing this Original Version more.
For those of you who cannot make up your minds which version to buy (presuming you have neither); I would strongly recommend this one, without any apologies. But we all have different tastes & I would not push my views or opinions onto anyone. You have to decide which version YOU like. I only suggest that you give this recording a hearing; knowing that it is a diffent version. Listen to both versions & if still undecided then bye the two & have the best of both worlds.