The Passion of Opera

This weekend I had the opportunity to listen to two excellent recordings. The first was the 1964 recording of Puccini's Turandot conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni featuring Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Renata Scotto, Nicola Zaccaria, and the La scala orchestra and chorus. Later, a friend brought over the 1982 recording of Smetana's The Bartered Bride featuring Gabriela Beňačková , Peter Dvorský , Miroslav Kopp, and Richard Novák, backed by Zdenek Kosler and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Both were excellent recordings. Turandot is, of course, a standard of late romantic repertoire and The Bartered Bride particularly interests me as the piece will be performed by my colleagues here at Lawrence University next year. I will begin with a review of the disc of Turandot . The opera itself is classic Puccini, grand in style, big musically, and preoccupied with exotic culture.  In terms of review, I will start from the small upward. The chorus does a good job playin