"Verdi Arias". (Recital).(Review)

Barbara Frittoli

[] "VERDI ARIAS" With Abdrazakov; London Symphony Orchestra, C. Davis. Erato 8573-85823-2

It's misleading to begin a sampling of Barbara Frittoli's Verdi with her performance of Elisabetta's aria from Don Carlo. This is the sound of a singer in over her head, a Mozartean voice inflated beyond its means. The first phrase is broken in two, and high notes at forte level are rough. It's a poor choice for her, and a puzzling one, since she might instead have offered her spectacular account of Desdemona's scene from Otello that stopped the show at the Met a while back. But at the other end of the scale, she finds two scenes from Il Trovatore, much more of abel canto opera, to be congenial. There is real involvement (if not exactly urgency) in the way she tells the tale of "Tacea la notte," and she makes "D'amor sull'ali rosee" rhythmically expressive without bending it out of shape. If she doesn't at first find a way of putting across the sotto voce and agitato sides of the ensuing cabaletta, "Tu vedrai che amore in terra," the second verse goes well, and she knows how to use the dotted rhythms to animate it. And how good it is to have this music on an aria disc. It used to be routinely omitted from "complete" recordings of the opera.

Frittoli's "Tu puniscimi" scene from Luisa Miller has some of the same problems as her Elisabetta, though again we ought to be grateful to have both verses of the cabaletta. The problem here is Colin Davis's tempo, which is especially sluggish. Davis tends to be a notch or two slow throughout, but here his idea of allegro assai moderato, like his idea of allegro moderato in "Tu che la vanita," is unique. He also draws out the poco rallentando in the violin ...