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Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini.(Sound Recording Review)
[] Wells, Williams; Vickers, Reardon, Beni, Gramm; Chorus and Orchestra of the Opera Company of Boston, Caldwell. Brief notes, no libretto. VAI (Video Artists International) VAIA 1214-2
"It had really never occurred to me to take on the title role of Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini," Jon Vickers states in a liner note. He adds, in what now seems self-defense: "Sarah Caldwell contacted me and persuaded me to do it."
In recruiting the great tenor in 1975 for Cellini, Caldwell must have hoped he could duplicate the splendor of his other Berlioz role, Enee in Les Troyens. This recording of a live performance by Opera Company of Boston proves just how wrong she was.
Vickers, woefully miscast, is forced to sing the first aria entirely in head voice, and to skip the second ("Sur les monts les plus sauvages") altogether. Elsewhere he is given to amusical demonstrations of macho bluster that seem borrowed from other roles. In this English-language performance, when he roughly addresses his apprentice, Ascanio, listeners may suffer a post-traumatic flashback to Peter Grimes.
The cast includes disciplined American singers of the day, stylistically at sea. The best work comes from Opera Company of Boston stalwart Donald Gramm, as a fairly forceful Pope Clement VII, and John Reardon's puffed-up Fieramosca. ...
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...Reardon, William, Gramm et al. Chorus and orchestra of the Opera Company of Boston. Sarah Caldwell, conductor. VAI 1214-2 (2...live recordings or collectors of Jon Vickers. In May 1975, Opera Company of Boston presented three performances of Berlioz's least...
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...de semejante lance, seguramente estaba predestinado a lograr xito y fama. No se equivocaban: el chiquillo se llamaba Benvenuto Cellini y ganara celebridad no slo por ser uno de los mejores orfebres y joyeros de todos los tiempos, sino tambin por los numerosos...
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- Newspaper article from: The Capital Times (Madison, WI) March 12, 2003 700+ words
...NEW YORK (AP) -- The company premiere of Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini," a new production of Halevy's rarely heard "La Juive...s principal guest conductor, will be on the podium. "Benvenuto Cellini" has its Met premiere Dec. 4, with Marcello Giordani...
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If you listened to the Saturday afternoon broadcast of the Met's new production of Benvenuto Cellini, mounted as part of the house's Berlioz celebration in 2003, you might have wondered why there was so much ambient stage noise...
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- Magazine article from: Opera Canada Crory, Neil March 22, 2005 700+ words
...Virgin Classics: 7243 5 45706 2 9 (3 CDs) What a wonderful new recording! Even though Berlioz's youthful and spirited Benvenuto Cellini remains a problematic work, this recording makes an extremely compelling case for the score. The opera was subjected...
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- Newspaper article from: The Independent - London DELLA COULING January 19, 1995 700+ words
The combination of Hector Berlioz and Benvenuto Cellini seems to have a lot going for it: both were original and highly individual artists, both wrote flamboyant and possibly not always...
