GREAT RECORDINGS phase 18

ROSSINI
Il Barbiere di Siviglia

3 92046 2

Stereo
ADD

Recorded 1957
130 minutes (2CD)

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"This is one Callas set where the prima donna doesn't by any means dominate. Gobbi's quick-witted, fast-speaking Figaro is the pivot of the action, mercurial in fioriture and constantly alive to action and reaction. Who wouldn't be spellbound by the seductive fresh sounds of the young Alva's Count? Listen to all three in the Second Act trio, and if you can remember hearing it better done, I'll eat my critical hat."
(The Gramophone)

This 1957 Walter Legge production was made on the back of Callas’s success in another of Rossini’s comic operas, Il turco in Italia: it was a triumph for the diva in Rome in 1950 and she recorded it with equal success for EMI at La Scala four years later.

Oddly, as Tony Locantro’s notes recount, Callas had failed on stage with Rosina at La Scala in 1956 (largely because of a poor production); but Legge held to his guns, and the result – her first stereo recording, in the sympathetic space of Kingsway Hall – is now a classic of the gramophone:

"She turns in a buoyant, joyful performance. Tito Gobbi’s Figaro and Luigi Alva’s Almaviva also came from the Scala production, and their experienced teamwork adds considerably to the whole achievement. Galliera’s idiomatic conducting gives the singers first-class support."