{"product_id":"legendary-recordings-arias-from-mozart-to-wagner","title":"Legendary Recordings: Arias from Mozart to Wagner","description":"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eNO LIMITS: LEGENDARY LIVE RECORDINGS FROM MOZART TO WAGNER \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e Francisco Araiza (t); various cond \u0026amp; O \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"BULLET12\"\u003e • \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12\"\u003e SOLO MUSICA 194 (67: 02) Live: 1978-2007 \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eMOZART \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eDon Giovanni: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eDalla sua pace; Il mio tesoro. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eROSSINI \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eIl barbiere di Siviglia:\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003e Ecco ridente in cielo. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eBIZET \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eLes pêcheurs de perles: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eJe crois entendre encore. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eGOUNOD \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eFaust: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eSalut, demeure chaste et pure. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eMASSENET \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eLe Cid:\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003e O souverain, ô juge, ô père. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eVERDI \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eRigoletto: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eLa donna è mobile. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003ePUCCINI \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eLa Bohème: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eChe gelida manina. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eGIORDANO \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eAndrea Chenier: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eUn di all’azzurro spazio. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eTCHAIKOVSKY \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eEvgeny Onegin:\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003e Kuda, kuda. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"COMPOSER12\"\u003eWAGNER \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eLohengrin: \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003eIn fernem Land. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12bi\"\u003eDie Walküre:\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan class=\"ARIAL12i\"\u003e Ein Schwert verhieß mir der Vater \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eTenor Francisco Araiza wants you, the listener, to know that he is very proud of this CD because of his evolution “from lyric prince to dramatic knight.” Well, that is certainly well and good, and this recital does indeed run the gamut from light music to heavy, but where is anything modern? Not a single opera represented here was composed later than the 1910s, and those in a retro Romantic style. That being said, this is far from being an average tenor recital. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eTruthfully, I hadn’t realized that Araiza was still singing as late as 2007, and certainly did not know that he had graduated to Wagner. I recall him as one of the finest of all light tenors of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and still value his recording of Mozart’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eIdomeneo \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003eunder Colin Davis. More interestingly, considering that Araiza sang his first Lohengrin in 1990, the two \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDon Giovanni \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003earias date from 1987 (“Dalla sua pace”) and 1994 (“Il mio tesoro”). It’s true that Araiza was always a lyric tenor with a dark sound, and this is indeed evident even in his Mozart singing, but there is, to my ears, a bit less focus in the opening phrases of the latter aria, the vibrato just a bit looser here than in the first aria, and Araiza sounds as if he is forcing the voice more. (I had the same impression hearing his studio recording of \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eFaust\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e from those years.) He manages the long run on “tornar” in one breath, but is forced to slow the music down in order to sing all the notes cleanly, and there is a brief sagging in pitch. To turn from this to his 1978 reading of “Ecco ridente” with the Munich Radio Orchestra directed by Heinz Wallberg is to suddenly put into sharp relief how much easier his early voice was produced and how well he could sail through this type of music in those years, reminding me of his superb Almaviva on the Philips recording of \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eIl barbiere\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e with Agnes Baltsa and Thomas Allen. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eAlthough many of these tracks have different conductors most of them come from Munich, and no less than five are conducted by Ralf Weikert in 1987 (“Dalla sua pace” and the arias from \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003ePearl Fishers, Faust, Bohème,\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eEvgeny Onegin\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e). This was simply a phenomenal night for Araiza: The voice poured forth with melting lyricism and an excellent ring on top, all of it superbly controlled. To some extent, I contest the tenor’s claim that “he has personalized the original composition by placing his own stamp on it.” The stamp Araiza put on the arias he sang pre-1987 was mostly vocal, in the recognizable timbre of his voice and the unfailingly musical treatment of each aria. In most of them there isn’t much that emerges in terms of a character. His was a great, all-purpose voice singing excellent performances of virtually everything he touched in those years, but seldom portraying a character. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eAll of this changed later on, however; witness his unique 1997 reading of “Ô souverain, ô juge, ô père” from Massenet’s \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eLe Cid \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e(again Munich, this time conducted by Mark Elder). A finer reading I’ve not heard since the legendary old recording by Vilhelm Herold, who later trained Lauritz Melchior to be a tenor. I always wonder why tenors include “La donna è mobile” on recital discs, although Araiza does add some delicate touches to it that most singers don’t, and in his final cadenza he climbs “up the ladder” by lightly separating each note. And what a fabulous “Che gelida manina” he sings! I haven’t heard its like since José Carreras in 1974. It has everything: poetic feeling, romantic passion, superbly controlled dynamics, and a high C that honestly sounds as if it came from the middle of his voice. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eAraiza also gives a surprisingly dramatic reading of Andrea Chenier’s “Improvviso”—the best, in fact, I’ve heard since Beniamino Gigli—and he fully captures the spirit of Lensky as he is facing almost certain death in the \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eEvgeny Onegin \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003earia (sung in Russian). Whatever his Wagnerian experience in \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eLohengrin \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003edid for him, it somehow transformed him from an excellent singer into an operatic actor, thus many of these later performances do indeed have the extra dimension that Araiza claims for all of them. When we finally do reach \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eLohengrin, \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003ea 1990 performance from Teatro La Fenice in Venice conducted by Christian Thielemann, it is a revelation, in part due to the superbly resonant acoustic, oddly similar to the famed Bayreuth sound. Araiza’s voice floats down to us almost like something out of the ether, an otherworldly character slowly alighting down to earth. Voice and character have indeed become one. The “Ein schwert verhieß” from 2007, taken from a performance with the “Festspielorchester Erl” conducted by Gustav Kuhn, is recorded more distantly than anything else on the disc. Araiza is pushing the voice fairly hard in the climaxes, perhaps more than is prudent for him, but by and large he sings it well and again tries to project a real character. He is certainly much better than some of the horrors we’ve heard on latter-day CD and DVD performances of \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-style:italic\"\u003eDie Walküre; \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003eI wonder that he hasn’t been signed to sing some of those performances. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan\u003eThis is a recital that kind of creeps up on you. With the exception of the “Il mio tesoro,” nothing on this recital shows any forcing of the voice beyond reasonable means, and you can’t dispute the fact that his voice held up at least 30 years. Araiza has become, to me at least, the modern-day Gösta Winbergh, a tenor who moved gradually and easily from light repertoire to heavy and has done so with taste, elegance, good voice control, and a growing dramatic sense. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cspan style=\"font-weight:bold\"\u003eFANFARE: Lynn René Bayley \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Solo Musica","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":49704646639896,"sku":"4260123641948","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/4346\/3192\/files\/2335475.jpg?v=1747162104","url":"https:\/\/hbdirect.com\/products\/legendary-recordings-arias-from-mozart-to-wagner","provider":"HBDirect","version":"1.0","type":"link"}