Verdi: Luisa Miller (Wiener Staatsoper Live)

Verdi's rarely played drama of love and deadly intrigue. Musically superb, this performance has a protagonist possessed of a virginal tone in both timbre and expression, three of the best Italian male singers of their generation, first-rate singers in the secondary rates, and a conductor at home both north and south of the Alps and thus ideally suited to the work. Lilian Sukis sings the title role of the bourgeois girl Luisa - innocence personified, but doomed by the intrigues of her lover's aristocratic family. Sukis was from Canada and had already in the 1960s sung at the New York Met. She here gives impressive proof of why she also acquired an excellent reputation in Europe as a lyric soprano. Her slender, but always open, floating voice is a joy in this portrayal of a young girl. Rodolfo is played with lyric-dramatic aplomb by Franco Bonisolli, though without sacrificing nuance or elegance of tone in favour of his brilliant top notes. Giuseppe Taddei was ideal for the role of Miller. Under the baton of Alberto Erede, the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera gave a superb performance such as is sadly all-too-rare for Verdi's early and middle-period works.