The student princess
Which much-recorded singer has developed her use of expressive rubato to the point that she actually “stole” a professor from a prestigious British academy by offering him a veritable fortune to resign his position and devote his time to coaching her most recent CD?
I love the Caballe Cosi. Its only real flaw, to my ears, is the tired-sounding Gedda. He can sound almost unlistenable at times, but he doesn’t appear to fudge the coloratura in that demanding role as some others may have. I don’t mind Cotrubas as much as other posters evidently do. I don’t find Montsy and Dame Granite as mismatched as some people have. If Caballe’s triplets in Come Scoglio aren’t as cleanly articulated as Berganza’s on her recital disk (from the late 50s, I think, when she sang both of Fiordiligi’s arias completely immaculately), I think the rest of her singing is pretty sharp, given how sloppy she could be. Her biography recounts that during the sessions Cotrubas’s schedule was messed up trying to get her mother out of Roumania (or some such extramusical harangue), and Caballe pitched a fit about rescheduling who was to sing what at which session. Evidently, “Come scoglio” was recorded in one angry take.
I’ve never heard the Leinsdorf Cosi, and I see that it’s awaiting another cheap reissue. I never thought Leontyne had the chops to get through Fiordiligi without cutting corners. I’m tempted to get it because of Troyanos, whom I adore. Has anyone else heard it? I would imagine the conducting would be a little more generic than what would come in the 70s and 80s, maybe even as slow as HvK’s mono version for EMI, with Schwarzkopf and Merriman.
Tubsinger, I’ve heard bits of the Leinsdorf Cosi, and found it utterly sublime. I’m not a L Price fan, but I found her to be just gorgeous in the parts I heard. Thinking about it, they were all excerpts with the emphasis on long lines, so I don’t know how she deals with the coloratura, but I’ll most certainly be getting it as soon as I see it in the shops.
I don’t get this praise of Caballe’s Fiordiligi – as stated above, I’m a huge Caballe fan, but find her very wide of the mark in this particular recording. I’ve seen it singled out fairly often as an example of good Caballe for those who don’t tend to like her, which makes it even harder for me to understand why I don’t like it…