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Leoncavallo - Pagliacci / Cura, Frittoli, Álvarez, Keenlyside, Concertgebouw, Chailly
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About Leoncavallo - Pagliacci
Amazon.com Does the world need another Pagliacci? Well perhaps, if it amounts to something materially unlike the others on the market--and this new recording from Riccardo Chailly is just that. Where Karajan's classic DG version goes for expansive grandeur and Muti's various Philips readings for rapid gloss, Chailly makes no particular stand on tempi and avoids glossy effects. Instead, he gives you a dark and grainy-textured piece of drama with voices to match, the tone set by Carlos Alvarez (Tonio) in a prologue that leaves no doubt about who'll be the villain of the piece. You also get a shadow in the voice of José Cura (Canio), who makes this disc a calling card for his credentials as a serious singer-actor and contains the bell-like potential of his singing in an earthy desperation--more cinéma vérité than conventional verismo. The sobs are there for "Vesti la giubba," but not in the dimensions that come with Pavarotti's hankie to attend them. You feel the private trauma of a man on the edge rather than the public histrionics of a performer playing to the gallery. Barbara Frittoli makes a slightly cool Nedda but registers in vocal coloring how differently she feels toward the three men in her operatic life. Among them, Simon Keenlyside cuts an ardent, eloquently virile figure as her lover Silvio. And the Concertgebouw almost counts as a lover too, with brilliantly articulated playing that compensates for a soft-edged chorus--and is seductive. A distinctive Pagliacci? Yes. --Michael White
