The young Verdi- Vol. 4Nabucco - Gobbi - Gardelli 1965
2CDs - ADD - 67'21, 53'15
DECCA 1986
Tito Gobbi - Nabuchodonosor (Nabucco), Bruno Prevedi - Ismaele, Carlo Cava - Zaccaria, Elena Souliotis - Abigaille, Dora Carral - Fenena, Giovanni Foiani - High Priest of Baal, Walter Kräutler - Abdallo, Anna d'Auria - Anna
Vienna State Opera Chorus; Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Cond. Lamberto Gardelli
Recorded October 1965, Sofiensaal, Vienna
Gramophone 1/1987, Alan Blyth:
"Twenty years have hardly lessened the excitement of listening to this vigorous, closely-knit performance. One realizes why we were all amazed by Suliotis's account of the role of Abigaille. Her singing seizes you by the throat through its raw depiction of malice and through its youthful, uninhibited power. With the benefit of hindsight one can hear how a voice treated so carelessly and unstintingly could not last long, and so it was to be; but I suppose we should be glad for the brightness of the meteor while it flashed all too briefly through the operatic firmament. As an interpretation, her Abigaille seems a little coarse set beside the refinements shown by Scotto for Muti on EMI, a set that must surely soon appear on CD. However, Suliotis can manage by nature what Scotto has to conjure up by art, and she is certainly a subtler artist than Dimitrova on the wayward Sinopoli/DG version now on CD.
