The young Verdi - Vol. 6Ernani - Price, Bergonzi, Schippers (1967) (LP transfer)
2CDs - ADD - 2h10'07
RCA 1967
Cast: Carlo Bergonzi - Ernani • Mario Sereni - Don Carlo • Ezio Flagello - Don RuyGomez de Silva • Leontyne Price - Elvira • Júlia Hamari - Giovanna • Fernando Iacopucci - Don Riccardo • Hartje Mueller - Jago
RCA Italiana Opera Chorus/Nino Antonellini
RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra/Thomas Schippers
Studio recording 1967, Roma
(RCA claimed it as a "complete" recording; in fact, Verdi's scholars have found later a few missing parts.)
Leontyne Price has moments when she sounds (as she could be) like the greatest Verdi soprano of the age (the phrases where, forlornly, she asks Ernani for a smile, "il riso del tuo volto", provide an example); she is at least Mirella Freni's equal. And Bergonzi is decidedly Domingo's superior here. His singing is, to my mind, the principal recommendation of the set, not that he is particularly subtle or intense, but that he never wrenches out of shape the melodic line for which his finely produced voice is an ideal instrument. The Muti recording gives very limited satisfaction in the arias, which are such an important part of the opera, the RCA issue (textually complete), while not rising to the standard of the famous old recordings of individual items, presents an attractive alternative. --Gramophone, 8/1998
