COMPOSERS: Donizetti
LABELS: Decca
WORKS: Excerpts from La fille du régiment, L’elisir d’amore, La favorita, Lucia di Lammermoor, Il duca d’Alba,
PERFORMER: Luciano Pavarotti (tenor)Various orchestras &conductors
CATALOGUE NO: 458 203-2 ADD Reissue
Here is a selection of 13 of Donizetti’s finest arias, recorded at various times between 1967 and 1975 by Pavarotti when he was in his prime. The earliest recordings are the two arias taken from a complete La fille du régiment conducted with charm and ebullience by Richard Bonynge. ‘Pour mon âme’, excitingly delivered, contains those nine notorious high Cs with which, a few years earlier, Pavarotti had brought the house down at Covent Garden.
In addition to the expected popular pieces from L’elisir d’amore (an elegant and mellifluous ‘Una furtiva lagrima’), Don Pasquale and Lucia di Lammermoor, there are two less familiar arias from Il duca d’Alba and Don Sebastiano, both once recorded by Caruso. Pavarotti, our equivalent of the great Neapolitan tenor, gives exemplary performances of these. Charles Osborne