Giuseppe Verdi
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AROLDO (1857)
Monserrat Caballé,Gianfranco Cecchele
Juan Pons, Louis Lebherz
Oratorio Society of New York
Westchester Choral Society
Opera Orchestra of New York
dir : Eve Queler
CBS 79328 stereo LPs (UK pressing), [P] 1980
Recorded live at Carnegie Hall, 8 April 1979
Currently out-of-print in all formats
Available in two formats:
[1] High resolution FLAC files (96 kHz, 24 bit) - one for each act + libretto
[2] FLAC image files and cuesheets to create two CDs (44.1 kHz, 16 bit) + libretto
For details about ripping procedure, please see below.
Aroldo is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on and adapted from their earlier 1850 collaboration, Stiffelio. The first performance was given in the Teatro Nuovo Comunale in Rimini on 16 August 1857.
Stiffelio had provoked the censorship board because of “the immoral and rough” storylines of a Protestant minister deceived by his wife and also because making the characters German did not please an Italian audience, although, as Budden notes, the opera "enjoyed a limited circulation (in Italy), but with the title changed to Guglielmo Wellingrode, the main protagonist now a German minister of state". Verdi had rejected an 1852 request to write a new last act for the Wellingrode version, but, by Spring 1856, in collaboration with his original librettist, Piave, he decided to rewrite the story line and make a small amount of musical changes and additions. However, as it turned out, the work was to be more complex than that.
It drew inspiration from novels of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, specifically his Harold: the Last of the Saxon Kings, for the re-location of the opera to England and—in the last act—to Scotland in the Middle Ages and for the names of its characters, the principal being Harold, re-cast as a recently returned Crusader. Kimbell notes that "hints" came from the work of Walter Scott, whose novel of 1825, The Bethrothed, would "already have been familiar to Italian audiences through Giovanni Pacini's 1829 opera, Il Contestabile di Chester". Also, the novelist's The Lady of the Lake was the inspiration for the hermit Briano.
The rewriting was delayed until after March 1857 by the preparation for Paris of Le trouvère, the French version of Il trovatore, and Verdi's work with Piave on Simon Boccanegra. However, as work resumed on Aroldo with Piave, the premiere was planned for August 1857 in Rimini. When Verdi and Strepponi arrived there on 23 July, they found both librettist and conductor, Angelo Mariani (with whom he had become friends over the previous years and who had been chosen to conduct the new opera) working together. While Phillips-Matz notes that there was "hysteria" at Verdi's presence, there was also opposition to Aroldo that was combined with an influx of people from other cities anxious to see the new opera. With Mariani, rehearsals began well; the conductor reported: "Verdi is very very happy and so am I".
By the time of the premiere, considerable changes had been made to the three-act Stiffelio, the prime one being an added fourth act with new material, described by conductor Mariani to Ricordi as "a stupendous affair; you'll find in it a storm, a pastoral chorus, and an Angelus Dei treated in canon and beautifully wrought". Lina became Mina; Stiffelio, as discussed, was now Aroldo; Stankar morphed into Egberto; Jorg, the bass role, emerged as Briano.
Rimini became the location of the premiere, although when Aroldo was ready to be staged, Verdi had chosen Bologna for its location, but Ricordi, his publisher and friend, suggested that it be staged in Rimini. The premiere performance was an enormous success and the composer was called onto the stage 27 times.
In the seasons which followed the premiere, it appeared in the autumn 1857 season first in Bologna, then Turin, Treviso, and Verona.
The winter carnival season of 1858 saw productions in Venice at La Fenice, Cremona, Parma (which chose it over the original Simon Boccanegra),[9] Florence, and Rome. In 1859, it was given in Malta and then, in the following two years, Aroldo appeared on stages in Genoa, Trieste, Lisbon, and Palermo at the Teatro Massimo Bellini. In the Spring of 1864 it was seen in Turin again and then, in the years up to 1870, performances were recorded as having occurred in Pavia, Como, Modena, and, once again, in Venice. Its success varied considerably, especially in Milan in 1859, where "it was a fiasco. It was the public, not the censors, who found it unacceptable".
Today, Aroldo is one of Verdi's very rarely performed operas, "especially since the rediscovery in 1968 of its parent work Stiffelio ". A major revival occurred at the Wexford Festival in 1959 and it was not performed in the US until 4 May 1963 at the Academy of Music in New York. In February 1964 it was given its first performance in London.
The opera was presented in a concert version by the Opera Orchestra of New York in April 1979 (with Montserrat Caballé and Juan Pons), from which was produced the first recording. But the New York Grand Opera claims to have given the first New York staged performance, in 1993. In 1985—1986 the Teatro La Fenice in Venice mounted the two operas back to back. Sarasota Opera presented it as part of its "Verdi Cycle" in 1990, with Phyllis Treigle as Mina.
Wikipedia
The audio chain I use to rip LPs: (1) the LPs are cleaned using a VPI H!-16 record cleaning machine, using TTVJ Vinyl-Zyme Gold cleaning fluid, (2) ripped on a Nakamichi Dragon CT self-centering turntable with integral tonearm and Ortofon cartridge, (3) processed by a Korg DS-DAC-10R (RIAA setting), (4) then recorded and edited using AudioGate 4, Adobe Audition (and rarely iZotope RX) software.
AROLDO (1857)
Monserrat Caballé,Gianfranco Cecchele
Juan Pons, Louis Lebherz
Oratorio Society of New York
Westchester Choral Society
Opera Orchestra of New York
dir : Eve Queler
CBS 79328 stereo LPs (UK pressing), [P] 1980
Recorded live at Carnegie Hall, 8 April 1979
Currently out-of-print in all formats
Available in two formats:
[1] High resolution FLAC files (96 kHz, 24 bit) - one for each act + libretto
[2] FLAC image files and cuesheets to create two CDs (44.1 kHz, 16 bit) + libretto
For details about ripping procedure, please see below.
Aroldo is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on and adapted from their earlier 1850 collaboration, Stiffelio. The first performance was given in the Teatro Nuovo Comunale in Rimini on 16 August 1857.
Stiffelio had provoked the censorship board because of “the immoral and rough” storylines of a Protestant minister deceived by his wife and also because making the characters German did not please an Italian audience, although, as Budden notes, the opera "enjoyed a limited circulation (in Italy), but with the title changed to Guglielmo Wellingrode, the main protagonist now a German minister of state". Verdi had rejected an 1852 request to write a new last act for the Wellingrode version, but, by Spring 1856, in collaboration with his original librettist, Piave, he decided to rewrite the story line and make a small amount of musical changes and additions. However, as it turned out, the work was to be more complex than that.
It drew inspiration from novels of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, specifically his Harold: the Last of the Saxon Kings, for the re-location of the opera to England and—in the last act—to Scotland in the Middle Ages and for the names of its characters, the principal being Harold, re-cast as a recently returned Crusader. Kimbell notes that "hints" came from the work of Walter Scott, whose novel of 1825, The Bethrothed, would "already have been familiar to Italian audiences through Giovanni Pacini's 1829 opera, Il Contestabile di Chester". Also, the novelist's The Lady of the Lake was the inspiration for the hermit Briano.
The rewriting was delayed until after March 1857 by the preparation for Paris of Le trouvère, the French version of Il trovatore, and Verdi's work with Piave on Simon Boccanegra. However, as work resumed on Aroldo with Piave, the premiere was planned for August 1857 in Rimini. When Verdi and Strepponi arrived there on 23 July, they found both librettist and conductor, Angelo Mariani (with whom he had become friends over the previous years and who had been chosen to conduct the new opera) working together. While Phillips-Matz notes that there was "hysteria" at Verdi's presence, there was also opposition to Aroldo that was combined with an influx of people from other cities anxious to see the new opera. With Mariani, rehearsals began well; the conductor reported: "Verdi is very very happy and so am I".
By the time of the premiere, considerable changes had been made to the three-act Stiffelio, the prime one being an added fourth act with new material, described by conductor Mariani to Ricordi as "a stupendous affair; you'll find in it a storm, a pastoral chorus, and an Angelus Dei treated in canon and beautifully wrought". Lina became Mina; Stiffelio, as discussed, was now Aroldo; Stankar morphed into Egberto; Jorg, the bass role, emerged as Briano.
Rimini became the location of the premiere, although when Aroldo was ready to be staged, Verdi had chosen Bologna for its location, but Ricordi, his publisher and friend, suggested that it be staged in Rimini. The premiere performance was an enormous success and the composer was called onto the stage 27 times.
In the seasons which followed the premiere, it appeared in the autumn 1857 season first in Bologna, then Turin, Treviso, and Verona.
The winter carnival season of 1858 saw productions in Venice at La Fenice, Cremona, Parma (which chose it over the original Simon Boccanegra),[9] Florence, and Rome. In 1859, it was given in Malta and then, in the following two years, Aroldo appeared on stages in Genoa, Trieste, Lisbon, and Palermo at the Teatro Massimo Bellini. In the Spring of 1864 it was seen in Turin again and then, in the years up to 1870, performances were recorded as having occurred in Pavia, Como, Modena, and, once again, in Venice. Its success varied considerably, especially in Milan in 1859, where "it was a fiasco. It was the public, not the censors, who found it unacceptable".
Today, Aroldo is one of Verdi's very rarely performed operas, "especially since the rediscovery in 1968 of its parent work Stiffelio ". A major revival occurred at the Wexford Festival in 1959 and it was not performed in the US until 4 May 1963 at the Academy of Music in New York. In February 1964 it was given its first performance in London.
The opera was presented in a concert version by the Opera Orchestra of New York in April 1979 (with Montserrat Caballé and Juan Pons), from which was produced the first recording. But the New York Grand Opera claims to have given the first New York staged performance, in 1993. In 1985—1986 the Teatro La Fenice in Venice mounted the two operas back to back. Sarasota Opera presented it as part of its "Verdi Cycle" in 1990, with Phyllis Treigle as Mina.
Wikipedia
The audio chain I use to rip LPs: (1) the LPs are cleaned using a VPI H!-16 record cleaning machine, using TTVJ Vinyl-Zyme Gold cleaning fluid, (2) ripped on a Nakamichi Dragon CT self-centering turntable with integral tonearm and Ortofon cartridge, (3) processed by a Korg DS-DAC-10R (RIAA setting), (4) then recorded and edited using AudioGate 4, Adobe Audition (and rarely iZotope RX) software.