Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Introduction; Voga, voga, il vento tace
2. La Straniera, opera: Act I: N� alcun ritorna?... Oh cruda, dolorosa incertezza!
3. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Giovin rosa, il vergin seno schiudi appena al ciel sereno
4. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Oh tu che sai gli spasimi di questo cor piagato
5. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Introduction; � questo il loco
6. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Qual suon!... essa � Alaide
7. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Alaide!... Che miro in queste soglie
8. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Ah! m'odi; io t'offesi, � vero, � vero
9. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Ah, se tu vuoi fuggir il mondo e il suo splendor
10. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Odi... qual Suon!... Si adunano i cacciatori intorno
11. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Campo ai veltri... Il cervo � uscito
12. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Ti trovo alfin... Tu di me in traccia?
13. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Eccola!... Cielo!
14. La Straniera, opera: Act I: No, non ti son rivale; non io ti tolgo lei
15. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Che mai penso? un dubbio atroce mi rimane

Disc 2:

1. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Ah! non partir; gi� stende oscura notte il velo
2. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Qual rumor!... Che vegg'io?
3. La Straniera, opera: Act I: Un grido io sento... Suonar per l'onda
4. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Udimmo. Il tuo racconto avvalora i sospetti
5. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Ti appressa... e il ver rispondi
6. La Straniera, opera: Act II: S�, li scioglieste, o Giudici, non avvi il lor delitto
7. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Meco tu vieni, o misera, lunge da queste porte
8. La Straniera, opera: Act II: A tempo io giungo... Ei non part�, qui trasse la sofferente
9. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Sulla salma del fratello t'apr� il passo
10. La Straniera, opera: Act II: � dolce la Vergine qual luna modesta
11. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Che far vuoi tu? Rammenta i giuramenti tuoi
12. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Sono all'ara... Barriera tremenda fra noi sorge
13. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Pari all'amor degli angioli, nume, � il lor casto affetto
14. La Straniera, opera: Act II: Or sei pago, o ciel tremendo... Or vibrato � il colpo estremo

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66023 in Music
• Released on: 2000-11-14
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Customer Reviews

Great music ...
Recorded live in Venice January 7 1970 with Renata Scotto (Alaide), Beniamino Prior (Arturo), Domenico Trimarchi (Valdeburgo) and the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro la Fenice.

No libretto with this 2 CD set -- only 6 pages of brief historical notes and synopsis.

A lovely, very tuneful, old-fashioned 'melodramatic' opera. If bel canto opera delights you this treasure certainly will. I wasn't disappointed! 5 stars for performances.

A beautiful sample of bel canto!
Let me begin my saying the recording was made in 1970,
therefore, not the greatest of quality sound. It is also a live recording which makes it a bit noisy. However, it adds to the excitement of the performance. The singing is first rate. Renata Scotto is at her best. She sings with great flexibility and emotion. All the other singers are also wonderful. This is one of Bellini's forgotten operas but beautifully melodic. If you are a lover of "Bel Canto" this recording should be in your library.

Respectable performance of a lesser Bellini opera
Source: Live performance from the Teatro la Fenice, Venice, January 7, 1970.

Sound: The soundscape of this set is such that I presume it was originally a pirate recording taken at a point approximately mid-theater in La Fenice. The singing voices are distant but in fairly decent balance with the equally distant orchestra. On the other hand, a horny-handed enthusiast is located immediately adjacent to the microphone. For an Italian audience, the crowd at La Fenice was remarkably quiet and self-disciplined.

Overall sound quality is very like an old AM radio broadcast, compressed and a bit thin by current standards, but still capable of providing pleasure.

Cast: Alaide, the foreign woman - Renata Scotto; Valdeburgo, her protector - Domenico Trimarchi; Arturo, a lovestruck chump - Beniamino Prior; Isoletta, his very badly used fiancee - Elena Zilio; The Prior - Maurizio Mazzieri; Montolino - Francesco Signor; Osburgo - Florindo Andreolli. Conductor: Ettore Gracis with the Orchestra and Chorus of La Fenice.

Documentation: No libretto. Otherwise, there is a typically grim Od'O package in which the always hard working Bill Parker attempts to impart the history of the opera and summarize its lunatic plot in the inadequate couple of pages allotted to him. The track list identifies the main soloist singing but omits timings.

Bellini's reputation rests on three hit operas, "I Puritani," "La Sonnambula" and, of course, evergreen "Norma." "La Straniera" is an earlier work, Bellini's fourth opera, dating from 1829. Like its predecessor, "Il Pirata," "La Straniera" achieved popular success at its premiere, but faded away to a mere operatic footnote by the end of the Nineteenth Century. With the great mid-Twentieth Century bel canto revival, it has been granted occasional performances, but "La Straniera" is far from being a standard repertory work.

"La Straniera" is written in typical Bellini-esque idiom but it lacks that indefinable zing that makes the big three operas stand out. Bellini used a simple musical vocabulary which in "La Sonnambula" and "Norma," at least, is best displayed in a series of exquisite and extraordinary duets. The plot of "La Straniera," an improbable pot-boiler based on a once popular and now justly forgotten novel, a series of wildly unlikely occurrences that makes one long for the Aristotelian unities of "Il trovatore," simply does not allow space for great duets.

This performance strikes me as being respectable, but not much more. The only star is Renata Scotto. While I am not one of her fans, I certainly appreciate that a great many people are. It seems to me that she sang well and in characteristic form on that January evening thirty-six years ago. Her fans would be well-advised to acquire this recording on that basis, alone.

The rest of the cast inhabits that cool grey zone between not bad and not particularly good. They are perfectly adequate and wholly forgettable.

Four stars.