Last copy in stock!
This recording is a vocal feast of voices. Samuel Ramey and June Anderson have glorious voices and sing their roles with enough mastership of the repertoire to make the opera exciting and beautiful. All fans of this type of singing, which is a dead art, and fans of Samuel Ramey will eat it up. This vehicle is a great one for Ramey. It allowed him to challenge himself as a bass-baritone, it showcases all aspects of his singing. He has a rich, dark, textured and florid singing voice, while still maintaining a vigorous masculinity and dark edge. Before he made it big in his famous Devil personaee, he was the greatest Rossini baritone, a fact that seems to have faded. This role he considered his best and most challenging. It is vehicle for a true Rossini soprano with both lyric, coloratura and even mezzo qualities. The music is grand, and full of vertiginous scales up and down the staff. There is even an old-school charm about this piece, as if the singers were from an even older period. Singinng Rossini, particularly this type of opera, is not easy and the singers should be credited for their outstanding abilities to stand there and sing this difficult music.
)
