69.00 PLN

2 CD:

Nr kat.: GL100575
Label  : GALA Records

Ralph Moore TOP 1000 REVIEWER 5.0 out of 5 stars The best of Soviet Russian recording May 29, 2016 There are several excellent more modern recordings of this opera available, notably those by Gergiev, Ozawa, Tchakarov and Ermler, but if you are tolerant of clean mono sound without too much distortion this remains the most authentic and exciting of sets. It dates back to 1949 and 1950 but is surprisingly listenable and may be found on various labels, most economically on a bargain Cantus Classics twofer. It offers the best all-Russian-speaking cast imaginable; I for one would consider it valuable for two incomparable singers alone in Bolshoi stalwart Georgi Nelepp and Armenian baritone Pavel Lisitsian - try the latter's beautifully sung "Ya vas lyublyu" - but the rest of the cast is almost as impressive. It is also a pleasure to hear Russian so clearly and idiomatically enunciated. Conductor Melik-Pashayev really pushes the action along swiftly making one realise what a taut, dramatically gripping libretto Tchaikovsky's brother Modest made of Pushkin's original. There is frenetic, unsettling quality to the whole opera which reflects Hermann's mounting hysteria; I had not before noticed how closely the low string ostinato in the introduction to the scene in which Hermann tries to force the secret of the three cards from the Countess and inadvertently causes her death mirrors the same instrumental effect used by Verdi just before Otello strangles Desdemona. Perhaps this was no coincidence as "Otello" was first performed in St Petersburg in late 1887 and "Pique Dame" was first staged there in late 1890). Soprano Evgenya Smolenskaya is vibrant but not wobbly and another Evgenya, contralto Verbitskaya is suitably characterful as the Countess, despite her heavily accented French, as that doesn't really matter given that she is supposed to be a Russian who lived in Paris. She isn't as good a Maureen Forrester or Irina Arkhipova but she's fine enough. Nelepp is extraordinarily intense as Hermann. This is Soviet recording at its best and artistically, if not sonically, the most striking recording available.