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Cecilia Bartoli - Maria | 
| Creators: Maria Maribran, Vincenzo Bellini, Jacques Fromental Halevy, Giovanni Pacini, Felix Mendelssohn, Manuel Garcia, Adam Fischer, Orchestra 'La Scintilla', Cecilia Bartoli, Luca Pisaroni
Label: Decca
Category: Music
List Price: $13.79
Buy New: $9.74
as of 11/28/2009 04:17 CST details
You Save: $4.05 (29%)
New (32) Used (10) from $6.00
Seller: moviemars
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 8630
Format: Limited Edition
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.8 x 0.6
MPN: 000998902
UPC: 028947590774
EAN: 0028947590774
ASIN: B000RPSVD6
Release Date: October 10, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Irene (o Lassedio di Messina), opera: Se un mio desir... Cedi al duol | | • | Irene (o Lassedio di Messina), opera: Ira del ciel | | • | Ines de Castro, opera: Cari Giorni | | • | Infelice, concert aria for soprano & orchestra, Op. 94 | | • | El poeta calculista, opera: Yo que soy contrabandista | | • | La sonnambula, opera: Ah! Non credea mirarti | | • | La sonnambula, opera: Ah! Non giunge | | • | Air à la tirolienne avec variations, for voice & orchestra, Op. 118 | | • | La figlia dell'aria, opera: E non lo vedo... Son Regina | | • | Rataplan | | • | Tancredi, opera: Dopo tante e tante pene | | • | I Puritani, opera: O Rendetemi la speme... Qui la voce | | • | I Puritani, opera: Vien, diletto | | • | L'éclair, opera: Come dolce a me favelli | | • | Amelia (or Otto anni di costanza), opera: Scorrete, o lagrime | | • | L'elisir d'amore, opera: Prendi, per me sei libero | | • | Norma, opera: Casta diva |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
Cecilia Bartoli revisits the early Romantic era of Rossini, Bellini and their contemporaries and views the Bel canto glory days through the eyes of Maria Malibran: Romantic icon, Bel Canto muse, and the most extraordinary opera star of her time. Maria features 8 world premiere recordings including the prayer `Se il mio desir...Cedi al duol' from the long lost opera Irene by Pacini, and the aria `E non lo vedo...Son regina' by Maria's father, the famous Rossini tenor Manuel Garcia. Bartoli also presents the London version of Mendelssohn's `Infelice' for voice, violin solo and orchestra, where she duets with Maxim Vengerov. The album also includes popular favorites, such as Bellini's `Casta Diva' from Norma. Maria features an incredible variety of music. Mellifluous Bel canto delights are contrasted with regional flavors from around the world: from Spanish flamenco to Tyrolienne yodeling. The album exhibits Cecilia Bartoli singing in four languages: Italian, Spanish, French and English. She is joined by the period practice Orchestra La Scintilla, led by Hungarian conductor Adam Fischer.
Album Description
Cecilia Bartoli revisits the early Romantic era of Rossini, Bellini and their contemporaries, and views the Bel canto glory days through the eyes of Maria Malibran : Romantic icon, Bel canto muse, and the most extraordinary opera star of her time. Cecilia Bartoli has unearthed many forgotten opera jewels. The album features several world premiere recordings including the prayer 'Se il mio desir Cedi al duol' from the long lost opera Irene by Pacini and the aria 'E non lo vedo Son regina' by Maria's father, the famous Rossini tenor Manuel Garcia. Bartoli also presents the London version of Mendelssohn's 'Infelice' for voice, violin solo and orchestra, where she duets with Maxim Vengerov. The programme also includes popular favourites , such as Bellini's 'Casta diva' from Norma. Maria features an incredible variety of music. Mellifluous Bel canto delights are contrasted with regional flavours from around the world: from Spanish flamenco to Tyrolienne yodelling. The album exhibits Cecilia Bartoli singing in four languages: Italian, Spanish, French and English.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
 Unfortunate. March 3, 2009
wdhspg (West Hills, Calif.)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I love Bartoli's recitals of Rossini and Mozart--incomparable. I very much looked forward to hearing her in some of the more well-known Bellini and Donizetti roles. What a disappointment. There is an alarming beat in her voice. Her interpretations are so over-emphasized that the music becomes disjointed. Her ornamentation is perfunctory at best. This is not bel canto as Callas, Sutherland, Sills, Caballe and many others have demonstrated that it can and should be sung. This does not bode well for the complete Sonnambula that waits on my listening pile. The sad part is that I know she can sing these roles as no one else has ever done, if she would abandon the fussy phrasing and muddy coloratura for simplicity and a smooth line.
 Poor Malibran December 2, 2008
FrcoChile (Santiago, Chile)
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
Bartoli's new CD is a great idea, no doubt about it. It is a most fine product with a very interesting idea behind it.
BUT, can a singer with a nice and small voice manipulate the truth just because she wants money?
C'MON Cecilia!!! You can say that Malibran was a mezzo, you can say you like her debuted singing Rosina, you can use a 430 pitch to sing Amina or Norma but you can't deny the truth.
Bartoli's voice is small...very nice with a wonderfull coloratura technic but small. Malibran's voice was huge... it's not me who says that but the critics of the time when she lived.
Can Madame Bartoli sing in a theatre Norma, Fidelio, Semiramide (and Arsace too by the way), Tancredi, Ninetta in La Gazza Ladra, Elvira in I Puritani or Adina in L'elisir d'amore???
Can Bartoli sing those roles??? maybe yes, with a small orchestra and in a lower pitch like she does in her concerts.... but can Bartoli sing those roles in huge theatre like La Scala, San Carlo in Naples, L'Opera de Paris or Covent Garden where Malibran sang them with enormous triumph??
NO WAY!
Malibran's voice is a legend, she was a true phenomenon of the early XIX century. She can sing almost everything and in addition to that she was an amazing actress as well as and amazing musician.
And Bartoli??? She's a great media character with a nice little voice. So Don't try to erase the true about the greatest diva of the opera.
 Wonderful to Listen To August 17, 2008
Sarah
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I should start out saying I generally do not like to listen to female singers five minutes (I have always loved Baritones). There is only one singer that is the exception and that is Cecilia.
I certainly feel that there are enough different songs on here that there is something for everyone. There are slow flowing songs like "Se Un Mio Desir" and fast paced songs such as "Ah! Non" to name a few. Cecilia's voice is distinctive and a pleasure to listen to.
--Sarah
If half the stories about her are half true....... July 25, 2008
Robert C. Hufford (Hopewell, VA USA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
....Maria Malibran must have been a real piece of work. And if the music written for her is any indication, she must have been an absolutely fabulous singer. Malibran was opera's first girl superstar, but her personal life kept getting in the way until her tragic death at 28. Her legend is sort of like "What if Amy Winehouse could actually sing"? A book I had some years ago of juicy tales about great singers gave her a large chapter.....As to the issue at hand.........
Cecilia Bartoli has given us an album of works written for the great contralto. Now, if the music is an unknown quantity, Cecilia sure isn't. The great Mezzo of our day has long specialized in the unusual, and this recording brings out all of her massive talent. You won't know the numbers [at least I didn't], except for "casta diva", from Norma. Do you care? That's the question.
This is a beautifully produced album [the book alone is worth the price], that at 79'47" gives full value. Gorgeous girl, great music, well sung. Perhaps it's for the fan of the rare and unusual; if that's you, go for it.
I DON'T GET IT February 20, 2008
John J. Schauer (Chicago, IL USA)
12 out of 18 found this review helpful
We should all be glad that Cecilia Bartoli has such clout in the world of classical music, because without it, we wouldn't have such interesting recordings as this one or her earlier Salieri album. Here she explores repertoire associated with the legendary 19th-century singer Maria Malibran (terms such as soprano and mezzo-soprano weren't as rigorously applied then as they are now; scholars surmise that she was basically a mezzo with a freakishly high extension that enabled her to tackle many of what today are considered soprano roles.) I suppose the implication is that Ms. Bartoli is today's equivalent of Malibran, but I think not.
I've never understood the Bartoli phenomenon. Lord knows enough knowledgeable people are in awe of her talent--I remember one vocal authority, after hearing one of her first recitals, declared her to be "a perfect singer." I never heard her live (maybe that's the only way to appreciate her gifts), but I remember the first time I heard one of her recordings on the radio. Not knowing who was singing, I was curious as to just who it was who had such a strange-sounding voice and technique. I was shocked to learn that it was this supposedly "perfect" singer.
For starters, her voice, to my ear, is not beautiful or sensuous. It often exhibits a guttural, almost shrill tone that makes her sound old and which I find grating. She's an attractive woman, but when she sings (as is painfully obvious in her video performances), she grimaces and contorts her mouth in a most unattractive and distracting manner. I also find her emotional range to be limited. She seems to have two modes: a soft, admittedly beautiful, legato that seems to indicate quiet introspection; and a breathy declamation that connotes agitated distress. In the Mad Scene from "I Puritani," for example, I hear no sadness in what must be the most heart-breaking set piece Bellini ever composed. And her coloratura!--It sounds like a cross between gargling and hiccoughs. Unfortunately, for the repertoire she most frequently performs, coloratura facility is a requirement. (I was once at a book signing for Dame Joan Sutherland, who was asked her opinion of Bartoli. She tried to be tactful, but said, "I must say her coloratura production sounds very strange. It will be interesting to see how long she's around." Well, Bartoli is obviously still around, but she also still has that strangely cackling coloratura sound.) One wonders why no teacher or coach ever told her not to aspirate each note so strongly. I suppose we should be grateful that when she essays the legendary aria "Casta Diva" from Bellini's "Norma," she does not include the cabaletta--which is, after all, half the aria.
Bartoli does offer a generous selection of obscure and rarely heard selections. It is no surprise that the disc includes eight "world premiere" recordings--as phenomenal as Malibran was, virtually no major operatic role was composed specifically for her by any composer held in esteem today; the closest she came was when Bellini made a special mezzo arrangement of "La Sonnambula" for her, an arrangement she never got to sing (although Frederica von Stade did perform it several decades back). As for the bulky book that is bound with the disc, it has shamelessly been designed to look like a perfume ad from Vanity Fair; I'm surprised she isn't sporting her Rolex watch on the cover. For a thorough grounding in the facts of Malibran's life, one would do better to dig up a copy of Howard Bushnell's "Maria Malibran: A Biography of the Singer" (now unfortunately out of print, but available in libraries).
Quite a few years ago, near the beginning of her career, Marilyn Horne recorded a remarkable two-LP set called "Souvenir of a Golden Era," in which she paid tribute to Malibran and her sister, the almost equally famous mezzo Pauline Viardot. None of that recording's repertoire overlaps with Bartoli's disc (although it includes "Bel raggio" from "Semiramide," which Bartoli recorded on her "Rossini Heroines" disc), but I frankly don't find Bartoli's instrument to be in the same league as Horne's. Too bad Decca has never released the earlier recording complete on CD. I think that would give us a better notion of what Malibran might have sounded like.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
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