# The Best of the Rest - Verdi - Simon Boccanegra - "Come in quest'ora bruna"



## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

After each aria Final, a separate thread will be created consisting of performances that did not appear within the regular series of competitions.

This is not a thread in which the performers will be competing against one another.

The sole intent of this thread is to gauge your personal level of interest in each of the performances - 

with the question asked being - "Does this performance merit a second listening?" - If yes, why? - If no, why?

You will have the option of choosing a single performer, multiple performers, or "None of the Above" to express your opinion.

Your judging criteria should be - overall quality of voice, musicality, and the use of language as a means of dramatic expression.

Allow me to express my personal thanks to any and all who choose to participate - Your expertise, time, and effort are greatly appreciated.

A brief note on the aria itself courtesy of the Aria Database -

Come in quest'ora bruna - Cavatina
from Act I, Scene 1 of the Italian opera Simon Boccanegra by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave

Role: Maria Boccanegra (Amelia), Simon Boccanegra's illegitimate daughter, goes by the name Amelia
Voice Part: soprano Fach: spinto soprano
Setting: the garden of the Grimaldi Palace, Genoa, mid 14th century.
Synopsis: Amelia looks into the distance and remembers her childhood. The sight of the moon and the sea together brings back the memory of the old woman who lived in a small hut by the sea and raised her from a small child. She promises never to let the extravagant surroundings of the palace make her forget her humble past.






Gundula Janowitz







Mariana Nicolesco 







Kristine Opolais







Katia Ricciarelli


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I didn't listen to any of these entire except Ricciarelli, but merely sampled them. Lovely as this aria is, it doesn't ask much by way of interpretation, and different performances tend to be more alike than different, leading to fatigue (in this listener, at least). I wanted to like Ricciarelli more because her tone has some depth. The others I'd be content to hear once at a performance - no one is bad - but wouldn't care to have on a recording for repeated listening and don't feel the need to analyze.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Janowitz and Ricciarelli are the big names here and both have a distinctive voice - the _sine qua non _according to Walter Legge, for a recording career. Though I don’t care for Janowitz’s glassy timbre in Italian opera, she sings it well enough. Ricciarelli had a beautiful voice but the tone always felt fragile and here it also sounds tremulous but I don’t think it’s an artistic choice. Nevertheless, it’s also affecting, despite the lunges at the high notes. 
The other two have ordinary voices though they sing the piece well, they don’t distinguish themselves. 
I doubt I’d add any of these recordings to my collection or that I’d remember them in a day or two.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> Though I don’t care for Janowitz’s glassy timbre in Italian opera, she sings it well enough.


Interesting coincidence. I once described her tone as "cut-glass." She makes me feel as if I've wandered into a museum display of Lalique glass figurines. I once played her recording of the soprano solo from Brahms' Requiem for my father and he thought she sounded like a musical saw. She'd make a perfect ensemble with these guys:


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

Ricciarelli for me because the other 3 sound sleepy, but I don't enjoy Ricciarelli's that much.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> Interesting coincidence. I once described her tone as "cut-glass."


This is probably a good lesson on why I should approach Wikipedia entries a bit more cautiously. This is what I read -

"Janowitz's voice is recognizable by its pure "creamy" tone, and rapid vibrato. Like her predecessor Maria Stader, who had similar timbre to hers, and like her contemporary, Elizabeth Harwood, Janowitz mastered first and foremost the high and middle register and lyrical-emotional expression.

Despite her comparatively weak sound projection, she occasionally performed in dramatic roles (Sieglinde, Leonore, Elsa) or comic roles (Marzelline, Rosalinde), but she was most highly regarded as Fiordiligi, Countess Rosina Almaviva, Pamina, Agathe, Arabella, Ariadne, Countess Madeleine, and in sacred music (the Angel Gabriel, _The Creation_).

Of her interpretation of _Four Last Songs_ by Richard Strauss, David Bowie wrote: "Although Eleanor Steber and Lisa Della Casa do fine interpretations of this monumental work, Janowitz’s performance [...] has been described, rightly, as transcendental. It aches with love for a life that is quietly fading. I know of no other piece of music, nor any performance, which moves me quite like this."

With a few exceptions, she avoided foreign-language roles (although recordings exist of her singing _Don Carlos_ and Verdi's _Requiem_ and all three Mozart/DaPonte operas in Italian). *An excerpt of her portrayal of the Figaro Countess in the duettino "Canzonetta sull'aria" with Swiss soprano Edith Mathis features prominently in the 1994 film *_*The Shawshank Redemption and in the 2001 film "The Man Who Wasn't There""*





_


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

OffPitchNeb said:


> Ricciarelli for me because the other 3 sound sleepy, but I don't enjoy Ricciarelli's that much.


Ricciarelli herself sounds somnolent towards the end of her performance.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Nicolesco and Opolais were, I thought, both rather dull. Nor do they have particularly interesting voices. (The Opolais video wasn't available to me, by the way but I found her on youtube).
Janowitz did what she usually did. She makes a lovely sound that glides over the music, but I want a bit more passion than this sort of disembodied purity.
Ricciarelli is the most interesting, but I feel she'd have made a bit more out of this a little later in her career. Her Luisa Miller is one of the best on disc, but she doesn't sound so involved here. Still, she has the most apt voice for the music.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

MAS said:


> Janowitz and Ricciarelli are the big names here and both have a *distinctive voice - the sine qua non according to Walter Legge, for a recording career.* Though I don’t care for Janowitz’s glassy timbre in Italian opera, she sings it well enough. Ricciarelli had a beautiful voice but the tone always felt fragile and here it also sounds tremulous but I don’t think it’s an artistic choice. Nevertheless, it’s also affecting, despite the lunges at the high notes.
> *The other two have ordinary voices though they sing the piece well, they don’t distinguish themselves.*
> I doubt I’d add any of these recordings to my collection or that I’d remember them in a day or two.


These may have seemed fairly straightforward statements to the more experienced members but they did indeed provide me with a greater sense of clarity as to what to listen for - That there's a difference between craft and artistry - Distinctive voices in comparison to professional yet workmanlike and oft-times uninspired performances.

I can see how superfluous this kind of thread can be - More often than not, the "best of the rest" really isn't all that good - If they were, they would have made the cut the first time.

I'll still continue to listen to as many versions of each aria that I can as that's the only way to gradually learn to distinguish art from craft but there's no need to subject anyone else to having to listen to a performance that isn't of any particular benefit.


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