# New Virginia Zeani Box Set in celebration of the Romanian Diva's 90th Birthday



## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

The great Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani celebrates her 90th birthday in 2015. A devoted fan of the diva based in Ontario, Canada, has lovingly produced a special, limited-edition box set of her complete studio recordings (too few) and selected radio broadcast recordings showcasing her wonderful artistry and musicianship. The set can be ordered from Norbeck, Peters & Ford: www.norpete.com


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Contents of the box set:

Arias & Duets (w.Agostino Lazzari & Nicola Rossi Lemeni) from I Puritani, Lucia, L'Elisir, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly & Cavalleria - recorded 1956-58, Hamburg & Torino;

w.Gavazzeni Cond.Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orch.: Arias from La Sonnambula, I Puritani, Lucia, La Traviata & La Boheme - recorded, 1956, Decca;

w.Patanè Cond.Santa Cecilia Orch., Roma: Arias from Gianni Schicchi, Turandot (Liù), Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, Suor Angelica, Manon Lescaut, Tosca & La Rondine - recorded 1958, Decca;

w.Annovazzi Cond.Hamburg Radio Ensemble: Arias & Duets (w.Giuseppe Savio & Paolo Gorin) from La Traviata - recorded 1960, Musica et Litera;

w.Brediceanu Cond.Operei Romane din Bucuresti Ensemble: Arias from Don Carlos, Aïda, Manon Lescaut, La Boheme & Madama Butterfly - recorded 1971, Electrecord;

w.Zedda Cond.Torino Ensemble: Duets (w.Ennio Buoso, Ottavio Garaventa, Gloria Foglizzo & Nicola Rossi-Lemeni): Excerpts from Otello (Rossini & Verdi), recorded 1964, Philips;

w.Nicola Rossi-Lemeni (B); George Singer Cond.Hamburg Radio Orch.: LA SERVA PADRONA (Pergolesi), recorded 1960, Musica et Litera;

w.Luigi Infantino, Antonio Boyer, etc.; Mario Rossi Cond.RAI Ensemble, Roma: LA TRAVIATA (Complete), recorded 1963, RAI;

[1993 Interview with George Jellinek, WNYC - most informative, refined and inspiring, especially her comments on Callas, Albanese and Pertile].

Each CD in its own jacket, plus beautifully-produced brochure with many lovely photos, in slipcase & presentation box. Each CD jacket features facsimile of original Decca, Philips & Electrecord artwork, where applicable.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Virginia Zeani in a live performance in her signature role, Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, on 5 October 1967 at Lausanne, Switzerland. She was supported by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna forces on tour with Oliviero de Fabritiis as conductor.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Virginia Zeani in a live performance in her signature role, Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, on 5 October 1967 at Lausanne, Switzerland. She was supported by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna forces on tour with Oliviero de Fabritiis as conductor.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Virginia Zeani in a live performance in her signature role, Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, on 5 October 1967 at Lausanne, Switzerland. She was supported by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna forces on tour with Oliviero de Fabritiis as conductor.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Virginia Zeani in a live performance in her signature role, Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, on 5 October 1967 at Lausanne, Switzerland. She was supported by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna forces on tour with Oliviero de Fabritiis as conductor.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Virginia Zeani in a live performance in her signature role, Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, on 5 October 1967 at Lausanne, Switzerland. She was supported by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna forces on tour with Oliviero de Fabritiis as conductor.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Virginia Zeani in a live performance in her signature role, Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, on 5 October 1967 at Lausanne, Switzerland. She was supported by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna forces on tour with Oliviero de Fabritiis as conductor.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Virginia Zeani in a live performance in her signature role, Violetta Valery in Verdi's La Traviata, on 5 October 1967 at Lausanne, Switzerland. She was supported by the Teatro Comunale di Bologna forces on tour with Oliviero de Fabritiis as conductor.


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

I have some serious disappointments related to Zeani's recorded corpus. She is fabulous in Sour Angelica and Fedora, the available live recordings of her are in terrible sound. I don't appreciate her in Verdi. But she was awesome in virtually everything else.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

I hope you're excluding her Violetta from not appreciating her in Verdi! For my ears she is the definitive Violetta, no-one else has ever come close. There is a reasonably good recording of her in La Traviata performed in Bucharest in 1968. I've got it on Vinyl (found in Bucharest some years ago during a visit to the Enescu festival) and CD. The sound quality on this one is actually pretty good.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Which of Zeani's Traviata recordings do you think is the best?

N.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

I only have the '68 with the fully Romanian cast under Bobescu. I have heard a couple of others when visiting Romania, but haven't been able to source them. The odd thing about the '68 recording is the quality of the rest of the cast (Ion Buzea, Nicolae Herlea etc) who are excellent, despite being relatively unknown. 

I've not managed to get a copy of the Annovazzi recording, and haven't tried to hard as I believe it's a 'highlights' version rather than the full opera. As for the Covent Garden '60, again highlights only and the bits I've heard weren't well recorded.


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

I'm sorry for my carelessness of course Zeani was a fabulous Violetta. I can't say she was "the best", I find Callas and Ponselle at least as compelling, but she is definitely amongst the best. The recording with Bobescu of course is very good in part because it has Herlea, a great singer in his own right. I think my favorite is HER favorite, and it is included in the Zeani set. It is intimately recorded and very moving.It was made in 1963 with Luigi Infantino.

But her singing in Sour Angelica has to be heard to be believed, though the sound is awful. Likewise Fedora. I heard an excerpt from her in Adriana Lecouvreur, she must have been amazing.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

She was by all accounts fabulous. A friend of my wife's family heard her numerous times in Bucharest in her prime. Having heard the descriptions first hand it's clear that she was a truly fabulous singer. Sadly there are very few good surviving recordings of her now.


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

Does anyone have any info about her in those three roles, Angelica, Fedora, and Adriana? I am pretty sure I know the sotry on the first two and it is grim. What about Adriana?

BTW I am not sure why she would have been peforming in Bucharest in her prime, she began her career in Italy I didn't know she ever returned. Feel free to educate me.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

You’ll find several of her Bucharest performances on YouTube now! There weren’t that many, but they did happen.

It’s a while since I’ve been to Bucharest, but will see what else I can dig up next time I’m over there, COVID permitting!


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

Ha ha ha not a bad idea! I will chexk the next time I am there!


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Viardots said:


> Contents of the box set:
> 
> Arias & Duets (w.Agostino Lazzari & Nicola Rossi Lemeni) from I Puritani, Lucia, L'Elisir, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly & Cavalleria - recorded 1956-58, Hamburg & Torino;
> 
> ...


Here's what it looks like


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

Its a nice set with some strange choices. For example, the first one is the packaging, they seemingly couldn't make up their mind whether to have it be a box or a slip cover, so they have both, in addition to the jackets.

Some of the material included wastes space because it doesn't show her at her best, the selections from Verdi's Otello are an example beacuse her supporting cast is weak. There are absolutely no live performances and in certain roles these would have been much more desirable than a second set of selections from Traviata (for example), the last scenes to Adriana, Manon lescaut, and Fedora for example, the complete Lucia mad scene, these would have been awesome I imagine with the producer's access to the singer she could have hooked him up with the best live recordings available. Oh well. I hope she is healthy and happy, she must be 96 by now or something.


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## Viardots (Oct 4, 2014)

Here I am revisiting a thread I started 6 years ago. I began taking an interest in Zeani when I was looking for the best alternatives to Callas' Violetta. Certainly appreciation of this highly popular operatic role could benefit from different portrayals by singers from past to present. Zeani is certainly ideal in voice and temperament as Violetta, a role she sang more than 600 times in her entire career, possibly more than any other singer who had tackled the role, and her musicianship is superb. In sum, in this role she is close to perfection. But then I still keep going back to Callas. Callas may not have the perfect voice for Violetta, but her artistry is for me at a different level. She possesses the genius of being able to perceive and seize upon crucial moments in a work, which she would endow with such life that the whole opera becomes transformed in one's listening experience, leaving an indelible memory on one's mind. Zeani doesn't quite reach this level of artistry, yet still as a whole package she is truly wonderful and on certain days and in certain moods listening to her will give a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction.

This 1956 Naples performance, an outdoor one taking place at Arena Flegrea, finds Zeani in freshest voice, yet already dramatically potent as Violetta:


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

I don't think comparing Zeani or any other singer to Callas is productive, Callas was a unique recording artist and performer in our times at least. I think comparing Zeani to Tebaldi is probably better because her voice is very beautiful and gives pleasure just with its tone, like Tebaldi, artistry apart.

I think Zeani boasted that Pertile or whomever felt she had "perfect technique" in her vocal production and when one listens to her singing over her very long career, this seems to be true. Her voice is perfectly blended she really has no weak points in her scale and that remained true as long as she sang publically. Callas' voice was not nearly as well blended for example.

She appears to have perfect intonation or at least not to have intonation problems, again, throughout her career. When I am dissatisfied with her singing the music is too dramatic for her (Don Carlo, Tosca, Aida). Sometimes she doesn't make a role "her own". But otherwise she is perfect.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

I am becoming a fan! Her beautiful timbre, impressive chest voice and pianissimo, as well as the musicianship, are not up to debate, but what I like the most about Zeani is how free and vibrant her voice always sounds. In this Butterfly entrance, the high D-flat just "floats." The soft singing in _A terra! sì, nel livido fango_, and Willow Song from Otello excerpts have never been done better, and I am a Tebaldi fan.











On a side note: Zeani aficionados, where can I purchase her live recordings? I have been looking for this Butterfly and Otello for a while, but with no luck.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

Purchasing any Zeani recordings seems to be a matter of luck. You may get lucky on eBay.. I’ve also found a couple in Bucharest a few years ago - she still has a strong fan base there.

2nd hand is your best option here at present. I’m hopeful of some CD releases at some point soon.


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

Can you be specific about what you found in Bucharest?


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

I picked up two recordings last time in Bucharest - both on Vinyl. Traviata '68, and the Zeani / Fanateanu / Herlea Tosca. I'm still trying to find original vinyl of Otello with Gobbi & Zeani.


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## battistini (Jan 22, 2021)

Thanks for that


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