Audiophile ANNA NETREBKO Sempre Libera DGG SACD Surround NEW!!!
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Anna Netrebko - Sempre Libera
Claudio Abbado conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra
DGG 4748812
original first SA-CD edition
Hybrid Multi-Channel Surround SA-CD
condition: like new
From the 32 page booklet:
Anna Netrebko's second Aria Recital
The world of western culture has long been familiar with the cliché of the tart with a heart at least from the time of the Belle Watling episode in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, but it is presumably only in the world of opera that prostitutes have to forgo the love of their lives out of consideration for the moral sensibilities of their middle-class fathers-in-law.
Against this background the story of Violetta Valéry in Verdi's La traviata - literally, "The Woman Who Has Strayed" may seem difficult for a modern audience to swallow. But is the motif of renunciation really the work's central theme? Is it not rather something that is even more topical now than it was in Verdi's day, namely, the conflict between sexual freedom and the desire for love? It is around this conflict that Violetta's inner monologue revolves at the end of the opening act. The party is over, the guests have all left. Violetta is confused: can what she feels for Alfredo really be love? For a moment she abandons herself to this feeling, but then pulls herself together again. No, it is all an illusion! The life that is still left to her shall be one long frenzy of delight. "Sempre libera" - always free,
always ready for new adventures. "Sempre libera" is a desperate hymn to sexual freedom that demands far more than just an actress in whom we can readily believe. It also needs a virtuoso singer in full command of all the subtleties of the classical bel canto style.
Verdi has used many grace notes to ornament the frenzy of delight that Violetta conjures up here, and many an international diva has come to grief over these passages. But the scene is a test of every soprano's nerves as it ends on a high E flat.
Although Verdi did not in fact write this climactic note, it soon gained acceptance in the work's performing tradition and, in spite of all the arguments to the contrary, singers now regard it as a point of honour to include it. From the listener's point of view, of course, the high E flat is a true climax, representing the ultimate in intensity, which is why it was a must for Anna Netrebko when she came to record this recital. "I don't think I've ever sung so many top E flats as I did at these recording sessions," the singer admitted in an interview, "but Maestro Abbado and the wonderful orchestra helped me to sing better than I've ever done before."
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